Clash by Night by Doreen Owens Malek

overreacted.
    “It seemed that he was interfering,” Hesse said stiffly. “I’m sorry if I alarmed you unnecessarily.”  
      His French, while far less sophisticated than Becker’s, got the message across and Brigitte felt churlish. Whatever their relative positions, this boy had been trying to help her.
    “You didn’t alarm me,” she said civilly. “Thank you for the assistance, he can be an awful pest.” She used the word for housefly, mouche , to describe her antagonist. The tension broken, Hesse grinned at her. She did not smile back.
    “You are a student here?” he asked, undaunted, gesturing to her apron and her plain white cap, unbanded to indicate her undergraduate status.
    “Yes.” She closed the door of the linen closet and turned the cart to face the hall.
    His eyes moved to the name tag pinned to her breast pocket. “Duclos,” he said. “Your father is the mayor of Fains, the village just south of here?”  
    “That’s right,” she responded, mentally counting the stacks of bandages she’d assembled, not looking at him.
    Hesse’s thoughts raced. Her father was a collaborator, yet she had been noticeably distant throughout their exchange. Perhaps she didn’t share her father’s pro-German leanings. He suddenly realized that her feelings on that subject interested him very much.
    “May I go, Corporal?” she asked quietly. “These things are needed on the ward.” She began to push the cart ahead, and he put out his hand to stop its movement. She looked up, startled, and their eyes locked.
    “So you are in the hospital every day?” he persisted.  
    “Not every day,” Brigitte answered, her face growing warm in spite of herself under his intense inspection. “I have a duty rotation, like all the other students, some nights, some weekends, some days off.” She knew she shouldn’t be giving him this information, but he could find it out for himself by asking a few questions and she thought it best not to antagonize him.
    He nodded. “So perhaps we will meet again,” he said.
    “Perhaps,” Brigitte replied neutrally, moving forward as he finally stepped aside. Hesse watched as she walked away, pushing the little trolley in front of her. Even the long pale blue uniform skirt and thick soled white shoes could not disguise her slim hips and shapely legs.  
    It was easy enough to check schedules and assignments in the hospital; in his capacity as Becker’s aide Hesse had access to almost everything.
    He would make sure that he saw her again.
    * * *
    Laura paused in the doorway of the library and stuck her head into the room.
    “No customers?” she said to Lysette Remy, who was standing behind her massive desk, sorting through a pile of volumes and marking them with a rubber stamp. The book-lined chamber was empty.
    Lysette looked up. “No,” she said, glancing into the hall behind Laura before she added quietly, “we won’t see the kids again until the fall term begins. The school is right across the street from the German headquarters so their parents are keeping them home. I don’t think they want them to be around here until it’s necessary.”
    “Can you blame them?” Laura said tartly. She held up a stack of report forms and said, “I’m filling these out with the final marks for the summer session and then taking the rest of the day off. You might as well do the same.”  
    “Maybe I will,” Lysette said, brushing back a wayward strand of hair which had escaped her customary bun.
    “I’ll be down in the office if you need me,” Laura said, turning toward the corridor. Then she stopped short as she confronted Becker, who had come up silently behind her.
    Becker took a step backward and clicked his heels, bowing his head. “Madame Duclos,” he murmured.
    “Colonel,” Laura replied icily, breezing past him. She wondered what he was doing there, and why he was alone, without the young corporal who followed him around like a faithful shepherd dog. She fled