19, 1942
My hands shake as I write. This has to be the coldest winter on record. Or do I feel the damp penetrating every inch of my body because fear has left me hollow?
I managed to bring Maman and Papa enough turnips and potatoes to get them through the next week or so. I hid them in the folds of my old wool coat, which grows thinner each day.
I caught Henri snooping about our room and pawing through my few possessions. Having to act as if that didn’t bother me wasn’t difficult, as this journal, this account of my hell, is the only thing of value to me in the house.
I keep it hidden behind the old tapestry that hangs in our sitting area. The entire wall appears to be plain old brick. Several of them are loose, but I’ve dug out a hole behind one brick. I then placed another brick in the hole to the right, so that anyone who pulls out the front brick and reaches in will find an empty space.
I live in fear that he’ll learn about my work with the Resistance. Yet death would be preferable to the humiliation he brings with his ugliness and dark heart. There are times I want to take my rolling pin and crush his skull with it. But where would I go? To prison? Then my family would starve.
I will hang on as long as I can. As long as there’s food for Maman, Papa and Elodie.
The stove fights me each day. Henri has a stash of wood he monitors closely. If I use too much he smacks me. If I allow the fire to burn out, he uses his belt.
I live for the times he travels to Brussels, or wherever he goes. The house isn’t peaceful unless he’s out of it.
I told Philippe in our group that I live on a farm, and if I know that Henri will be gone long enough, our Allies could use one of our fields as a safe place for RAF insertions.
December 21, 1942
The phone rang the other day and I answered, hoping for news from Maman and Papa. Henri was out in the field, earlier than usual. I picked up the receiver and before I could say “Hallo,” I heard a string of German before the caller hung up.
For some reason—pure luck?—we’re one of the few homes that still has our phone line connected.
So now they call Henri at home. What kind of creature is he that he supports the enemy so blatantly during our worst years in Belgium? While my male classmates and cousins fight God-knows-where for our release and freedom from these bastards.
I long for the day the Germans will go home. If it’s up to me, they’ll go home in shame, having lost to our Allies.
And Henri will go with them. If I live that long, I’ll divorce him as soon as the War is over. I don’t care if it ruins my life. He already has. Divorce will ruin my reputation but will save my soul. What’s left of it.
Chapter 4
Esmée’s Journal
December 25, 1942
This is a Christmas I will always remember.
I now have a man to nurse back to health and a husband to grieve. I don’t grieve for Henri, but I grieve for the marriage that never was. For the hope I had at the beginning. For the hope of what I once thought was a mutual friendship that might blossom into a true marriage.
Let me start again.
I’ve learned during the past weeks that Henri has helped the Germans rout out the Jewish children from our village. He even knew where they were staying if they’d been sent to relatives.
As he beat me for what would be the last time, he snarled, “I’ll bet you think they’re the same as us, don’t you? Don’t you?” I said nothing. I couldn’t; my lip was swollen and bleeding. But I laughed inside as I knew that once I told the Group what Henri was up to, they’d take care of him. And I had to tell them. It wasn’t about my conscience or my soul. It was about saving innocent lives. The Nazis occupy our country but they can’t take my heart. And I’d die before my husband (in name only) could give them one more piece of information.
I went to Midnight Mass on my own on Christmas Eve. I figured Henri had some urgent evil business, so I went to pray it wouldn’t work out well.
The night was cold and crisp. For once we had no rain, just a wide clear sky above, with the stars floating close enough to touch. I relished my walk home in the dark. This isn’t a Christmas for parties and celebration; it’s one for prayer and hope that our hell will end soon.
I came home from Mass to an empty house. But Henri wasn’t passed out drunk on the sofa, as usual, nor was he waiting to pummel me. A frigid breeze blew through the house and I heard my dog, Belle, barking out back. Henri was always careful to make sure she was outside when he beat me—Belle would have killed him if he’d ever left her in the same room when he hurt me.
Her barks alarmed me with their persistence. I ran through the house to the kitchen door, which stood wide open. I could see a lantern about halfway across the field, which was lit up by the full, full moon. I made out Henri’s silhouette and Belle’s, across from him. But who was the figure next to Belle?
I grabbed one of Henri’s hunting rifles. I may never know why I did; I’d never allowed Henri to find out that I knew how to fire a weapon. He would’ve locked up the rifles, and for some perverse reason I’ve always felt safe knowing they were there. Just in case.
I ran into the field, the frozen mud crunching so loudly beneath my feet that the sound drowned out whatever Henri was saying to Belle, and to the figure. As I neared, I realized with a jolt that Henri wasn’t even aware of my approach. Belle’s barks had helped to cover my steps, but that’s not why he was distracted.
Henri was enraged. But for once, not at me.
“You stupid shit of the earth. Do you think I don’t know who you are, what you represent?” Henri had his rifle up and cocked, pointed at the figure.
It was a man. He wore plain dark clothes and there was a large cloth draped on the ground next to him.
A parachute.
The Group had said they’d use my pasture, but they’d give me advance notice—if they could. Obviously they hadn’t.
“Please, friend, let me explain.” The man spoke perfect Belgian French. Henri started to yell at him in German.
“I’m not your friend, nor am I a friend of any supporter of Churchill’s.”
“I don’t understand,” the man answered, again in fluent French, but I had the sense that he understood Henri perfectly. At this point he’d spotted me, although I noticed he gave away nothing in his expression. He was sitting, both legs in front of him. He held his right ankle in his hands.
“Understand this. You’ll be sorry you didn’t break your neck in the fall.” Henri raised his barrel and from his stance I knew he was a stroke from killing the man.
“Henri, don’t!”
Henri barely started. He didn’t even look at me.
“Shut up, Esmée. Take Belle back in the house before I shoot her, too. You know not to disobey me.”
Disobey him?
I hoisted my rifle and shot Henri in the head.
His body dropped in slow motion, and I wish I could tell you I felt guilt or recrimination or compassion at his fate. But all I felt is what I feel now. If I must suffer in hell for Henri’s blood, better that than letting him spill the blood of more innocent Jewish families. God only knows how many have met their untimely fate at his hands, through his help.
“Nice shot.”
Again, the stranger spoke in fluent French and I responded the same way.
“I just saved your ass and all you say is ‘nice shot’?”
“Merry Christmas?” he offered, and I laughed.
I actually