Godewyn told her that Elmo was wielding a signed scrap of paper that supposedly passed title to him. He claimed that the necessary duplicates to make the transfer of title legal and binding had been registered in the Mesen town hall the very day before her family died—died, that is, in the same hell-storm of bombs that destroyed the town hall and its records.
If she had been unsure before, with Godewyn’s second letter all doubt left her mind. She had to return. Every last uncle, aunt, cousin, niece and nephew lived an hour west of Mesen, on the Allied side of the front. There was no one in Mesen to denounce the fraudulent papers Elmo was wielding. No one to tell him to get off her land before he was shot for trespassing.
She had insisted upon going back alone, while hoping Sven would ignore her protestations and come anyway. He did not. He accepted at face value that she did not want him to go. He had always been inscrutably honest; he felt compelled to tell her he was relieved, that he wanted no part of the war. She told him that she did not know when she would be back, or if she would be back at all. He said he thought she was making a mistake going, that it was only land and not worth dying for. She said that she agreed, and was going anyway. He promised he would wait.
Her disappointment and sense of betrayal had been intense and entirely unexpected. Sven was a young economics professor, a callow man of letters, not a farmer and certainly not a fighter. She could not love the fact he was meek and gentle and so different to the men she loathed—the sorts who went about peacocking and proving to the world their imagined importance—and then expect him to act the way others would. Yet she could not shake the feeling. And so she left on her own, the future uncertain.
Now Yetzel—polite, pleasant, cheery Yetzel who made her skin crawl—was moments away from discovering that she was harboring a French killer. If that happened, becoming his moffenhoer would be the least of her worries.
Axe glanced around. There was plenty of long grass that would provide cover for Michel. She pushed the barrow with all her might till she was a few feet into the weeds, then tipped. Michel toppled out and landed with an unpleasant thud. She picked the wheelbarrow up and wheeled it toward the barn as fast as she could.
She stopped and glanced down.
Shit, shit …
How would she explain being covered in mud, especially when it was only a matter of time until the two missing soldiers were discovered in the muddy canals that led back to her farm? Yetzel was crafty; he would work it out, and then he would come for her.
Unless …
Axe dropped the barrow and ran. She reached the edge of the massive crater and dove forward. She slid then belly crawled till submerged at the bottom in mud and icy black water, with bits of rubbish bobbing beside her head.
“Ahh!” she screamed. “Help me! Help me!”
“Axelle?” called Yetzel.
She kept screaming and calling for help, doing her best impression of a pitiful damsel, though the fear that tinged her fractured voice was real enough.
“Axelle!” Yetzel called, louder and more urgent.
She could hear his voice grow clearer as he rounded the barn.
“Axelle, what’s wrong? Where are you?”
“The crater! Help, I fell in the crater!”
Yetzel dropped the long stick with which he always walked and sprinted across. He stopped at the edge of the huge hole. He looked down, surprise and concern puckering his thin face.
“Axelle! Are you all right? What happened?”
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” she said in German. “Save me, Yetzel. Please save me!”
5
Axe sat in the grass a safe distance from the crater. Yetzel dropped the rope with which he had pulled her from the water and crouched beside her.
“You are all right, Axelle? You are not hurt?”
“No, no, not hurt. Oh, but I feel so stupid!” she replied in German.
“You poor thing. What a fright it must have been. Now, tell me what happened.”
“I was throwing rubbish into the crater. I got too close to the edge and fell, then couldn’t get back up. I kept slipping. I thought I would drown, or freeze to death. If you hadn’t come along … Thank you, Yetzel. Thank you so much for saving me.”
“Don’t feel silly. And you don’t need to thank me. It was your nice doggy here who told me something was wrong.” Yetzel looked at Monster, staring at him from a few yards away. “He saved you. Didn’t you, boy? All that barking, and I thought it was because he did not like me!”
Yetzel turned and smiled at Axe. “I’m just happy I could help.”
Had it been another place, another time, another set of circumstances, Axe may have received it as a warm smile, the sort that made people feel good, or at least better, because they knew someone cared. But there, right then, it made Axe’s gut churn.
She smiled back, and as she did her teeth knocked together. This time it was no act.
“You are cold! Come, let us get you inside.”
Yetzel helped Axe to her feet and led her into the barn. “You need a shower or a bath. Don’t worry, I will help you, before you catch pneumonia.”
“But I don’t have those things,” Axe said, and as she did an unbidden wave of anger washed over her as she thought of all the things she wished to say.
And why do I not have a bath; whose fault is that? Who buried it beneath stone with their bombs? Whose bombs and war, Yetzel, my great savior?
“You don’t have a bath?” Yetzel said innocently.
“We did. It’s in the house. Where my parents died.” She looked at Yetzel, her eyes unblinking, her mouth twisted in a grimace, and with those simple gestures her words crystallized into the accusation they were. Straight away she knew it was a mistake.
All her life that streak of independence and willfulness that her mother said she inherited from her grandmother had led Axe to say things she knew she should not—knew sometimes before and sometimes after the deed was done. But never had she lost control at such a dire time as this. Right then, in that moment, she hated herself for her stupidity and recklessness, almost as much as she hated the German standing before her.
Yetzel’s concerned smile dropped. His face was now like any other soldier’s face. Stern and uncompromising.
Axe glanced away. She pointed. “I mean, I use the little tub. It is enough.”
The bronze bathtub was little, indeed. Certainly too small to fit an adult body. Axe was slight, and even for her it barely fit her rump and lower back while her head, chest and four limbs spilled over the sides.
It was the same tub in which she had bathed as a toddler. She remembered splashing water and laughing as her mother fought to wash the muck from her hair. She had salvaged it from their destroyed home. What had once been an example of fine Belgian metalwork—every edge perfectly folded, every rivet perfectly spaced, every surface burnished and smooth—was now dented and bent, its luster gone. It looked like it belonged in the barn.
“I see,” said Yetzel. A moment of difficult silence passed. He coughed. “Hot water?”
“The copper heater, behind the barn. I need to light it, then bucket the water in.”
“No, no no. I will light it. You stay here, indoors. There is a wind picking up.”
“It needs water from the well. And wood chopped. I should …”
“No!” said Yetzel.
Axe stiffened. He never spoke to her that way—the way she had heard him speak to Belgian men in town, sometimes even to his own soldiers. The anger that had so quickly filled her just as quickly swept away, replaced by a tide of fear. She tried to hide it with a smile, pretending he was not some dangerous, unpredictable creature that had wandered onto her land. Yet she would have felt no safer if it had been a wild bear before her.
She knew he saw through her. She knew he saw her fear. She suspected that is what he wanted. Just enough fear to make her pliant, but not so much as to make her react with complete disgust.
For who wants to
make love … no, not make love … fuck, that is what it would be, fucking, crude and beastly … to fuck a woman with disgust in her eyes? Perhaps many men. But not Yetzel, not yet.
Now he smiled. “Please. Let me help. It is no trouble.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Yetzel.”
He walked toward the big barn door, then stopped and turned. His smile crept high as his eyes narrowed; the two sets of crease lines nearly met on his upper cheeks.
“How funny that we are like an old married couple, me doing your little chores while you are sick. What a shame your betrothed is not here on such an unlucky day as this, when you need him most. He will be here, soon, won’t he? A woman cannot run a farm on her own, not when there are craters to contend with.”
“Sven will be here soon,” said Axe, her voice flat and without inflection.
“Yes, of course he will. That is good, good. I had best go light that stove, or I fear you will catch a cold and not be at all well for when he arrives.”
And so Yetzel lit the stove, fetched water from the well, chopped wood, stoked the fire, bucketed steaming water into the tub and insisted on waiting—respectfully, outside—until Axe was clean and dry and safe. More than an hour passed before he left, having promised to return the following day to check on her and, of course, to buy a few eggs, which is why he had come, after all.
Axe sat there, wrapped in a blanket, and waited. It was not beyond the German to lay a trap. He might have suspected something amiss, and merely stepped outside to see what she would do. Maybe he did not believe she had fallen in the crater. Maybe he had already found the bodies …
Axe willed herself to calm. Yetzel did not know a damned thing other than what he wanted to believe: that she was a silly little woman who needed the help of a big strong man. No doubt he thought of himself as good and virtuous, having stayed to help her, stooping to the level of some mere farmer who fetched water and wood.
And even though she had revealed too much of herself—the flash of anger, the hint of the resentment that knitted her every fiber together with resolve—he would let it go, ignore it, pretend it was something else, because he wanted to. He wanted to believe he had a right to be there and that the Germans were liberators, not invaders. That subservience was really acceptance, that fear was really respect.
That was the gift of such men: to convince themselves of almost anything, however great the lie. It was both their strength and weakness. Yetzel was no different. Perhaps a little smarter than most, but otherwise just a man who could not face the truth of who and what he was, a truth reflected back to him in Axe’s eyes, if only he had been willing to look and see.
Axe got up and walked to the barn door. She opened it a fraction and let Monster out, then watched from the doorway. Even hobbled with three legs, Monster did not miss much; she would know if Yetzel was out there.
The dog’s nose sniffed the air and a single ear twitched. She sat down on her rump and turned her head and looked back, waiting for her master.
Axe pulled the door wide open, dropped the blanket and sprinted for the bushes where she had left Michel. She did not expect him to still be alive, but there was a chance.
6
She stripped Michel naked of his uniform. She ran a warm rag across his body, which she kept dipping into the tub of water in which she had bathed. The more she cleaned, the more hopeless and overwhelmed Axe felt. There were injuries starting from Michel’s legs going all the way up his body. Reds and purples, huge swellings, cuts and grazes—so much damage that she began to wonder if he had been in a fight with men or a herd of rampaging animals.
How do people do such things to one another?
His head showed the worst of it. One eye was fully closed over in a bubble of red that looked as if it might pop if she pressed too hard. She dabbed her rag ever so gently, fearing what would happen if it started bleeding.
There were multiple cuts inside his mouth, and the left side of his jaw had swelled like there was an acorn hidden in his cheeks. She prodded around with a finger, scooping out bits of mud and gunk, but otherwise it was just his jawbone, hot and distended.
There was a depression above his brow, all too easy to imagine as fitting the butt of a rifle. Its edge cut deep and kept oozing thick, dark blood no matter how many times she cleaned it and pushed down with her cloth.
What really worried her was the blood in his ears and the massive swelling on the side of his head. Farm animals that bled from the ears never lived for long. Axe was no doctor or nurse. She could not begin to fathom what Michel needed. One thing seemed certain: he would die if she did not find help.
Yet to do so would inevitably mean questions—hard and probing questions, the sort of questions she could not possibly answer satisfactorily. She desperately wanted to save the Frenchman, but she would not martyr herself. Being alive was all she had left; she was the last remnant of an entire family. She could not disappear into oblivion. The mere thought sickened her.
There was a doctor in Mesen, Todor Burhardt. But the town crawled with German soldiers, and she barely knew Todor, apart from the fact he had doctored for the enemy. He may not have had a choice in the matter, but they were living in strange times and she could not risk it. If Todor betrayed her, it would inevitably lead to Michel being found. He would be killed just the same as if she had rolled him into the canal.
What about Godewyn?
He could be trusted with anything—with life and death, and even French assassins. He was a retired veterinarian, not a doctor, but how much difference could there really be between cows, horses and men? Godewyn would know what to do, and he would have tools and medicine.
Axe dried Michel and rolled him onto a blanket. She used the two corners to drag him to the far end of the barn. She hid him inside a stall that had once housed weaning lambs before they were sent off for slaughter. She propped his head up a fraction with a thin pillow and covered him with two blankets.
She ran.
Monster ran with her, seemingly untroubled by her missing front leg. Apart from the skin on her shoulder, which remained pink and soft, one would have thought she had been born that way. The run was a splendid game to Monster, the dog yipping and wagging her tail as she went, whereas her master labored, out of breath.
Axe felt a stich in her side that grew into a stabbing pain. When she stopped outside the Faas’s quaint cottage, as yet untouched by bombs and bullets, her legs became jelly. She dropped to her knees and gasped for air. Monster circled around and barked at her—another game, no doubt.
The commotion brought Esmee Faas outside. A long blue apron was tied round her ample waist.
“What is …” Esmee began and stopped, for she saw Axe on her knees in the gravel. “Axe? Oh, Axe, what is wrong? What has happened?”
The old woman rushed to her side, shuffling in little steps. Axe tried to stand. Her legs buckled and she fell again. Esmee offered a hand, and Axe made it to her feet.
“Godewyn. I need his help. Please, Esmee, it is an emergency.”
“Yes, yes, of course. But what is the matter?”
“Please!” Axe said.
Those who knew Axe knew she was not the sort to cry wolf, nor the sort to be terse with those she respected. She saved that side of her personality for fools and noisome strangers—the defiant streak, as her mother called it, at once the thing that intrigued men, and inevitably pushed them away.
The old woman, Esmee, who had been through many a war and many an emergency, who was known for being unflappably practical, merely nodded. She hastened inside and called out: “Godewyn, Axe is here! Godewyn!” Her voice was deafening—it had to be for the sake of her hard-of-hearing husband.
When Godewyn trundled outside he wielded a cup in one hand, steam rising from the rim, and a piece of bread in the other. A glean of honey smeared the underside of his bushy grey moustache.
“Ho! Axe, you have caught me red-handed. Don’t shoot,” he chuckled. Godewyn did not have his glasses
on, which meant he could see shapes and colors, but not features, otherwise he would have seen the look on Axe’s face. He talked fast, as was his way.
“Look at this, my girl,” he said, holding both hands up. “Coffee, and bread and butter. And honey! Nikolaj owed me for his horses. Not a bad trade if you ask me. Now as for where he got all these supplies, ooh, we must not ask. The man is a thief, no doubt about that, but he is our thief! I’m glad you are here. Saves me the trip. There is too much for us. I was going to bring a hamper over this afternoon. We were just talking about how thin you are. Far too thin. Well, come in, have some breakfast. Esmee, why don’t …”
“Godewyn! Lord knows … Something is wrong. Listen to the girl,” said Esmee.
Godewyn stepped forward. “What is it, Axe? Is it Monster?” The dog warbled at the sound of her name, and Godewyn looked down. “Oh. Oh, she is here. Then …”
“I’m sorry to involve you, Godewyn. But there is no one else I trust. I need your help. There is a man in my barn. He’s hurt badly. I think he is dying,” said Axe.
“A man … What man?”
“A Frenchman. A soldier, I think. I don’t know. I just know he fought with German soldiers. He killed them, Godewyn. I saw it myself. I saw the bodies. The Frenchman is alive, but he’s hurt. I think it’s bad. He won’t wake up. I don’t know what to do. I came because …”
“Yes, yes, of course, you did the right thing. The right thing, yes,” he said, a far-off look crossing his face. “Bah! No time then! Esmee, my cabbage, prepare the black bag at once.”
Godewyn took a bight of his honey and butter bread and then threw the rest to the dark shape that was Monster. The dog wolfed it down in a single gulp.
Esmee was through the door when Godewyn called out, “And my glasses! I cannot find the dreaded things. They hide from me, I swear it.” Godewyn took a mouthful of coffee and then tipped the remainder onto the ground. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and licked the smear of honey from it. He turned for the house, then turned back. “My dear, do you want the hamper now, or after?”
Michel And Axe Bury The Hatchet (The French Bastard Book 2) Page 3