would have burnt the house to cinders sooner. They would have destroyed every ounce of evidence that an uprising was coming. We would have run through the cherry fields all the way to Switzerland instead of facing an inquisition. But Kasch lived through that night and the ones that followed, until my father feared he would die of starvation instead. The German officer absolutely refused to eat anything presented to him by the servants. Even my pretty sister, with her honey-colored hair and her charm, was unable to sway him. The fear of being investigated and discovered grew on my father so heavily that he put a halt to his exchanges with other Resistance members for the time. As a last resort, he set a tray in my hands and directed me up to the room that I had been forbidden to visit since the Major’s arrival. “Do not come out until he has eaten, but do not force him.” These were the instructions bestowed on me. I swallowed the growing ball of nerves building in the back of my throat and carried the meal steadily to its destination. Kasch regarded me suspiciously when I appeared in his room. I felt my excitement sink into the depths of my gut. He didn’t want me there. No. He didn’t want anyone there. His piercing gaze told me so. I found myself unable to meet that sharp blue, instead focusing my stare on the folded uniform resting on his bedside chair. When he opened his mouth, I was assaulted by a slew of harsh sounds. They were words maybe, heavy on his tongue and in my mind. He spoke in quick syllables. I didn’t understand him but he continued on, granting only short pauses to wait for responses. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the task my father had given me. In my hands, the sound of the china shaking on the silver tray caused him to stop. His empty glare fell from my face to the dishes in my hands and his voice faltered. When he spoke again, it was with words I understood. “Your name, what is it?” “Elodie Duquesne.” “Have you come to kill me?” “I don’t think so.” “Then you are of no use to me. Get out.” I was frozen in place, my father’s words echoing in my head. “I can’t.” He said nothing. I dared to look up, but he was no longer watching me.
Without his cold eyes or his fur-collared jacket, he looked more human than I had remembered. No parade of underlings stood watch to answer his every bark. He looked smaller, younger, more concrete. I imagined the muscle of his chest moving slightly with each heartbeat. Not that it would make him seem like any less of a dog in my father’s eyes. It was then that I was stricken with the fleeting memory of a fairy tale Josephine had once told me. “Are you a wolf ?” I asked. He turned back to me in surprise. “A what?” “A wolf . . . like the story. Is that why you won’t eat? The wolf in the story wanted to eat pigs, but it’s hard to get pig here . . . ” He didn’t seem to understand what I was asking. “There’s three,” I continued. “Pigs. And the wolf comes and he huffs—” “Nein! No. I know the story but it’s English. I’m German. German wolves don’t eat pigs.” “What do they do then?” The tinkering of the china had settled and I felt calm enough to venture closer. I placed the tray on his bedside table, out of the way. Kasch pondered my question for a moment, then relaxed a little and answered. “They hunt.” Josephine was baffled by my obsession with Kasch and even more so by his tolerance of me. Three times a day, I would venture up to his room with a tray in my hands and he would tell me German stories about witches that lived in gingerbread houses. He told me about frog princes and the sad love of a mermaid. “And the wolf rose up from her grandmother’s bed and devoured her and her red riding cape whole!” he exclaimed, almost knocking the tray off his lap. I squealed with laughter, catching the clear plate before it slid to the floor. He helped me set it safely to the side. “That’s terrible! Who saved her?” “No one.” He grinned. “German stories are about morals, not about happy endings. It wasn’t about her living happily ever after, but about the mistake she made that led to her destruction.” “That really is terrible.” “You didn’t think the other ones were terrible.” “Yeah, but those ones didn’t have a big bad wolf !”
UNDERGROUND POOL
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