Rohde lay awake in Lisette's bed, one hand cupping the girl's breast and his leg wedged between her warm thighs. He breathed in the girl’s doughy feminine smell. They had fallen asleep after making love, but after that nap he found himself wide awake. While Rohde's body was pleasurably spent, his mind was now racing. He willed himself to go back to sleep, but it was like telling the wind to stop blowing.
He was thinking about the American hillbilly sniper.
It nagged at him that this hillbilly was still alive. One more bullet would finish off the American and cement Rohde's own reputation. Captain Fischer had said as much. But how did one find a single soldier in the vast battlefield?
Rohde thought that the best way might be to set a trap.
To lure a mouse into a trap, one needed cheese. To lure a lion, one needed a goat. To lure a man, one needed… what, exactly?
That was the question Rohde contemplated as he lay awake in the girl's bed. He was supposed to be on patrol, plying his sniper's trade, and if anyone caught him here, he would surely be punished for dereliction of duty. He doubted that Fischer would have him shot, but who was to say? The punishment would depend upon the Hauptmann's mood.
Silently appraising the spent feeling in his loins and remembering their night of lovemaking, Rohde thought that each night he spent in Lisette's bed was well worth the risk.
Fortunately for him, being designated as a Jäger gave him a great deal of leeway and the ability to work alone. He was not the first German soldier who had slipped away to spend time with a French girl, nor was he likely to be the last, so long as the Allies had not yet driven German forces out of France.
Then Lisette would get herself an American boyfriend, or possibly a Frenchman. Rohde was nothing if not a realist.
He heard a vehicle on the road, coming fast, and he went tense all over. At this time of night it could only be a military vehicle. The curfew banned any travel by the French.
The vehicle sounded like a Kubelwagen, favored by officers and messengers. Headlights washed over the house as the vehicle went around a bend. He held his breath as the car drew even with the house, and then roared past.
Rohde breathed again.
He propped himself up on the pillow and lit a cigarette. It was a hot summer night so the windows were open. There were no screens on the farmhouse windows, but this far from the coast there didn't seem to be any mosquitoes. By day, of course, there were plenty of flies. Flies were a fact of farm life, especially in summer. The linen curtains waved in ghostly fashion in the slight breeze. Too hot for sheets or blankets.
From the room next door he heard the boy mumble in his sleep. Then all was quiet again. Lisette's niece and nephew were under strict orders to stay out of her room when he was there.
Starlight spilled through the window, giving a soft glow to the curves of Lisette's figure. She resembled a photograph taken in dim light. He gazed at her body in admiration, letting the image burn into his mind. Even though they had made love twice tonight, he felt a stirring that hinted at the possibility of a third time.
He recalled how the old men in the village would sigh at the sight of a pretty girl, and then gaze after her, lost in reverie. Was something like this what they were remembering? If he lived to be an old man, such an image might be a comfort someday, a reminder that he had lived a little and that he had been young once.
He hoped that his older brother had enjoyed some such comfort in his short life. Unlike the more prudish Allies, the SS and Wehrmacht often made informal arrangements for brothels to serve the troops.
Did you take a lover, Carl? I hope that you enjoyed that much, at least.
Until the death of his older brother, Rohde never had believed in heaven or any sort of life after death. He now hoped that there must, indeed, be something after this life. Otherwise, the finality of death overshadowed all the pleasure of living. Perhaps someday, he and Carl would be together once more, possibly in Valhalla, the hall of the gods where the dead enjoyed eternal feasting and camaraderie in the company of other heroes.
Maybe there really was a Valhalla? In the meantime, take joy where you can, he thought. His eyes wandered again to Lisette's naked body.
The cigarette was nearly smoked down, and he was thinking about lighting another, when he heard another vehicle on the road. This one was moving more slowly, feeling its way along the dark country road almost with stealth. He moved to the window and glanced out, but saw no headlights. Was it a military vehicle, he wondered, or something else? It was just possible that it might be a farmer moving illegal produce along the road, taking a huge chance. The price of breaking the curfew was a bullet in the head.
A French farmer did not worry him. But if it was a squad of SS on patrol — or worse yet, members of the French Resistance — he did not want to be caught in the house. The SS might very well shoot him and be done with it. However, the French Machis would take their time cutting him into pieces with small, sharp knives, or perhaps torture him with hammers — he had heard rumors that this was their favorite implement to use on captured Germans. The thought made him shudder.
The French were nothing more than cowards, not real soldiers at all, but they were vicious all the same. With the advance of the Allies, and the Germans losing their grip on the countryside, the Resistance had grown bolder.
The vehicle was coming closer; he heard the engine slow as it approached the house. He didn't like the sound of that at all.
He moved away from the window and quickly tugged his clothes back on. His rifle was in a corner; he snatched it up before touching Lisette's shoulder. She only mumbled sleepily, so he shook her roughly until her eyes blinked awake.
On the road beyond the house, the vehicle came to a stop. The engine idled a moment, then switched off. He heard hushed male voices. They spoke French, which could only mean one thing.
"Machi ici," he said to Lisette, which was the best explanation he could give in French. He tried again in German, "The Resistance is here."
But Lisette had understood his broken French well enough. She sat bolt upright and pointed at her nightgown, flung on the back of a chair. Rohde grabbed it and tossed it at her.
Lisette peered out the window. “Mon frere,” she whispered.
Lisette had explained that the children were her brother's and that he was away. Away where? Rohde had wanted to know. She had been vague on that point. Now, Rohde thought that he had the answer. Her brother must be a member of the Resistance. In the dead of night, her brother must have returned to see Lisette and his children. Rohde was sure now that the Frenchmen were not after him. There was no way that they even knew he was at the house.
Rohde intended to keep it that way. He did not even think of staying to fight. He did not like the odds, taking on an unknown number of Resistance fighters on their own territory. Lisette would just have to deal with her brother on her own. For her sake, Rohde hoped that her brother didn’t figure out that Lisette had taken a German lover.
He straightened up from hurriedly tying his boots and gave Lisette a lopsided grin, then blew her a kiss. "Au revoir," he whispered, testing the limits of his French once more, then slipped out of the room, through the small farmhouse, past the useless old dog asleep in the farmhouse kitchen, and out the back door into the farmyard.
He was as silent as moonlight and shadow. Rohde hadn't survived as a sniper without possessing certain skills; by now, stealth was second nature.
He imagined his brother's ghost moving alongside him, keeping him company.
We make a good team, Carl. No one can hear us. We move like shadows in the night!
Moments later he was running across the farmyard. The humid night air was full of conflicting smells — honeysuckle, and the musky scent of some passing wild animal; the sweet scent of dewy grass being crushed under his boots, and then pungent manure.
He legged it across the next field toward the safety of the dark woods, the only sound coming from the long grass swishing against his legs. From the farmhouse, he finally heard the dog bark, then men's voices.
Rohde melted into the shadowy trees and was gone.