Page 70 of The Lost Story of Sofia Castello

PROLOGUE

The novelist Gustave Flaubert once wrote that there is not a particle of life that does not bear poetry within it. As I sit huddled in the corner of the room that has become my prison, I try desperately to find something – anything – that could be construed as poetic. Somewhere in the building high above me, I hear the bark of German voices and the sharp clip of footsteps echoing along the corridors. But these sounds aren’t poetic, they’re torturous. I press Maman’s tiny Nénette doll to my stinging lips and pray that the lucky charm is somehow able to work a miracle. She kept Wendell safe, didn’t she? Perhaps she’ll save my life too. But when I take the doll from my lips, I see that the white yarn of her face is now stained with my blood.

‘Oh, Maman, what have I done?’ I moan softly as I rock back and forth, every movement sending a sharp spike of pain through my body. People could die because of me. Innocent women and children. An image of their haunted faces staring out at me from the church looms into my mind. ‘I was only trying to do the right thing,’ I sob. ‘I was only trying to win liberty for France. I was only trying to win freedom for my daughter.’ I picture her cherub-like face giggling up at me, and then a montage of memories of her father tumble and twirl before my eyes like the glass beads in a kaleidoscope. His plane landing in the clearing, his feet pressed into the small of my back, his words the last time I saw him, in that soft American drawl: ‘I love you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you. And when this is all over, I’m coming to get you. Both of you.’

I take a deep breath and close my swollen eyes, and finally I am able to find the poetry.