Half in shadow a novel, p.32
Half in Shadow: A Novel, page 32
“My sister has done nothing wrong,” says Xavier.
Franz points his gun toward Xavier, who then raises his hands to gesture his compliance.
“Do not speak unless I direct you to,” Franz says in a voice Josephine hasn’t heard before, steely and unforgiving. “I want to hear from her only.”
The other soldier has left the room down a hallway, in the opposite direction of the room where Eugène is hiding, his rifle gripped tight against his belly and pointing forward in anticipation. Josephine’s heart pumps hard.
“Where is Eugène?” Franz says, continuing to address only Josephine.
“He is not here,” she says.
“No!” he snaps, and she jumps. “You are buying him minutes only. He will be caught.”
“Please—”
“You are guilty of much, too, mademoiselle,” he says too calmly. “You will all be imprisoned and likely executed. Perhaps your mother also.”
Josephine’s body begins to shake with terror. She can feel his hatred, cold hands around her heart, threatening to freeze, then crush it into pieces.
Xavier squeezes her hand for support, to stop her from crumbling. She does not trust herself to speak further.
Franz turns to Arthur.
“What is your name?” he asks Arthur in English, clearly aware of his origins.
“Arthur Verhoeven,” Arthur replies in French. Josephine suspects that the false name is pointless.
“You have a strange accent, Monsieur Verhoeven. I expect you are the Englishman I have been informed about.”
Franz is finished with him quickly, returning his attention back onto her. It seems she is the motivation behind much of his fury. She can also see now how frightening he can be, how others must have felt when he visited them. She despises him also in this moment.
The other soldier has walked back into the living room where they are standing to cross toward the hallway on the other side. He will only have to take several more strides before he reaches Eugène hiding in one of the rooms off the hall.
“We will come with you peacefully,” says Xavier, stepping forward to divert the attention from her.
The other soldier turns back to them and strikes Xavier on the side of the head with his rifle.
“He ordered you to stay silent!” shouts the soldier into Xavier’s ear. He staggers sideways before righting himself, and Josephine rushes to his side.
“I told you that you must not talk, Monsieur Descharmes,” says Franz.
“Please . . . Franz . . . ,” she pleads. “Don’t hurt him.”
Arthur steps protectively close.
“Stay where you are!” commands Franz.
The other soldier walks toward Arthur as if he might strike him, too.
“No!” commands Franz to his subordinate. “Keep searching the rest of the house.”
The soldier turns to inspect the rear of the property through the large window.
“There is something I imagine you wish to know,” says Franz to Josephine. He pauses, though he is not waiting for her response. “Your friend from your . . . rebellion, your small army, whatever it is you call it. She was caught. Anja squawked the moment we said she would not be sent to prison if she gave us what we wanted.”
“Franz,” says Josephine, “I had to do what I did. It is war. We need to help our brothers.”
He is amused by something as the second soldier proceeds to the hallway on the other side.
“She never mentioned your part in anything. Only your brother, her lover. She gave us him to save herself.”
“Liar!” says Eugène, tearing down the hallway toward them. Josephine can see Eugène’s face seconds before he fires into the soldier advancing in his direction. The German is hit in the forearm, but not before he has fired also. Eugène’s body shudders as two bullets enter his chest and a third shatters the side of his head, blood splattering across the furniture and walls.
Eugène’s body sinks into a pool of his own blood.
What I do is for us: for you, Maman, Yves, Xavier, and Papa. For our future. For a Belgian future, said Eugène.
“No!” wails Josephine as Arthur seizes hold of her.
The injured soldier grips his own arm to stop the blood and looks murderously at the rest of the group. Franz appears in a state of confusion, his hand unsteady as he raises his gun, glancing sideways at Eugène.
While both soldiers are momentarily rattled, Xavier charges at Franz, pushing him into the other man, and both soldiers fall hard against the large, low window, shattering the glass, which explodes in shards. Franz’s gun is knocked from his hand.
“Run!” Xavier booms as the soldiers scramble to recover, and Arthur grabs Josephine’s hand to pull her down the hallway to the kitchen, Xavier following. Firing behind them misses as the three flee through the back door and down some stairs and into the rain. Josephine slips on the sodden grass and rights herself, Arthur just ahead of her, only metres from the thick trunks of trees at the rear of the property.
Another firing and Josephine can hear Xavier groan behind her. She turns to see that he is facedown in the grass, bleeding from a bullet wound in the back of his leg, and runs toward him.
“No, Josephine!” Xavier warns.
She falters when she sees the German soldier’s gun aimed directly at her.
Another shot is fired. She releases a scream and drops to the ground.
Arthur appears beside her as she raises her head fearfully. Blood trickles from the mouth of the soldier who murdered Eugène, as he stumbles toward them, his gun still clenched dangerously in his hand. A second shot, and only feet away, he falls forward and lies still.
Franz stands at the foot of the rear terrace steps, his arm still raised, gun pointing.
Xavier moans and rolls on his side. She touches his shoulder with her trembling hand, while Franz walks toward them, his weapon arm out unsteadily.
“Josephine,” Franz says loudly above the rain, moving closer so they are barely metres apart, hair drenched and flattened to his forehead. “Do you think that I didn’t know what you were doing, what you and your brothers were doing months ago?
“I stopped you from going to the house where Anja was that day. I wasn’t sure if you were planning to, but I couldn’t risk it, either. I had followed you many times before, once when you took a camera to photograph soldiers. I had kept your secret.”
She stands up to face him. He has her full attention.
“And Vivienne?”
“I knew nothing about her. I was telling you the truth.”
“You chose me to get to others,” she says. “It was never about us.”
“Not to start with,” he says, attempting to blink away the heavy raindrops. “I knew the restaurant was connected to members of the underground. I suspected Benôit was involved. I needed a pair of eyes and ears. I was hoping you would lead me to the ringleaders.”
Josephine sees that his hand is shaking. She can sense he has lost the coldness that he brought here. Franz looks to Arthur and Josephine in those brief moments; he sees something then, feels it perhaps, the connection, and she can see only his misery, not hate.
“My brother is dead in there . . . ,” she cries. “You have taken someone else from me.”
Franz shakes his head slightly, struggles to meet her gaze. He lowers his gun, seemingly defeated, though she can’t be certain.
She takes another look at Xavier, his teeth clenched, clearly in pain. Arthur has wrapped his shirt around Xavier’s leg as he lies sideways now on the ground.
“Go!” Franz calls to Arthur and Josephine. “Go south through the forest, cross the border near Villers-Sire-Nicole. Go to the church. The priest there will collect the mayor’s son-in-law. He will look after you. He will find a way to get you to the Allies. He plays for both sides.”
Josephine is not sure what to do. She turns to Xavier and his pleading eyes.
“Go!” he says. “Do what he told you.”
She takes a final glance at Franz, who is no longer watching them.
“Run, Mouse!” says Xavier. “Have no fear!”
“I love you,” she whimpers, stroking his face a final time.
There are sounds of horses and shouts in the distance. More soldiers are coming.
Arthur picks up his jacket and reaches for her hand to pry her away.
She runs with him then, through her tears.
42. THE BORDER
They stay in the forest till dark, then head south, their journey hampered by rain, fear, and grief.
Josephine stops suddenly at moments, crouches down and puts her head on her knees to sob. She can’t go on, she says, and each time Arthur picks her up again, keeps her steady. She is wretched, following him blindly, her thoughts on those she has left behind, and those whom she will never see again.
They draw some water from a fountain in an abandoned village and find shelter late that night in the partially destroyed buildings that line the road. Josephine rests her head in Arthur’s lap to sleep. He watches her until he dozes briefly, both waking when a deep rumble through the ground reminds them that they sit on the doorstep of war. Then when the sun has barely touched the day, they walk through swirls of mist and blackened trees, to find a man pushing a cart, collecting things from the chaos, indifferent to the danger that has sent his neighbours away. He points the way they should go.
Then farther on they see houses, close together, the faint sounds of wheels and commerce. On the other side of it is their supposed deliverance.
“I think we’re nearly there,” says Arthur.
Then across the border, they weave through a shallow wood, and just beyond it, a village under a crest of sun that dusts the roofs with gold. Like a coin he found as a boy. He thinks of that moment then, the same joy. Someone else is walking toward them, carrying bags full of moss. He knows the village they seek, gives the final directions.
The ground shakes angrily now from a battleground even closer. The noise from his nightmares too close, slight tremors in his fingers. He will fight the war again with greater plans beyond it, rage against an enemy with new purpose.
He steps down the incline and into sunshine, and turns to look up at Josephine, who remains in the shadows. She is looking above him, beyond him, her face passive, her eyes perhaps not landing on the future he sees.
“This way,” he says, tipping his head toward the village. He holds out his hand to guide her down. She looks at his outstretched hand strangely, then back at him, her eyes like crystal, glinting but unseeing.
“I can’t, Arthur,” she says.
“What can’t you do? I’ll help you. Whatever it is.”
“I can’t come with you.”
He blinks slowly, looks to the village and back again at where they stand, the line between the two wider all of a sudden.
“Josephine, I love you . . . please.” He reaches for her again.
She turns her head as two rivers of tears begin to flow.
“I will take care of you,” he says gently. “We will get through this.”
Then she is looking at him pleadingly.
“Josephine, we will be free.”
“Will we?”
There is a small voice somewhere telling him something else, creeping in again, the uncertainty, people dead. War not over.
“My mother . . . Xavier. I have to go back. They aren’t free. No one is free, Arthur.”
He looks down. He should have seen this.
“You can’t go alone. I must come back with you then.”
“No.”
He steps back toward her on level ground, his hands trembling to reach her, and she meets him halfway. At the touch of her skin, he is on his knees.
“I can’t . . . ,” he says weakly, tears squeezing out the sides of eyes, closed to the truth.
He is nothing without her now.
She lowers to her knees also and cups his face.
“You can go on,” she says. “You must go on. For Jack.”
He pulls her toward him, places his cheek against hers, and breathes her in a moment. He is not sure if he can let her go. She peels herself away to stand. He watches her go, disappearing behind some trees. Part of him has broken free and floated away with her.
No, no, no!
He stands and runs after her.
“Josephine!” he calls softly.
She stops and turns, and he sees her tears.
“Please come with me,” he says. He is terrified what might happen to her now, if she will be captured, and where they might take her. “I will take care of you, take you somewhere safe, then go back for your family myself.”
They are standing yards apart. He is not game to come too close, afraid that she will run.
“Arthur, no . . . ,” she says in a quavering voice.
He wants to touch her, kiss her again, but they are strangers now. He can see distance in her gaze; he can see her looking somewhere else, to a different journey.
“Arthur, you are a wonderful man,” she says, her voice breaking. “I can think of no one else I’d rather spend my life with. But I must do this for Yves, for Gène, for Papa. I can’t leave any of them. This is something I must do. Not you. You are needed somewhere else.”
He is needed nowhere, he argues silently. But there is nothing more he can say. The fight is over. He has lost.
“I love you, Arthur. Always.”
She turns again, and he listens to her footsteps disturb the fallen leaves.
“I will find you after this, after the war,” he calls softly, but he is not sure she has heard. And he is not sure if it will ever be over.
She is gone, though her presence remains. He can see her clearly in his mind, stepping purposefully across the soft earth, the vibrancy of her gaze; he can feel her narrow hand in his own and her warm breaths against his skin, their hearts connected. They share the same warm sun, the same cold breeze.
He looks toward the west.
It seems too great, this life, to bear it alone.
The life that was so near, so perfect in his mind, is perhaps a figment after all.
43. INTO THE DARK
They have left under a light fall of snow. Josephine has slept for much of it, but there are no windows to see the day, to see the waxwings twitch their crests and tilt their heads sideways for red berries on winter twigs.
Look, another one, Papa! said Josephine, handing him a pair of binoculars. Do they know we are here? . . . Be quiet, Yves! You will scare them away.
They don’t scare easy in their flock, said Maurice, squinting, mouth open. They are watching us as closely as we are watching them.
Though she has little interest in birds. Not now since her father is gone. Not since Louvain turned red with fire, then black.
She cannot sleep. Her head feels full of metal beads that bounce against her skull when the wheels hit a rut. Gisela still coughs, though not as harshly or as frequently. She tries to stifle it so as not to disturb Josephine, whose head rests in her lap.
There are old men, women, and several boys, not quite men, in the back of the truck, its engine groaning loudly over snow-covered roads that crunch under the weight of them. The coat she was given scratches at her neck, her bones beneath it frozen.
They bounce and shake, twelve of them, on the way to a German prison, where disease is rife, and a return is not guaranteed. They have not seen outside the vehicle for hours. The guards are worried that they might become infected by the sick.
A German soldier is a prisoner there, too. He was caught looking the other way when several people ran for the border. They say he was willfully blind to it, that he was not happy with the work. That he wanted to go home. He is going home now, just not the way he wanted.
Several of the Belgian boys tease him, and one kicks him in his thigh when he doesn’t respond to their taunts.
“We should kill you,” says one.
“And then you will be shot,” says the German, though he is frightened, and shivering without a coat. Josephine feels sorry for him.
He is unexpectedly set upon and beaten.
“Stop it now!” Gisela bellows. “He is just a boy like you. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
The boys stop, one landing a final thump, before sheepishly moving back to their original positions. The boy who was set upon wipes his bloody mouth with the back of his hand, crawls to his earlier space. He sneaks a look at Gisela, seemingly humbled by her intervention. Josephine is proud of her mother, who was always fierce about injustice anywhere.
“We are all the same on the inside of this truck,” she concludes aloud before grinding out a cough. She needs a doctor. She needs her son.
Josephine thinks of Xavier. Patched up hastily and shipped off on a train to someplace else. She saw Franz once more at their trial. He had looked at her, but she had looked away. He had given special permission for Xavier to talk to them briefly to say goodbye. She had learned from him then that Franz had taken him to the hospital, that he had even visited him once more after that, and he was returning to the Front the day after the trial. Grace had been sent to an orphanage, and Franz had said that after the war she would be sent to her English relatives. Franz had since learned more than they did about Benôit and Vivienne. Benôit, he also revealed, hanged himself in his prison cell so he did not give away the information interrogators were seeking.
“They are hoping we die before we get there,” says someone in the truck Josephine can’t see; her eyes are closed now.
Someone has brought some sausage and offers a small piece of it to Gisela to give to Josephine. Gisela pushes it in between her lips, but Josephine can’t stand even the smell of it, and she is too tired to eat.
In Josephine’s dreams, which are fraught with trauma, Arthur is standing in the doorway of their house in Louvain. He is calling her in. But sometimes Franz is there, too, watching them, his eyes shining like silver in sunlight, blinding her.
Did I cause this? Where they are now? All of them. If Franz had caught the line early, caught Benôit and Vivienne before she began her secret work, would everything be changed? He would not have needed her, not then have staged the pretence. These are the kinds of thoughts that swirl in her haze of illness.
