Read The Girl You Left Behind for Free Online

as it stretched to our town, was faulty. But it
     was vital that my own townspeople saw me as obstinate and mulish. To have Germans in our
     bar would make Hélène and me the target of gossip, of malicious rumour. It was
     important that we were seen to do all we could to deter them.
    ‘Again, Madame, I will be the judge of
     whether your rooms are suitable. Please show me.’ He motioned to his men to remain
     in the bar. It would be completely silent until after they had left.
    I straightened my shoulders and walked
     slowly out into the hallway, reaching for the keys as I did so. I felt the eyes of the
     whole room on me as I left, my skirts swishing around my legs, the heavy steps of the
     German behind me. I unlocked the door to the main corridor (I kept everything locked: it
     was not unknown for French thieves to steal what had not already been requisitioned by
     the Germans).
    This part of the building smelt musty and
     damp; it was months since I had been here. We walked up the stairs in silence. I was
     grateful that he remained several steps behind me. I paused at the top, waiting for him
     to step into the corridor, then unlocked the first room.
    There had been a time when merely to see our
     hotel like this had reduced me to tears. The Red Room had once been the pride of Le Coq
     Rouge; the bedroom where mysister and I had spent our wedding
     nights, the room where the mayor would put up visiting dignitaries. It had housed a vast
     four-poster bed, draped in blood-red tapestries, and its generous window overlooked our
     formal gardens. The carpet was from Italy, the furniture from a château in Gascogne, the
     coverlet a deep red silk from China. It had held a gilt chandelier and a huge marble
     fireplace, where the fire was lit each morning by a chambermaid and kept alight until
     night.
    I opened the door, standing back so that the
     German might enter. The room was empty, but for a chair that stood on three legs in the
     corner. The floorboards had been stripped of their carpet and were grey, thick with
     dust. The bed was long gone, with the curtains, among the first things stolen when the
     Germans had taken our town. The marble fireplace had been ripped from the wall. For what
     reason, I do not know: it was not as if it could be used elsewhere. I think Becker had
     simply wanted to demoralize us, to remove all things of beauty.
    He took a step into the room.
    ‘Be careful where you walk,’ I
     said. He glanced down, then saw it: the corner of the room where they had attempted to
     remove the floorboards for firewood last spring. The house had been too well built, its
     boards nailed too securely, and they had given up after several hours when they had
     removed just three long planks. The hole, a gaping O of protest, exposed the beams
     beneath.
    The
Kommandant
stood for a minute,
     staring at the floor. He lifted his head and gazed around him. I had never been alone in
     a room with a German, and my heart was thumping. I could smell the faint hint of tobacco
     on him,see the rain splashes on his uniform. I watched the back of
     his neck, and eased my keys between my fingers, ready to hit him with my armoured fist
     should he suddenly attack me. I would not be the first woman who had had to fight for
     her honour.
    But he turned back to me. ‘Are they
     all as bad?’ he said.
    ‘No,’ I replied. ‘The
     others are worse.’
    He looked at me for such a long time that I
     almost coloured. But I refused to let that man intimidate me. I stared back at him, at
     his cropped greying hair, his translucent blue eyes, studying me from under his peaked
     cap. My chin remained lifted, my expression blank.
    Finally he turned and walked past me, down
     the stairs and into the back hallway. He stopped abruptly, peered up at my portrait and
     blinked twice, as if he were only now registering that I had moved it.
    ‘I will have someone inform you of
     when to expect the first delivery of food,’ he said. He went