“Then why did I see a sign that said we were—what, eight miles from Honfleur and five from Caen? My map says they must be a good twenty miles apart.”
“I don’t know miles,” she answered. “But Caen to Honfleur is more than sixty kilometers.”
He swatted the map with his hand. “Makes no damn sense.”
Emma drew herself up. “Your papers are correct, sir. The signs are a lie.”
The pleasure it gave her to say that sentence surged through Emma like a blush. It felt as if she were reclaiming her native countryside, the unimpeachable jurisdiction of her hometown.
“I can tell you more than this,” she continued. “I have lived here all of my life. I know where their machine guns are located, the mortar installations. I know their fuel depot, where the barrels are stacked three and four high.”
“I’m listening,” he replied, and indeed all of the men were leaning closer.
“They travel the main roads,” Emma said. “But I can show you shortcuts they know nothing about. They possess many weapons and no mercy, so you must not underestimate them. But they are also vain and self-important, and therefore vulnerable.”
Captain Schwartz gave her a long appraising look. “Are you some kind of spy? Or with the Resistance?”
“I am a survivor. Who helps others to survive.”
He nodded. “What is your name?”
“Emmanuelle.”
“I can see what they did to you, Emmanuelle.” He gestured at her face. “Maybe you are too smart for them?”
She stood straight, shoulders back. “Let us all hope so.”
He smiled. “You are one plucky gal.”
“Very,” Mémé growled, and when they turned to look at her she glared back as if she might charge at any moment.
The captain began giving orders, directing his men one way or another. As they organized, he turned back to Emma.
“We’re going to establish a perimeter east and west on the town road, and in the pucker brush by the well over there.” He pointed past the barnyard door. “When we get back, I’m hoping you could identify those forces you described on these maps, and then we’ll be on our way.”
Mémé pointed at the paratrooper in the wagon. “Him?”
Captain Schwartz scratched his jaw. “Look, we don’t have a medic among us, or a radio to call for one. We’ll help you get him set up. After that, I don’t know. I have orders. If you could stabilize this soldier for the time being . . .”
They did, Monkey Boy hovering as they carried Corporal Bronsky inside and laid him on Mémé’s couch. The paratrooper kept thanking everyone, but he grimaced when anyone moved him. As soon as he was settled, Bronsky closed his eyes. Monkey Boy sat by the wounded corporal, taking his hand. And did not leave his side till morning.
Emma and Mémé went back to the barnyard, watching as the soldiers divided in groups.
“We will be back in fifteen minutes,” Captain Schwartz told Emma. “And not sixteen.”
He gave the command, and one group headed up the town road, the lane by which the Kommandant and his aide always arrived, another marched down the road in the other direction, from which the convoys typically came, and the third struck out past the eastern well and down the hedgerow beyond. In a few seconds, they were all swallowed by dusk.
“They came,” Emma said.
Mémé drew near and they fell into each other’s arms, embracing as if one of them had spent a year at sea.
Thalheim’s timing could not have been luckier, to find them that way. Three minutes earlier or twelve minutes later, and Captain Schwartz’s men would have welcomed him. As he slunk through the barnyard door and hugged the wall like a shadow, Emma thought for a moment that the Goat was still alive.
But when he stepped out of the darkness, she eased Mémé aside. “Dear one, leave me with him.”
Instead her grandmother moved between them, raising her fists. Thalheim hesitated, his helmet gone and uniform untucked, then clasped his hands as if in prayer.
“Hide me,” he said. “Conceal me in the hayloft. Please.”
Mémé gave one cold laugh and sneered. Emma shook her head as if to clear it. “You are asking us for help? After all you have done?”
“I was following orders.”
“Look at my face.” She stuck out her chin. “Was this an order?”
“I lost control. And don’t say you didn’t provoke me.”
Emma snorted. “You said you were going to kill me.”
“A threat only. You are so insolent. Any other officer—”
“You promised to rape me.”
“I did not want your body, I wanted your obedience.” He snuffled. “I could not have done it anyway. I am a virgin.”
Emma surprised herself then, by calming, and scrutinizing him. Without his helmet, Thalheim was revealed: a boy. Perhaps younger than she. Now she understood why he shaved with such care: to conceal the fact that he had no whiskers at all. He was too young for a beard.
Mémé paced the barnyard, a scowl darkening her face.
“My given name is Hans,” he continued. “Named after my grandfather, a brewer. I was compelled by my families to join of the army, to enlist before I was drafted, and I am their great pride for having attained rank of captain. Before the war I was study chemistry.”
Emma marveled to learn after all this time that behind the bravado and doctrine, there was a human being. Did he deserve to die? Was his life without worth or redemption? Perhaps Thalheim had another role left to play. If he surrendered, and repented of his fanaticism, what good might he prove capable of committing?
Or was this speculation a sign of weakness once again, her inability to kill? The way Mémé stalked around them, opening and closing her fists, Emma thought she might just be too soft.
“At least help me escape,” Thalheim pleaded. “Dress me in your father’s clothes.”
The image offended Emma so deeply she drew back several steps. “Absolutely not.”
“Do something, please. I am beg of you.”
Emma shook her head. “No.”
His expression hardened. “You will not aid me in any way?”
She crossed her arms. “No.”
Thalheim hammered his fist against her forehead. Again Emma had not seen it coming, and again she tumbled to the earth.
“Enough of this,” he snapped, reaching to unclip his holster. The captain drew his pistol and took aim.
Emma had time for a single thought: Philippe.
All at once Thalheim’s eyes widened, then went still. He must have died standing, Emma imagined, because all of his joints—knees, elbows, waist—collapsed at the same time, like a marionette whose strings have been scissored. He fell on his face in the dirt, the handle of Guillaume’s knife visible in his back, just below his ribs.
Mémé stood as tall as a monument, tapping her chest with a hand that glistened from blood. “My conscience,” she said. “Not yours.”
One of the Allied soldiers asked if he could have the dead man’s flag. Emma said she would be glad to see it go. He lowered it from the house, careful not to tear, folding it away in his pack.