Free Wolfsangel by Liza Perrat Page A

she said, rattling cutlery and crockery in the sink. ‘You’ll get nowhere in life with your head in a book. Hard work and good clean soil under your nails is what pays off.’
    My cheeks burned as she crossed to the oven and removed her last cakes and fruit pies, made once again from her stores beneath the herbal room. The Harvest Festival was one of the rare village events in which my mother participated, baking for days and draping mugwort over the door to ward off evil. ‘Now go and brush that crow’s nest hair,’ she said. ‘You never know who’ll be at the festival.’
    ‘As if it’s some cattle show and I’m the prize heifer up for sale!’
    ‘Be careful the Germans don’t take you at the next requisition then,’ Patrick said with a laugh. ‘They only want the best cattle.’ He ducked, avoiding my slap, and darted off outside to tend the animals.
    ‘Since the Wolfs are not allowed to enjoy the festival,’ I said, loading a tray with portions of tripe gratin, lamb’s foot salad, and clafoutis , moist with last season’s cherries, ‘the least I can do is take them up some tasty things.’
    Maman fiddled with her chignon. ‘It’s not my fault those people are being rounded up and shipped off.’
    ‘What exactly, have you got against them?’ I said, steadying the tray with both hands.
    ‘I have nothing at all against them, Célestine. The only ones I despise are those pale-faced invaders. And I know we must all do our bit to protect them from such swine, but I’m simply not comfortable hiding that family. Besides, people don’t thank you for it. They just scarper off one day and you never hear from them again. Not a word of thanks.’
    ‘But the Wolfs are very grateful.’ I handed her the tray as I climbed the attic ladder. ‘Don’t they show that, with all the chores they do every night?’
    ‘ Humph , maybe,’ she said as she climbed on a chair and passed me up the tray.
    She said nothing more, but from her hesitation and the way she stayed perched on the chair, I sensed she’d have liked to go up into the attic and give her harvest food to the Wolfs herself –– a kind of peace offering perhaps. But she couldn’t, or didn’t dare, show the slightest bit of kindness; as if that would be a battle lost in our on-going conflict.
    ‘Your mother is so kind to share her harvest food with us,’ Sabine said. She took the tray and Max turned from his window seat, his brush held aloft.
    ‘Yes, please thank her for us, Céleste.’
    ‘Maybe you’ll be Harvest Queen this year?’ Talia said.
    ‘I doubt that, Talia. Whoever would vote for me?’
    ‘Lots of boys,’ she said. ‘Because you’re lovely.’
    I kissed her solemn face. ‘And you’re such a pretty girl, I bet you’ll be Harvest Queen one day.’
    ***
    When the Germans arrived in Lucie seven months ago, they wanted a spacious, centrally-located place with running water to use as their barracks, so they requisitioned the girls’ school –– Ecole de Filles Jeanne d’Arc –– located between rue Emile Zola and rue Victor Hugo. With its high stone walls, the enclosed playground was handy too, for practising their manoeuvres we were forbidden to observe.
    So Ecole de Filles Jeanne d’Arc was closed to the villagers but the boys’ school, which the girls had to attend, to the indignation of many mothers, was still running, and we watched all those school children parading around the fountain in their starched clothes decorated with dried flowers, fruit and nuts. They held candles and sang the vile Vichy tune, Maréchal nous voilà!
    ‘Still trying to fool the Germans her name is Lemoulin,’ my mother said, narrowing her eyes at Rachel Abraham. ‘It won’t last, they’ll catch her out. They’ll catch them all out in the end.’
    ‘But what would the Reich want with an old woman?’ I said. ‘She’s not much use to them as a worker.’
    ‘No, not much use at all,’ Maman said, as we nodded greetings to other