The Illusion of Separateness by Simon van Booy

Author:Simon van Booy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Literary, War & Military, Fiction, Historical, General Fiction
ISBN: 9780062112248
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2013-06-10T18:30:00+00:00

JOHN

FRANCE,

1944

I.

JOHN AWOKE IN a stew of mud and dead leaves with a fierce pain in his foot. His wristwatch had stopped a few minutes before nine.

He expected the enemy would return with more men or dogs, and so untangled himself quickly from the bush.

Here was a landscape John had always loved. Roots poked up through the ground on their way to deeper earth. Heavy mosses wrapped dead branches and smoothed the gnarls of dying trunks. It was an old wood that had seen many wars, and once even hosted a gang of deserters from Napoleon’s Grande Armée, whose uniforms and weapons were still tucked into the hollow of a dead tree.

Harriet had several sketchbooks of John’s drawings. They were lush and messy. She liked to look at them. Over the course of their lives, she hoped he might teach her how to draw. It could be something they did together, a way to fill the Sundays ahead.

John’s escape from this place would have to be a work of art, something original, something the enemy would not anticipate.

He stepped slowly through the forest, trying not to break small branches underfoot, when two arms grabbed him from behind. He struggled and kicked his legs violently, but the person holding him was much bigger. A voice told him to relax, and he did. The thick arms loosened.

The man wore a long waterproof coat with tall farmer’s boots.

“I knew you were here somewhere,” the man said with a French accent. “We saw you land, but you fled before we could get to you.”

The farmer led John through the woods to a pile of potatoes at the edge of a plowed field. There was also a cart and a muscular horse that looked up when they approached. Pheasants were penned in a wire basket and pressed their feathered bodies against the mesh.

The man told John that his cousin’s farm was on the other side of the village, and that’s where they were going. John watched as he filled several sacks with potatoes and then hauled them onto the cart.

When the farmer picked up the final sack, he motioned for John to get in. Then he filled it with a few handfuls of potatoes and stacked it against the others.

After a jerk, they began to move. A short time later there was a sudden echo of hooves, and John realized they had left the field for a road. The pheasants were flapping against the sides of the basket. John closed his eyes and tried to block the pain in his foot, but it was hard to keep still.

When the cart stopped, men spoke quickly in German. The farmer said in French, “Come and see what I found.”

The soldiers stopped talking and followed him.

After the farmer had presented the pheasants to the soldiers, John heard matches being struck. The odor of cigarette smoke. Nobody talking.

His foot stung so wildly that he felt in danger of being betrayed by his own body. Just as he began to stir, there was a great weight on the cart, and John felt a large back lean against him.

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