And Apolline would throw away any trace of it the next day. She was loyal to the family, and to France, even though she was forced to work for the Germans now, whom she hated passionately. She had a son in the Resistance, which no one in the family knew, until he was shot and killed shortly after Thomas came home. They had known each other as boys, and Apolline was inconsolable, he was her only child. But she was proud of him too, for what he had done for France before his death. Others may have capitulated, but in her heart she never would. They had interrogated her after he was shot, but the commanding officer vouched for her, and she convinced them that she knew nothing of her son’s activities, which was not entirely true, but they left her alone after that, to mourn him in peace.
Gaëlle heard her brother sneak out late one night, to join his friends. She peeked out her door, and saw him carrying a bottle of wine. He winked at her and put his finger to his lips. In many ways, although he was nineteen now, he was still a mischievous boy. When he was younger, he and his friends were always up to some prank. Now all they wanted to do was drink and talk, and share the rumors they heard of what was going on in nearby towns. He was going out with his friends that night, and she didn’t blame him. She had no friends herself now that Rebekah was gone and she was finished with school. She had nothing to do except nurse her mother. She spent a lot of time reading and hiding in her room, to stay out of the soldiers’ way, as her father had ordered her to do, and she wouldn’t have dared sneak out at night like her brother. But he was older and bolder than she, and a man, and had less to risk.
She never heard him come in that night, and later assumed he had slipped back into his room after she fell asleep. She had been reading by candlelight, until it flickered out and she drifted off, and all she heard were her mother’s screams in the morning when she woke up. Gaëlle rushed out of her room, and saw her father consoling her mother as she collapsed in his arms.
“What happened?” Gaëlle asked, and went to help him as a shiver of terror ran up her spine. She sensed instantly that it was Thomas.
“Your fool of a brother went out after curfew last night,” her father said through gritted teeth, with tears on his cheeks too. “He must have gotten drunk. He ran his bicycle straight into an army truck on patrol. They hit him before they saw him. He was killed instantly.” It was such a senseless, stupid death, not a hero’s death, but a boy’s thoughtless meeting up with old friends to talk and kick up their heels as best they could. The commanding officer had given Raphaël the news early that morning, with his apologies and deep regret. He had lost his own son and daughter, and his wife, in a bombing raid in Germany, and his eyes had been damp when he told Raphaël the terrible news.
There were grim days afterward when they prepared Thomas’s body for burial. Gaëlle helped her father wash him, and the commanding officer allowed them to bury him on the estate, after the priest said the funeral mass in the local church. Agathe could barely stand up at her son’s funeral, and Gaëlle and Raphaël had to half carry her from the church, one of them on each side of her. And Apolline was there too, sobbing for the boy she had taken care of as a baby, who had died only days after her own son. Thomas’s death was one of those terrible, needless casualties of the Occupation. There was some question that the soldiers driving the truck that hit him might have been drunk too. They were all about the same age. The commanding officer had looked into it, but found no conclusive evidence, and it didn’t change anything. Gaëlle had lost her best friend and her brother, and Agathe didn’t come out of her room again. She became rapidly too ill, and the doctor said there was nothing he could do for her. She didn’t have the emotional stamina to cope with what they were living through. She became delirious at times, and would ask Gaëlle where her brother was, or if he was home yet, and Gaëlle stopped trying to explain it to her, and just said he was out. It was the most depressing summer of Gaëlle’s life.
And the worst blow of all came in September. Gaëlle heard loud men’s voices in the courtyard, and tried to see what was happening from her window and couldn’t at first, and then her father came into view. He was wearing the clothes and boots he wore when he visited their farms, and worked the fields with the other farmers, and there were two men with him. He was deeply tanned from being outside all the time. There were soldiers shouting at him and pushing them, as they pointed rifles at all three men. She could hear her father saying something, but couldn’t understand the words. She ran down the back stairs as quickly as she could, and looked out a tiny barred window, just in time to see them shoot her father and his body crumple to the ground in a pool of blood. They shot the others seconds later, and then dragged them out of sight, as other soldiers came running.
Gaëlle was so shocked, she didn’t know what to think, except to wonder if they were going to kill her and her mother now too. She didn’t know whether to run upstairs to protect her mother, or out to the courtyard to see if she could help her father, but when she saw them load his body onto the back of a truck, she knew for certain he was dead. She heard the word “Resistance” spoken by the soldiers in their heavy German accents, but she couldn’t believe her father had been part of it. He had been so adamant about their not doing anything to enrage the soldiers, keeping their heads down, and not getting involved with what was happening. He couldn’t have been in the Resistance, but then she remembered all the times he hadn’t been at home in the last year and wondered if it was true.