‘I wish you were staying in my room,’ said Odile, perching on the end of the bed.
‘Maybe I can sleep in your room one night,’ I said. Odile had been just coming up to her fourteenth birthday when I last saw her, with her hair in plaits and an innocence about her. Now she was on the brink of womanhood and her hair was fashioned in a more grown-up style to match her age, but it wasn’t her age or her hair that made her look older. It was her eyes. The innocent spark had gone, to be replaced by a sadness that only war could bring. ‘Or maybe Rachelle will let you sleep in here one night. We could have one of our midnight feasts.’
Odile smiled. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’ She hopped up from the bed. ‘I’ve got to help Maman with the dishes.’ She kissed me on each side of the face before leaving.
‘How is she?’ I asked Rachelle, who was lying next to me on the bed. ‘She seems subdued.’
Rachelle was silent for a long moment before she spoke. ‘She had a bad experience. With a soldier.’
I sat upright. ‘What?’
Rachelle closed her eyes and then opened them. ‘He was a rogue soldier. He was drunk and Odile had gone to take some eggs to one of the neighbours and had the misfortune of encountering him alone on the road.’
‘Oh, please don’t say he …’ I couldn’t form the words that made me feel sick to even consider.
‘He tried,’ said Rachelle. ‘But someone saw what was happening. They stopped him.’
‘Stopped him?’
‘Hit him over the head. Knocked him unconscious.’
‘Who was it?’
‘We don’t know. Odile didn’t recognise him. He just pulled Odile to her feet and told her to go.’
‘Thank goodness someone was there to help. Were there any repercussions?’
‘No. I suspect the soldier didn’t report it, otherwise he would have had to explain what he was doing in the woods. Drunk.’
‘But it’s obviously affected Odile.’
‘Yes. She won’t leave the farm. Prefers to stay in the house if possible. If she leaves, she won’t go out alone.’ Rachelle let out a long breath. ‘I’m worried she won’t ever feel safe.’
‘Give her time. I want to say when the war is over it will be better, but I can’t make empty promises.’
‘Promises are for fools,’ said Rachelle.
We didn’t speak any more about Odile that evening and I made an extra effort to include her without making it obvious Rachelle had told me what happened. Poor dear Odile. My heart raged at the absolute abuse of power by not just a German soldier but by a man against a defenceless teenager. I wished whoever had saved Odile had done a better job on the soldier. He didn’t deserve any mercy.
Later that evening, I went along with Philippe and Rachelle to put the chickens away for the night and to check on the one pig they were allowed to keep.
‘We have a permit for just the one pig and five chickens,’ explained Philippe. ‘If we want any more, then we have to get permission and we have to hand over six eggs to the Germans each day.’
‘I didn’t realise that,’ I said.
‘And it’s not as if they need it,’ complained Philippe. ‘They never go hungry. They would sooner leave us with no food and waste it than let us have any more than necessary. It’s another way to control us.’
‘We aren’t even allowed to collect firewood from the forest now,’ said Rachelle. ‘It is seen as theft.’
‘That’s outrageous!’ I declared. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Alors, that’s everything done,’ said Philippe after we had shooed all the hens into the coop for the night. ‘Need to protect them from humans more than the foxes these days.’
We went to bed shortly after that and I remembered the early nights from staying here before. Philippe had to get up at dawn and it meant the rest of the house went to bed as well. Rachelle and I snuggled under the blankets and talked about anything other than the war. I felt we were both trying to recapture our younger days when we didn’t have any cares in the world other than what we were going to do the following day. We used to talk about the local boys who we liked and we laughed now as we relived those nights, talking and giggling.
‘We should go to sleep,’ said Rachelle eventually. ‘You must be tired from all that travelling.’
In fact, I didn’t feel that tired. I don’t know if it was the excitement of being back in Morbihan with my cousins or what Rachelle had told me about Odile, but I found it difficult to sleep that night. I heard the clock downstairs chime one o’clock in the morning. Rachelle rolled over in what I assumed was her sleep, but then I heard her push back the covers and blankets and slowly sit up. The shutters were closed and a blackout blind was in place across the window. I could barely see her. She was just a black mass. She moved over to the chair by the window and I could hear, more than see, that she was putting on her clothes.
