My Longest Night by Genevieve Duboscq

Author:Genevieve Duboscq
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61145-557-1
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2011-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

Friday, June 9, 1944

Yesterday the birds didn’t sing. Will it be the same today? I looked out the attic window at the endless expanse of water that surrounded us. Today was as gray and sad as yesterday. What had happened to the sun, which usually at this time of year turns our marshes into a veritable fairyland? The waters shine the minute there’s a bit of sunshine over by Noires Term, iridescent, full of tender colors, and the marshes are a beehive of activity: ducks, geese, myriad other water fowl strike up a chorus that lasts most of the morning. Later the sparrows join in, and other melodious creatures of the swamp. Papa said that it was unusual to hear such a chorus, that it was because guns had been banned by the Germans and there had been no hunters for so long that the birds had a sense of security. Now the hunters are back, looking not for game but for other men, but the result is the same: the birds have stilled their voices, terrorized by the unaccustomed gunfire echoing day and night through the swamp.

What will today bring? Will we live to see the end of it? Will the invasion finally occur, and reinforcements arrive to take the increasing pressure off the paratroopers who’ve been here four days and nights now? These questions ran through my head as I pulled on my clothes that morning.

There was something else: I felt danger, and it was closer than before. I tried to listen closely to the sounds, both in the house and outside, trying to detect what it might be.

I went downstairs with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach-a knot that I could not control. Four bowls of steaming coffee were lined up on the table, and their aroma filled the kitchen with a wonderful odor. But I knew that I couldn’t eat or drink: I was too upset. As casually as I could, I asked my mother, who was buttering some pieces of bread:

“How are our patients this morning?” Then, before she answered, seeing a big mound of what looked like freshly made butter, I said: “Did you make butter this morning? I didn’t hear the butter chum.” We had a churn which made marvelous butter but which also made a horrible grating noise as the blades turned and meshed. The noise is so loud it could wake the dead, but I had not heard it that morning.

“Yes, Francis had taken the cream off the milk that we hadn’t used these past couple of days, and Papa had the good idea to bring it home last night. I churned it down in the cellar, so as not to wake anyone up. As for our patients, George, Kerry, and the blond German all slept like logs. But the older German coughed most of the night.”

“So that’s why you made the butter!”

“Yes and no. We’ll all benefit from it.”

I knew that butter was a wonderful remedy to stop coughing.

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