Sandman

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When the snow landed on the girl’s face it did not melt even under lights so strong they made her eyes glisten-lights that disturbed the doves which cooed and fluttered until one wanted to shriek, Shut up! Stay still. As still as she.

It lay on the backs of her hands and dusted the dark navy blue of an open overcoat. It touched the rumpled white woollen kneesocks, the white knickers, dark blue pleated woollen skirt, pushed-up sweater and still-buttoned white shirt-blouse, the chin sharp and jutting up, the head back, lips compressed. Blood oozed and congealed at a corner.

Silently, St-Cyr crossed himself. Hermann, who had just lost his two sons at Stalingrad, blurted, ‘Ah Gott im Himmel, Louis, she isn’t more than eleven years old. Her boots are brand-new. Where … where the hell did her parents get rubber and felt like that?’

On the black market, of course, for this was Neuilly and the Bois de Boulogne and money, but it would be best to save all that for later, best to shrug and say, ‘I don’t know. She’s hardly worn them.’

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