A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker

to close his eyes.
    “We can’t stop here,” he says.
    She nods, her cheek grazing up and down against the cloth of his coat.
    “You have to get up. Suzanne. Listen. We have to move on.”
    She turns her face up to him, opens her eyes. Her skin is bone-white; her eyes are black.
    “Where’ll we go?” she asks.
    He blinks and looks away. He wipes his face.
    “I don’t know,” he says, “but we have to.” And music winds through and out of the tumbling rain, and his head is filled with the brilliant hallucination of song.
Vom Abendrot zum Morgenlicht
Ward mancher Kopf zum Greise
Wer glaubt’s? Und meiner ward es nicht
Auf dieser ganzen Reise!
    His head feels full and overflowing. It seethes with music and fatigue. Her body leans heavy against his; he feels it through him when she shivers. It is deep and hard, a palsy through her bones.
    Terror has wormed its way into his. He wipes his face and the wet is cold with rain and warm with tears. There is another voice now in his head. It cuts through the music, the night and the rain, through everything with its sharp incision:
    What possible use do you imagine you would be?
    “Come on,” he says to Suzanne.
    She slowly shakes her head.
    “Come on,” he says, and reaches for her arm.
    Suzanne mumbles and softly resists his pull. “I feel quite warm now.”
    “No,” he says. “You can’t do that.”

    He leans down and wraps his arms around her; he lugs her to her feet. For a moment they sway together. Exhaustion has made them ridiculous: they could be toppled with a push. Soaking, they cling to each other, all legs and arms, like a creature of the moon.
    Then they are spotlit. The green fleck in her coat, the cold pink of her throat. He leans away to look at her and she blinks like a baby at him, confused.
    Who’s watching them?
    He scans round. On the far side of the street, above a shop, a window is illuminated. Then a figure looms up against the pane and draws down the blind. Blackout now. They’re back in darkness. It turns out nobody’s watching them. Nobody’s interested in them at all.
    “Come on.”
    He shifts his grip round her and half carries her across the street, to an unknown door.
    —
    They eat, huddled in the upstairs room in front of a low fire. Suzanne’s cheeks are hot, and from time to time a deep shiver runs through her. She is capable of nothing beyond the necessities of courtesy. If her eye is caught, she smiles. It’s the best that she can do. She is not yet herself, but at least she has the chance now to become herself again.
    The window is misted; it runs with drips. They have been found two rush-seated chairs and given cushions. There is a liquorice liqueur in chipped coffee cups that they both sip at compulsively. There is perfect bread and perfect ham. These are extraordinary comforts.
    They wear stale-smelling, borrowed sweaters. Their coats steam over chair backs, their shoes are stuffed with newspaper, their socks and stockings hang above the fireplace to dry.
    The lady of the house, who is the keeper, too, of the shop below, asks about what’s going on in the north. Paris has fallen, she heard that from the radio, but you can’t be certain of what you are told, not the radio, not the newspapers, not any more. They keep telling everybody to stay calm, but why should we be calm? Things must be very bad indeed if people will up and leave their lives behind just like that.

    “We don’t know any more than you,” he says. “We left before the Germans got there.”
    She widens her eyes, considers this. “I suppose you’d have had to,” she says, “or you couldn’t have left at all.”
    There is no space for them in the flat, the family is already packed in like cigars in a box. They will have to sleep downstairs in the shop. They can borrow blankets.
    He watches Suzanne down the narrow stairs; he carries the bundle of bedding. She is doing what she’s told without demur, she’s uncertain of her footing. She holds