Before Their Time: A Memoir by Robert Kotlowitz Page B

certain amount of easy chatter, I remember; we were still cheerful at that time. In a moment or two, while we rested there, the old woman, the ancient crone we had seen the first day, appeared from the house. She stood at the edge of the field, shaking her fist in the air and declaiming at us. It was a kind of outraged keen, filled with incomprehensible words, both bitter-sounding and threatening.
    The platoon was embarrassed. We stirred uncomfortably and tried to look away. It was clear to everyone thatwe were probably trespassing on the old woman’s property, that we had invaded her privacy. While she shouted at us, the child appeared at her side. She was wearing the same blue smock and was still unsmiling. Behind them, in a window of the house, we caught a glimpse of the young woman, the one we had seen a week before, hiding in the shadows. Today she was not wearing a scarf over her head. She was bareheaded, and bald.
    “Jesus, did you see that?” Fedderman cried out. For once, he lost his blasé air.
    “On your feet, men,” Gallagher ordered, turning his back on the old woman and the house.
    “What was it?” Bern asked.
    Willis and Johnson and Natale were staring at the house. Barney Barnato looked cynical. Rocky was lining us up, one by one, as though we were still in basic training, urging us to move fast. The other squads were already on the road. Then the child began to cry as the old woman shoved her toward the house. I could see her pinching the child’s shoulders. We saw the young woman again in the same window, a moment’s glimpse of a nearly bare skull, with a faint, thin fuzz sprouting from it.
    “What was it?” Bern asked again, looking back.
    But we were already on our way and Gallagher was trying to get us to sing. (Another lost cause.) “Fedderman,” Bern pleaded.
    “She’s a collaborator!” Ira shouted, over his shoulder. He was excited. “She slept with the Germans. You can tell from her hair. That’s what the French do to collaborators, shave their heads. She’s a collaborator whore.”
    We marched on through the suddenly sour air. Nobody spoke. I could tell that Bern was mulling it over. So was I.Bern had his Catholic judgmental face on, disapproval and disappointment all over it, and I was sure I looked the same. Our moral balance had been upset. Ambiguities suddenly shaded the Normandy landscape.
    How could Fedderman be so sure that the woman was a whore? What did he know about collaboration? He was assuming too much, as always. Maybe she was just a (slightly stupid) peasant girl who had fallen in love with
ein deutsch Soldat
(also slightly stupid) who happened to be stationed in the area … at a time when it was easy to fall in love. Suppose, in fact, that she had been raped by a German soldier or that someone with a grudge had informed against her, or any one of many other possibilities, all of which seemed plausible to me.
    And what about the child? Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord (at his worst), but surely the child was an innocent. I had never before thought of French collaboration with the Germans in such immediate, human terms. The truth was that I had never thought of French collaboration in any terms. Probably the idea was too painful to consider. I would have to pay closer attention, start to ponder a little, try to keep my expectations from fogging the truth.
    It was life close to the bone, I told myself.
    ONCE again, our world was changing. The witching hour was approaching. We began to wake up, as though an alarm had been sounded. Had the Ninth Army finally reached full strength? Were all the fresh divisions in place, eager for action, ready to move to Lille, Amiens, or Roubaix? (I had never heard of Roubaix.) No one was talking this time. Gallagher was keeping his mouth shut. Thesubject was off-limits. This made it even more real, more foreboding.
Ro-ses are smi-ling in Pi-car-dy …
    Daily training became serious again. (It was hard for me not to link this