“—a few soldiers entered. Just boys, really. They carried a box between them, with strings hanging out of it that trailed on the ground. They set the box in the nave, close to the choir, and they lit the strings. They retreated, and the box exploded—the church was full of black smoke. Women and children were running everywhere, shoving, screaming, choking.”
She sounded flat as a printed page. I wanted to put my hands over my ears to shut out the words, but I stood frozen in horror. Finn, at my side, was not even breathing.
“We broke down the door to the sacristy and flooded in. I sat down on a step—I was trying to get low, to the good air. My daughter ran toward me, and that was when the Germans opened fire from the doors and windows. Andrée was killed where she stood.” Pause. Blink. “She was eighteen.” Pause. Blink. “She fell over me, and I closed my eyes and feigned death.”
“Jesus,” Finn said quietly.
“There were more shots, and then the Germans threw armloads of straw and firewood and broken chairs in a heap onto the bodies lying on the flagstones. There was still smoke billowing—I crawled from under my daughter and hid behind the altar. There were three windows high in the wall behind it—I went to the middle one, the biggest, and pulled up the stool the priest used to light the candles. I heaved myself up to it as best I could.”
This hunched grandmotherly woman had clawed her way up a sheer stone wall, over a floor thick with bodies and a miasma of smoke and bullets. I didn’t know what look Madame Rouffanche saw on my face, but she shrugged.
“I don’t know how. My strength was multiplied.”
“That happens.” Finn was almost inaudible.
“The window had already shattered. I pulled myself up, and flung myself out. I fell about ten feet.” She looked up, directly over our heads to the dark and gaping middle window in the church wall. “Here.”
My throat choked with an unborn scream. Here, the word echoed, here. This woman, three years ago, had flung herself out of this window, down onto this patch of grass where we now stood in the fragrant sunshine. Here.
“A woman tried to follow me. The Germans opened fire as soon as they saw us.” Madame Rouffanche began to walk, her steps slow and difficult. “I was hit, five times. I crawled this way.” We followed her mutely, around the church wall. “I made it to the sacristy garden. The plants weren’t dead then; they were growing thick.” We stood among the flattened weeds, looking at the barren garden. “I hid among some rows of pea plants. I heard more shots, more screams, more shouting . . . That’s when the men and the boys died, most of them. Gunned down. And then there was the rush of fire, as all the roofs were kindled. Night fell, and then came the sound of champagne corks popping . . . The Germans stayed the night, and they drank champagne.”
My lips parted but no words escaped. I didn’t think there were any words. Finn turned his back abruptly, but he didn’t release my hand. He gripped so hard my fingers felt like they were breaking, and I gripped him back. Madame Rouffanche looked past us serenely, her fingers working as though she were fingering nonexistent rosary beads.
“The Germans stayed a few days . . . They made some attempt to dig pits, hide the bodies. I never knew why. No one could hide it, what they’d done. Such a stench of burned flesh. Panicked dogs running everywhere, looking for their masters . . . The Germans killed most of us, but they had a soft spot for the dogs; they didn’t shoot any. They dug a pit here for the dead in the presbytery garden, and it was so shallow a man’s hand was still sticking up from the earth after they’d filled it in.”
I looked at Finn. He was still turned away, shoulders heaving. I didn’t know why I couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. I was frozen.
“By the time the Germans gave up cleaning and made their retreat, I’d been rescued. Two men who sneaked back into the village, looking to see if their sons had lived . . . I begged them to take me to the river and drown me, but they took me to a doctor.