But in spite of the fact that it would have been wiser to remain downstairs where it would be easier to escape if necessary, she climbed the stairs to the upstairs bedroom under the eaves that she had shared with Angeline.
Here too was exactly as she remembered it, the narrow bed they had shared, the boys in their room across the way. Her parents had slept downstairs in the room her father had made behind the kitchen. More private for them, and she smiled at that memory, as if all of them were not aware of the nights he and their mother closed that door and made love.
As children she and Angeline had lain under the covers and listened to the sounds from the room below, then giggled at the silence. They lived on a farm, they had animals, they were not naive to what passed between a man and a woman; still the thought that Mama and Papa did those things made them laugh.
All these years later, she did not laugh at the thought, but smiled softly with her own memories, the ones she chose to remember, the young photographer who had been so gentle, even shy with her, then the passion they had found in one another for just one night.
Memories.
She held onto them, as she'd held onto them the past years, at times the only things that kept her going, kept her fighting, even after her father and brothers were gone.
There was no heat, and her breath clouded in the shadows of the room with only the light from the flashlight.
She took a book from the book case—Aventures d'Alice au pays des merveilles.
Her father had brought it back for them from a trip to Amiens, before the war. She loved the story, stepping into that make-believe world, like Alice through the looking glass. She glanced at the mirror over the dressing table. She had convincedAngeline that the magical world was just beyond the glass, she needed only to look for it.
But the evil queen had transformed, she thought, into another evil these past years. And like Alice, she was so very tired.
She didn't undress, too dangerous if a German patrol should find its way to the farm, but instead lay on top of the bed and pulled thick wool blankets over herself.
Dozens of memories swept back over her as she lay in the darkness, listening to the wind as it came up and rattled a branch against the window—her brothers whispering in the next room, plotting their next escape from work with their father the next day in the orchards; their mother's gentle scolding that the morning would come soon enough and they must be quiet and get to sleep; her sister burrowed against her like a squirrel, until she lay at the edge of the bed and shoved her back; their father's loud snoring that seemed to shake the walls of the old farmhouse, even from that room downstairs.
And dreamed of another room in another house, and the feel of a man's body as they came together.
She wakened hours later at first light.
Everything gradually came back—Albert, the news that Angeline and their mother were safe for now, the memories, the nightmare of the past four years. She sat up and winced at the pain in her side.
She found the hairbrush on top of the dresser, and slowly pulled it through her hair.
Whom did she see looking back at her now from the mirror? Was she Alice, once very tall, now very small? Where was the rabbit?
There were no answers, only the cold and the silence, reminders that it was dangerous to hold onto fairy tales when the real world waited just beyond the window.
It had been foolish to come there, she thought, with a sudden catch in her throat. Dangerous. But it was almost over, she was certain of that now after the past months following the Allied invasion. But she had needed to make sure her mother and sister were safe. And dear Albert.
She remembered him with his pile of straw for hair, ears that framed his head like squash from the garden, and the stutter when he spoke. The stutter was still there, but less than before. He had changed. Twelve years old now. She still thought of him as the boy she had known. He was no longer a boy.
It was there in the expression in his eyes, the gauntness of his cheeks, and eyes that had seen too much. She remembered the child who laughed so easily, words tripping over themselves. No more. There was no laughter on Albert Marchand's young face.
Mon dieu, they had all changed. The war had done that, and the Germans taking what they wanted, people imprisoned, shipped off to camps, and worse.
She could hardly remember what it was like before the war—no fighting, no more deaths—her father and brothers stomping through the house, her mother in the kitchen...to be able to sleep and not be afraid of waking.
Sights and sounds filled every corner of the old farmhouse, along with photographs of her grandparents, her parents when they were married, the sight of her father's hound stretched out on the rug in front of the woodstove.
“Quit daydreaming, Micheleine. Help your sister set the table.”
She could hear her mother's gentle voice admonishing her—the sights and sounds of home, before the war, as she went downstairs.
She slowly crossed the kitchen, those memories strong as if only a moment ago. Only the pain was different. She pressed herhand against the bandage on her side that she'd made from one of her mother's towels cut from a flour sack.
The bleeding had stopped. The bullet had passed through. She shivered with the fever that had set in. Mama would scold her.
“Micheleine, how many times must your father tell you not to go to the quarry. It is too dangerous, and you've torn your dress. Now I will have to mend it again.”
But she was no longer that girl. That girl had died a long time ago.
