Resistance by Anita Shreve Page B

improbable, “Do you speak Dutch?”
    The American seemed not to understand.
    Fearful that the tentative link between them might now be severed, with no words left to share, Jean pointed to his own chest. “Jean,” he said.
    The American nodded. He pointed to himself. “Ted.”
    Jean wished he were smarter. As he fed the American the bread and cheese and water, he tried to figure out how to convey his plan—a plan that had to be executed quickly, or the Germans would find the American. The frustration of being unable to speak made him want to cry. Wildly he pointed to himself, to the northern edge of the forest, and then made an arrow with his fingers that returned to the brambles.
    The American studied the boy. He said something in English, shook his head, indicating he did not entirely understand.
    Jean tried again.
    “Germans,” he said, pointing to the trail the soldier had made, leading to the pasture and the plane. But the American stared blankly at him.
    “Ted,” Jean said urgently, pointing to inside the brambles.
    The American nodded.
    “Jean,” Jean said. He again pointed to the north, then back. He repeated the gesture. In exasperation, the boy said in French, “Hide yourself. I will return for you.” And the American seemed to catch in the sentence a word that sounded familiar.
    “Return?” the aviator asked slowly.
    Jean, too, heard the word in his own language. He nodded vigorously and smiled, nearly exultant.
    The flyer began to smile too, then suddenly blanched with pain. Jean looked at the leg, at the flight suit, which in his attention to the man's face and eyes he had missed. One leg of the flight suit was covered with blood, dried brown blood. Jean felt lightheaded, dizzy.
    “Quickly,” he urged the American, pointing to the brambles. “Quickly.”
    The tone of the boy's voice, rather than the word itself, seemed to reach the American. Carefully, he lowered himself, used his forearms to pull his body into the hiding place.
    Jean studied the hidden American. The Germans would find him, just as Jean had, he was sure. Unless he could outwit them.
    He scooped up handfuls of pine needles and bark and dried leaves and buried the American's protruding feet in mulch. But that wouldn't be enough.
    The extra minutes his idea would take were critical, Jean knew, yet it had to be done.
    The boy retraced the matted trail, running until he was fifty meters from the pasture. He could hear voices, though he could not make out the words or even their nationality. He began to destroy, backwards toward the bramble bush, and as best he could, the existing trail. But when this proved impossible—the matted grasses would not rise up; the broken branches could not be mended— he devised another plan and was momentarily excited by his own cleverness. He made other paths, diversionary spokes, leading out from the central hub. In a kind of madness, he dragged himself on his back, bending branches and twigs, scuffling leaves with his feet. He tried to calculate the odds that the Germans would enter the forest at the correct point and then would choose the precise spoke to the American.
    He surveyed his work.
    Whatever else happened, he told himself, he had at least done this.
    Turning north, he bent his head to protect it, put out his arms, and scrambled at a near run through the forest. It was December, and darkness came early.
    The bicycle shuddering, the tire nearly flat. Shit, why hadn't he paid attention to the tires earlier? People in doorways, hanging out of windows. A plane in the village, fallen from the sky like an omen. Head down, keep the head down, blend into the stone, look inconspicuous. Antoine should slow down; people would notice they were racing. Antoine in the kitchen with Claire. Antoine stank of pigs. He was ugly with his pink face, his small eyes, and that greasy, thin, white-blond hair.
    Claire in the kitchen. Did she know he had been drinking in the barn before he'd gone into town? Her