Léa was frightened when she awoke on an uncomfortable mattress covered in a thin blanket. All she could remember was running. Trees and briars, cold air, the Nazi soldier. She had been terrified – and she had good reason to be. Suddenly the image of her father, yellowed skin and lifeless eyes, came back to her.
'Papa,' Léa moaned, tears squeezing from under her lids. Then she heard a noise – it sounded like a cough. Pushing herself from the mattress, she swayed, dizzy. Her head ached. Léa took two tentative steps, hands thrust out either side to help her balance. Then she heard another noise – crackling leaves. She ran, half-falling and tripping over her feet. Léa's eyes, barely accustomed to the dim light in the passageway, were of no help. Stumbling blindly down the passageway, she was suddenly accosted by a bright light. It stung her eyes. Léa sought another exit, and found one – she ran down it, her whole body protesting. Her legs hurt, her head ached, her eyes were screaming with pain, her nose and mouth stung.
Looking round, Léa found herself in another dilapidated room, with only two exits: the passageway she had just come through, and a heavy iron door opposite, with a large bolt and rusting padlock. Loud footsteps resounded in the room, the person creating the noise evidently running quite fast. Léa crossed to the iron door, tugging uselessly at the padlock. Rust came away in her fingers. Tears blossomed in her eyes and crept stealthily down her cheeks. She searched on the floor with her hands, locking for a stick, a rock – anything – that could help open the door. Her fingers closed round a heavy object and she brought it down with a small amount of force on the lock. It crumbled to dust. Léa pulled back the bolt and heaved open the door; she disappeared round it just as a large, bear-like man entered the room behind her.
Outside the door, a leafy path stretched in either direction, with relatively new truck-marks dug into the wet ground. Léa could feel the water between her bare toes as she ran down the path, then fell and pulled herself back up again. Her dress, once so pretty, was sopping wet and covered in mud and dried blood. Not caring about the dirt on her arms and legs, Léa kept running. Someone shouted out behind her; she couldn't hear the words he said. She tried to run faster, but there were white spots at the edge of her vision, and the mud seemed to cling to her feet and suck her down.
The path rounded a corner and widened out into a clearing. Lea slid over the ground, her feet slipping as she tried to stop running. In the clearing was a truck; it's back was covered by cloth stretched over a thick metal skeleton. It was clearly military and was painted grey. Surrounding the truck were seven men, dressed in roughly the same clothes – brown trousers and grey jackets – all carrying an assortment of wooden boxes and plump, rough sacks. And they all had guns.
Léa turned around and ran back the way she had came, but there was a man there, massive and bearlike. She recognised him – he had tried to kill her! Turning again, she saw that the men in the clearing had all dropped their boxes and sacks and were training their guns on her. Léa whimpered and then, seeing a small gap in the trees, ran towards it. Suddenly, all the men in the clearing were yelling at the same time, and then two shots were fired. Léa saw the bullet pass before her face, and heard the small thwat noise it made as the bullet embedded itself in a tree.
And then she ran straight into a man's arms. They wrapped around her and she screamed as she looked up into the cold, grey eyes of Hugo Stiglitz.
She sat on the wet ground and shivered. She was silent. Her face was bruised. Her eyes were dark. Wicki was watching her. He stood behind her, one hand on the gun that was hung with a leather strap round his neck.
The other Basterds were eating. Donny had constructed a stick contraption that allowed a pot to be hung over a fire. He had made a thick soup with water, meat, oats and potatoes. There was also bread. It wasn't good quality, but The Basterds had been low on money in the last couple of weeks and therefore any food tasted like the grandest feast. They ate in silence, paying respect to those who were no longer with them. Eating from Billycans, with their bread balanced on their knees and their Jerry cans at their feet, they looked like any other group of American soldiers.
Raine cast a glance at Wicki and the girl, who were situated about five feet from the fire. She sure didn't look like a spy. What she did look like was a half-starved child who had been beaten very badly by a group of men, and had been mentally scarred by that event. Raine felt pity churn his insides, and pushed the feeling away. He reached over and ladled some more soup into his Billycan, then stood and walked over to the girl. He held out the Billycan and waited. She looked at the food, then meaningfully turned her head and stared into the forest. Controlling his anger, Raine set the food down in front of her and went back to where he was sitting. The other Basterds finished their meals and Zimmerman went to wash the dirty cans in the stream. Stiglitz and Utivich sat down to play cards, Hirschberg and Donny offered to clear the camp of dead Nazis and Raine sat with his hands by the fire, waiting for the girl to eat the food in front of her.
It didn't take long – the girl eyed the food suspiciously, then sent a glare over at Raine, who looked away immediately. She picked up the metal spoon from the floor, wiped it on her dress and then hesitantly tasted the food. Changing to a kneeling position, she picked up the can, having little trouble with the handle, and started eating properly. As she ate, two small spots of colour appeared high on her cheeks, and her fingers stopped shaking.
Raine handed her some bread and she snatched it, then soaked up some soup with it and shoved it into her mouth. It was a little odd – and a little humorous – to see the frail girl shovelling food into her mouth as though she had not eaten for weeks. Which, Raine told himself, was quite possible.
As soon as she had finished, Raine took the can from her and put it beside the fire. Then he sat down opposite her. His pity had gone now: he wanted answers.
'What's your name, girl?' he asked. The girl shook her head. She didn't understand. Raine motioned to Wicki and he knelt down beside her.
'Wie heißen Sie?'
The girl shook her head again, then blurted, 'Je suis Française.'
Wicki nodded and said, 'Quel est votre nom?'
'Léa,' she whispered. 'Léa Marceau.'
'Where're you from?' Raine asked. Wicki relayed it in French.
'Barrisseuse.'
'And why were you in the middle of a Jew massacre?'
'Je suis un Juif. Nous avons été s'échapper. Ensuite, les Nazis nous tendu une embuscade et maintenant ma famille sont tous morts!' Léa said, her eyes moist. Raine looked at Wicki expectantly.
'She says she's a Jew, that they were escaping and that her family are all dead from Nazis,' Wicki supplied.
'Why escape now, though? The Nazis have been in France for four years. Were you hiding'?' As soon as Wicki asked the question, the girl turned white. She stuttered, trying to find words. Her eyes flicked from Raine to Wicki to the trees. She was clearly contemplating running away. She didn't want to answer that question. Léa let loose a stream of French, her voice dripping with the secret she desperately wanted to hide.
'She says they were hidden in a house, then someone told the Nazis and they had to run away. Then she said about the Nazis killing her family again. She's lying.'
'Yeah, I can see that,' Raine agreed. He was about to question her further when he was interrupted by a whoop of ecstasy from Utivich, who had just beaten Stiglitz at cards.
'Hey 'tenant,' Zimmerman asked as he trudged back into the camp, the clean Billycans stacked in his hands, his hair wet and face pink from washing himself, 'Can we look at the stuff we pulled off those Nazis?' Raine nodded, gestured to the box of jewellery and then turned to the girl. He was about to ask what she was hiding, when she opened her mouth and asked something in French.
'Wicki?'
'She wants to wash.' Raine rolled his eyes. Shook his head.
'S'il vous plaît?' she asked tentatively, her eyes still wet from tears.
'Fine. Stiglitz! Take the girl to the stream and don't let her run away!' Stiglitz pushed himself off the ground and came to Raine's side. He had overheard the whole conversation between his Lieutenant and the French girl named Léa. Stiglitz had also seen her reaction to Raine's question about why they were escaping. He could tell that she was covering something up – it was clear to see – but what he also saw was fear. Pure, unadulterated terror. Whatever it was that had caused her family to leave had scarred the girl mentally. He wondered what – or who – it was that the girl was so afraid of.
The water was dreadfully cold. Léa dipped her toes in and then retreated to a rock, where she crouched like a frog and cupped handfuls of water to rub on her arms and legs. Then, feeling stupid, she looked around to see if anyone was in the vicinity. Only Stiglitz was there, watching her with an unblinking gaze. She took a deep breath, then started to unbutton her dress. It fell away from her body leaving her shivering in a thin, silk under slip. It hugged her body; her ribs were visible through the fabric, and her hips were the widest part of her body. She was incredibly thin.
Léa was embarrassed by the hard look Stiglitz was giving her. Folding the dress, she placed it on the rock, then turned away from Stiglitz and stepped into the water, wanting to show him that she was not afraid. Her exclamation of shock was louder than his. She didn't hear his choked gasp. The water swirled around her ankles. She waded further in, her chest tightening as the water reached her mid-calf. She reached down and rubbed softly at her skin, watching as the dirt and blood from her skin mixed with the clear water.
Léa sat down in the water – it reached to her ribcage. More comfortable with the temperature now, she untied her hair and dragged her fingers through it, then leaned back and soaked it in the water. More dirt and blood came from her hair, got caught in the current and swirled gently down the river. Massaging her scalp, Léa stood up out of the water and splashed quietly to the edge, her under slip nearly see-through. Stiglitz stared at her, an unfathomable expression on her face.
'Qu'est-ce?' Léa asked, scared.
'Where did you get those scars?' His voice was harsh. Léa didn't understand. 'Where?' Stiglitz asked again, louder. He stepped towards her and Léa unconsciously backed away. Hugo grabbed her arm, and spun her round. He pushed Léa's wet hair aside and laid a finger on her back, running it over the raised skin of a long, thin scar of which three inches were visible above her slip. Léa shivered as Stiglitz laid his palm on her back and felt the skin beneath the silk. There were more scars underneath. They were pink, but old.
Léa shook him off, stepping into the water and turning to face him. Hugo took a step back, then disappeared into the forest. Léa stood for a few minutes in the water. He knew what had happened – she could tell. Why else would he have been so interested in the scars? Léa put a hand to her shoulder and felt the scar that Stiglitz had touched. The hot pain of the whip flashed through her, and then it was gone, to be replaced with a chill that crept through her body. If that brute knew who had... if he told the American... tears overflowed in her eyes and dripped from her chin. She hugged her body and shuddered.
Through the trees, she saw the massive Bear Jew coming towards her, a gun in his hands. Face your death like a man, Léa, she told herself. But when the Bear Jew splashed through the river and came to her side, he simply put down his gun and held out her dress for her to put on. She took it gratefully and slipped it over her wet shift. It stuck to her. Donny, seeing her trembling hands and legs, took off his grey jacket and held it out to her, but she looked away and walked towards the camp. Shrugging, Donny put the jacket back on and followed her, picking up his gun on the way back to the camp.
Review please. Again, a bit of a nothing chapter, but it'll be like that for a while. Sorry if that's not your thing.
