Page 91 of Hell to Pay

“I can’t imagine why,” I said. “What would be the point?”

“Exactly,” Sebastian said. “First rule of the internet—don’t read the comments.”

“Are you talked about then as well?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Some guy loses his bet because I missed a field goal? He doesn’t blame himself for betting. He blames me for missing. I don’t read anybody’s opinion about the game and I don’t watch commentary about the game. I listen to my coaches and talk to my teammates, the stuff that’ll actually get me somewhere.”

“Very wise,” I said. “I find I have remarkably little interest in what a stranger thinks of my words. Perhaps I’m too old to care about such things. In any case, I said what I said for my own reasons, and it’s done. Thank you for putting it out there, though,” I told Ashleigh. “You and Ben both. At least it reached a few people.”

“Excuse me?” Ashleigh said. “It reached hundreds of thousands of people already, all over the world! So I think we should keep going.”

I blinked. “Keep going at what? The tiara isn’t there.”

“Yes, but—” She was sitting forward at the edge of her seat, looking like she’d spring into action at any moment. What energetic companions I have! “See, they wanted to know about the tiara, but they also want to know more aboutyou.Most people haven’t been through a war. OK, they’ve watched war movies, but what happens to regular peopleafterthe war? And especially, what happened to you? And to Joe? They want, like?—”

“Your love story,” Alix said.

“Exactly,” Ashleigh said. “Your love story. So I think you should tell it to us. We only have three more days before you leave, so this is my last chance. If there’s a happy ending, it doesn’t matter so much about the tiara.”

“All right,” I said, “but there was a great deal that came before that. Before the love story.”

“So tell me that, too,” Ashleigh said.

So I did.

I was baking bread as usual one morning in late May when Frau Adelberg came into the kitchen and hovered. She looked—apprehensive?

“Has something happened?” I asked, sliding loaves out of the oven with the large wooden baker’s paddle, concentrating on not burning myself. I had my own war wounds by now! War with the oven, that is. Fortunate, perhaps, that Dr. Becker knew so much about burns.

“I heard from my husband at last,” she said.

I shut the oven door and turned to her, beaming. “But that’s wonderful! What good news.”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s in England, in a prisoner-of-war camp. He was shot in the leg and has a bit of a limp, but is otherwise sound.”

“A double relief, then,” I said. “How are they treating him?”

“Quite well, he says. He’s fed, anyway—more than we can always say here!—and the people at the camp are decent.”

“And when will he come home?”

She hesitated, then said slowly, “I don’t know. Not very soon. The English say that conditions are too bad in Germany to send the POWs back now, but how can one believe that?”

“Well,” I said, “itisvery hard here. We weren’t badly bombed in Fürth, but in the other cities, even in Nuremberg?—”

She waved a hand. “I don’t believe it for a minute. Holding them hostage, more likely, to the German people’s good behavior.”

“What, we’re going to fight again?” I asked. “Nobody could believe that. With what weapons? What fuel? What soldiers? What leader?”

“In any case,” she said, “at some point, he’ll be back.”

“Oh.” I finally got it. “You’re saying that once he’s back, you’ll have no need for me. And the Beckers …”

“I don’t wish to be unkind,” she said, “but I cannot feed so many mouths. With what? It’s impossible.”

“Dr. Becker and Andrea do all the queueing for supplies, though,” I pointed out. “And the rations are?—”

She shook her head. “Impossible. The shortages aren’t getting any better. In fact, they’re getting worse.”