She'd thought she'd heard Danielle speaking to her.
"The Allies have landed," the voice came, swimming through the waters of the brook near her childhood country house, now clogged with metal and bone. Delphine pushed against the current that had been dragging her down, the taste of blood in her mouth. "I'll take you to the forest. You won't believe how big the sequoias are."
It wasn't Danielle's voice, at least entirely, it was Cosima's. The warmth of it cleared her eyes and lungs, and she was blinking in the sunlight, golden, as it glowed upon enourmous, red-brown trunks that rose up forever. Her voice reminds me of yours… her mind said, and there was a laugh.
"My French is that good?" Cosima asked, and Delphine felt a hand touch hers. She turned to her side, trying to see, but the sun was in her eyes. The figure beside her was like Danielle, but had thick-framed glasses and a full American soldier's uniform, far too big on her, helmet covering her hair. Delphine couldn't catch individual features, but she felt a sort of comfort flowing over her.
"I was caught," she told the haloed figure, and her hand was squeezed. Her thoughts were fuzzy. "You told me about the forest, the night I told you about the mountains." She turned her head and saw a scattering of flowers amidst the trees, the very same ones she'd seen in Chamonix, though it made no sense.
"We're all going to be friends," Cosima told her. "Felix has brought some wine and a blanket, and there's a surprise."
Delphine spotted a figure peeping behind one of the trees. Her heart leapt. He suddenly sprung out, all smiles. It was Laurent!
"Didn't I tell you I'd go sailing?" he boomed. His face was chapped, his skin covered in fine salt. He picked her up and spun her around, until she dropped down kneeling over the brook again, now clean, and winding through the forest. But she spat blood out of her mouth, and it dropped into the water, making a widening ring of red.
There was a banging, and distant male voices, yelling in German. Delphine turned away from the water before she could see her reflection, and tried to stand, but she was too weak.
Cosima knelt beside her. She was bigger, now, suddenly big enough to encircle Delphine in an embrace, filling the uniform. Delphine felt Cosima's arms secure her as she leaned her head to rest on the American's bosom. The German voices were getting closer, but Cosima was singing to her, the way her mother did when she was a child. Her voice lost all of its usual teasing tone as it rose from her chest into Delphine's ears.
"À la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle
Que je m'y suis baigné…"
Delphine felt a vibration, as if the earth had been disturbed by some great object. Her knees were sodden where she had knelt in the earth beside the water, but she tried to sing along.
"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai…"
She could feel Cosima's warm breath stir the hair on her forehead. "You're so smart, and brave," she felt her say. "I'll hold you to that."
Delphine's fingers clung to Cosima's uniform. She didn't want to see what was around her, hear the other sounds.
"Delphine," Cosima said, this time less soothingly. Delphine smelled something foul. "Delphine," the voice came again, more urgent.
Delphine opened her eyes. Moonlight crossed Danielle's face, shadowed in blue, as the journalist shook her shoulder again.
"Delphine, get up," she hissed. "Hurry – the train has stopped!"
Delphine blinked, trying to get her bearings. She was in the cattle car, kneeling on the floor, her knees soaked in murky filth and her back leaning against a wall. She caught the shapes of shadows moving around her, other women in the dark. She took Danielle's hand and allowed herself to be painfully pulled to her feet.
It was true, the car wasn't moving.
"Are we at the fort?" Delphine asked, squinting toward the small space between slats that formed their window.
"No," Danielle whispered, pulling her to the crack. Several other women were pressed to the side wall of the train car, trying to see out whatever holes or separated planks they could find.
"We're not there yet. From what I can see, I think we've run into a crossing of some kind of military convoy."
Delphine pressed her face to the opening and dimly saw the train stretching ahead. Several lights, headlights and hand-carried, moved in the darkness, from where there seemed to be a road. It had to cross in front of the engine, from its position.
"What do you see?" another woman asked, pressing against her. Delphine's bruised forehead bumped against the wall, and she saw stars. There was a creak as women around her pressed forward, and Delphine felt a shift in the wood beneath her hands. The woman who had pushed her suddenly disappeared, yanked backwards, and Danielle took her place.
"That's it!" she urged, and leaned against the planking. Delphine's vision came back into focus, and she swore she saw the crack she'd been looking out widen.
"Push, ladies, push!" Danielle's voice rose in a rough half-whisper. Delphine didn't think. Her shoulder was suddenly leaning against the bending plank, along with several other women beside her. Her body was throbbing with every move, but she had to ignore it. She tried to direct her strength, her length, into widening the distance between her shoulder and her feet on the floor.
There were murmurs around her.
"No!" came a voice nearby. It was Babette. "They'll catch us, they'll shoot us!" Her hand scrabbled at Delphine's arm, but Danielle pushed her roughly back.
"I'll take my chances," she grunted, pushing against the wall. There was a louder creaking, but a halt in the give of the board. Male voices in German came drifting to them from somewhere further up the tracks.
"Dammit!" Danielle swore, and then her eyes darted to her purse. Swiftly, she tilted it, using the clasp as a wedge between the plank's supports and the bolt head. She pushed, slammed down on the purse with her fist, and began to wiggle it backwards and forwards.
Delphine was holding her breath, straining. She felt a warmth enter her shoe that could only be blood from her leg wound reopening. She didn't care. She heaved back and slammed forward again, biting back a grunt of pain.
"You're being too loud! You'll get us all killed!" Babette's voice was rising, panicked. Danielle was leaning backwards now, pulling at the bolt with the warping, thin metal of the top of her purse.
There was a pop.
The bolt skittered into the darkness of the train car, and the plank came loose at one end. Hands grabbed at it, pushing, pulling, twisting. There was a hiss and shudder around them. Delphine's eyes widened. The brakes of the train were being released. They were moving forward.
Danielle had replaced her curses with cold, silent determination. She wedged her body between the plank and the wall and shoved against it with her entire weight. Women scrambled in confusion, and Delphine yanked back, helping her. Another pop and a crack, and the plank came free.
The train was picking up speed.
"C'mon, then!" Danielle hissed, twisting at the plank above the new opening. It pulled slightly upward.
Before Delphine knew it, Danielle's head and chest were on the outside of the train, her torso and legs swinging to slide herself sideways towards the rushing air. Other women were pulling at the plank, pushing at Danielle, trying to help her forward. There was the sound of tearing as her blouse was rent against the projecting splinters, but her compact frame was sliding out. She was nearly there. Delphine felt the car wobble as the wheels clacked over a joint in the tracks. The ground below them was turning into a blur.
"Delphine!" Danielle called, and reached her arm back through the opening. Delphine grabbed her hand and thrust herself forward, sucking in in both an attempt to make herself as thin as possible and from the pain of the wood and metal scraping against her injuries. Something was hitting her in the face, the shoulders, over and over again and everywhere, and it was cold and stinging. Suddenly, her toes were pressed to a tiny lip at the outside edge of the car, and her weight was tumbling forward.
"Push, Delphine, jump!"
She did.
The ground came rushing up at her, and she hit a mixture of soil and gravel that tore into her skin. She was rolling, and they must have been on a hill, because she kept rolling, brain screaming that she was back in a dream. She caught up against something by her stomach, and it knocked the breath out of her. She lay, writhing, and managed to roll over onto her back.
Above her head, a fan of branches swayed gently. Between shivering leaves, the moon half-peeked from behind a thickening cloud, and the stinging cold hitting her resolved itself as the splash of rain drops, intermittent, but picking up and wetting her skin. She clutched her stomach, lungs screaming, and willed herself to still, to focus.
"Delphine?" Danielle's voice, quiet, came from somewhere beside her. The clacking of the train wheels and the rumble of the engine were fading away into the distance. The rain picked up, adding a resonant thrum and hiss to the air around them. Danielle's head appeared in her view, bending over her. Air.
Her diaphragm hitched and released. Delphine pulled in a harsh, wheezing gasp, digging her fingers into the ground around her as her lungs caught up, pumping, rain falling into her mouth.
"I-" she sputtered.
"Shh," Danielle crouched beside her, stroking her hair. "Give yourself a moment."
Slowly, her breath normalized. Her abdomen and head were thrumming, but the rest of her body seemed to have gone relatively numb, perhaps in shock. She looked up at Danielle, and took the hand that was offered her, pulling herself into a sitting position, half-leaning against her — what? Compatriot? Saviour? Friend?
Danielle looked frankly into her eyes, and squeezed her hand.
"I know it hurts," she said, her voice low, rain beginning to drip off her hair and onto Delphine's shoulder, "but once you can breathe, you must try to stand up." She looked around, taking in the small stand of trees, the buildings not far behind them.
"And once you stand up, you must run. I'm afraid we have a ways to go, yet."