Once the car is cleaned, the baron surrenders the keys, and Anna gets behind the wheel and lowers the top down. “You’re brave,” I say, hanging over the window. “What makes you so sure they won’t throw shit at you too?”
“My chances would be better if you came with me. Get in. I’ll buy you lunch.”
Always tempted to get away from the castle—and having finished my classes for the day—I hop into the leather passenger seat and hold on to my red beret, laughing as she peels out. We haven’t even left the village before she asks, “So do you know which of the boys is responsible for pelting Papa’s car?”
“Afraid not.”
She gives me a sideways glance. “I thought you said you know all the castle’s secrets.”
“I could guess,” I say, feeling a little exhilarated as Anna takes the hairpin turns like a daredevil.
Exhilarated just to be with her.
“I’m guessing it’s Oscar,” she says.
It’s definitely Oscar. The younger boys recovering at the preventorium listen to him; admire him, even. “It’s the Riom Trial,” I explain. “It has a lot of people mad at your father for testifying.”
It’s not a subject Anna likes to talk about, so it isn’t until after we’ve had lunch, haggled with shopkeepers, and are loading supplies into the car that she confides, “Maman is furious that he testified.”
“I don’t blame her,” I say.
Anna turns to me in surprise. “My father is a decorated war hero. Who is Maman to question him?”
“His wife? Anna, it was a show trial meant to blame France for the war.”
“My father didn’t blame France,” she says a little heatedly. “He blamed the ministers who didn’t prepare for war. When he served in the senate, he warned about Hitler’s Luftwaffe. He argued again and again for defense funding to buy planes. It’s why he started his airplane academy; he knew we’d need pilots to defend us, but he was dismissed by these weak politicians who—”
“Who led France,” I snap. “They were our elected officials. Our former prime ministers and cabinet members. The Marshal put the republic on trial.”
“Since when do you care about the republic?”
I pause, taken aback. “I actually have no idea. I guess I should’ve cared long before now. It wasn’t perfect. But at least we had the right to say so under the republic, and—”
“Papa didn’t do any harm. If anything, the trial only made everyone more sympathetic to the defendants.” At least she’s right about that. It caused such an outcry that the Marshal called the trial off and shipped the defendants to concentration camps. “You have to understand, Marthe, my father had no choice.”
“Your father is trying to play it both ways!”
Anna’s tone is sharp as a needle as she opens the car door. “We’re all trying to play it both ways.”
“Not all of us,” I shoot back.
“So you didn’t sign a loyalty oath?”
It hits me square in the conscience but feels unfair. I’m angry that we’re arguing about politics—that we’re arguing at all. “Whatever compromises I’ve made, at least mine can’t get anybody executed.”
Anybody but me, anyway.
“They’re all dead men already, Marthe. Don’t you understand?”
The way she says this—without obvious disgust—absolutely infuriates me. Maybe I don’t understand. Maybe I’m being naive and self-righteous. All I know is that I feel real pain to realize we really don’t think alike at all . . .
Instead of getting in the car, I say, “I’ll walk.”
“Be serious, Marthe. It’s almost a two-hour walk back.”
“I don’t care. I’d rather not be in the same car with you right now.”
* * *
—
In a terrible temper, I cut through the woods, my stompers crunching on twigs and desiccated leaves. I’ve been walking about an hour when I hear rustling in the foliage and peer between pine boughs, looking for a rabbit, or even a snake. I’d be happy to make either into a stew, but the rustling stops, so I keep going, tucking my hands in my coat pockets as I trudge on.
It’s the hammering of a woodpecker’s beak on a tree trunk that startles me. I turn, and when I do, I glimpse an encampment with a dying fire. I back up, wary, but I’m not alarmed until something—someone— grabs me.