Page 54 of The Mademoiselle Alliance

53

At Last, the Sky

Sonnenberg, Germany, January 30, 1945

Léon writes about flowers and flower-covered inns, about closing down prisons and stopping wars, about forgiveness; about happiness. It’s a utopia he describes in his journal, or perhaps it’s foolishness. But it’s an honorable dream—there’s that word again, honor, the one that’s been his North Star and has guided him to this end.

“ Raus! ” the guard calls, pushing him out of his cell.

He hasn’t been outside since that brief moment on a train with Magpie, who’s now gone—flown free, exchanged by the Nazis.

Perhaps it’s his turn to be exchanged. Perhaps he’s on his way to Achille and Marie-Madeleine. Although a small part of him hopes not. He’d frighten the eyelids off a child, the way he looks now. He wants Achille to see a father, not a nightmare.

He concentrates on walking, something he isn’t good at anymore—right foot, then left—thinking of the words in his journal. Is it too much to believe that because of people like him, those who would otherwise have died will be saved? That freedom will reign once more? Or are madness and honor one and the same, driving a man to believe that there’s something beyond himself, something so precious that, without it, only beasts and monsters will be left to walk the earth, because the thing that makes us human will have died?

The guard pushes him into the center of a long line of men.

Léon closes his eyes and, so that he doesn’t feel the bullet slam into what’s left of his body, lets his mind linger over the things he’ll miss.

The smile his son will never turn toward him.

The sky, the endlessness of it all; the way it made you believe that you were endless, too.

The way Marie-Madeleine looked at him, so that in her eyes he could see a different world from this one—a world where this was the last battle and, after the victory, war would never come again.

A bullet. Then fire.

At last, the sky.