The Baker's Secret

by Stephen P. Kiernan

  He pulled away a large canvas tarp, revealing two hundred of those wooden boxes. The Goat had not seen them all revealed together, and he was struck by the magnitude of his feat. Twenty stacks, each ten boxes high, a cache the Resistance would be proud to see, and eager to use, when the proper day came. He half folded the tarp, dragging it behind him into the barnyard.

  “Perfect,” Odette said, helping others spread the green canvas under the hanging pig. Then she brought the tip of a blade to the animal’s jugular, and with a hand as swift as a finch, made a deep, perpendicular slice. The pig’s blood poured out in a gush.

  By midnight the villagers were lined up, everyone who could be trusted. In recent weeks people had seen DuFour wheeling around the village on Guillaume’s blue bicycle, which offended everyone’s sensibility because the man whose outcry had condemned the veterinarian deserved least to benefit by that betrayal. Yet he rode the blue bicycle everywhere, and on days with clear weather he parked it right in front of town hall. By common assent, no one told DuFour about the pig.

  Likewise the priest was omitted, because the dictates of his conscience were so mercurial. No one knew with certainty where his sympathies lay. He slept undisturbed, therefore, while everyone else made a queue that stretched across Emma’s dirt yard, out the door in the barnyard wall, and halfway past it to the eastern well. Pirate hid in the baking shed, overwhelmed by the number of threats, and pacing like an expectant father. The villagers brought buckets or pans, cloth sacks or wooden boxes, into which Emma portioned pork that Odette had butchered and divided with the care of a surgeon.

  “Remember, boiling only,” Emma instructed. “If the army smells even one ham baking or rib roasting, they will come salivating, and we will be revealed.”

  The people waited without a murmur, and passed not with their eyes lowered in shame as when receiving rations, but upright, and solemn nonetheless. Only Monkey Boy made mischief, blowing into one of the pig’s lungs to inflate it like a balloon, though the moment his mother yanked it away from his mouth, the organ went flat again. Otherwise the villagers took their bundles of meat in silence, saying perhaps a word of thanks or perhaps not, then sidled away, risking a curfew violation in order to receive more meat that night than in a month of rations. When everyone’s portion was gone, Odette collected the remains for sausage. The cleanup took hours, concluding close enough to the time Emma normally rose to make the Kommandant’s bread that she did not bother lying down at all. The wheelbarrow, which Fleur had given a thorough rinse, Emma returned to the rectory during morning Mass.

  Mémé rose in unexpectedly fair humor, much of the alcohol purged from her system before Emma put her to bed. A pair of swallows had nested in the barn eaves, and the old woman stationed herself nearby to watch their comings and goings.

  By contrast, the baguettes were browned on top and turned once in the oven before Thalheim presented himself at the baking-shed door. As ever, he had shaved as smooth as the back of a spoon, but his eyes were red and his face pale.

  “You people are barbaric,” he announced.

  Immediately Emma thought they had been discovered. He must have stirred during the night. He had seen, all was lost.

  “Whatever do you mean?” she replied, still as a statue in front of the dough she was mixing.

  “Drinking such filth. Any liquid that leaves a man feeling this ill in the morning is a poison.”

  She could not help smiling to herself. “I’m told it takes practice.”

  “Well,” he began, but then stopped, and wandered away.

  Emma watched him shuffle across the barnyard, holding himself like something breakable, until Pirate burst out from behind the old hog shed in full disaster, a long night’s frustration fueling his passion, crowing for all he was worth. Thalheim winced, hands to his ears, kicking in the bird’s direction, but the rooster darted out of reach without pausing the fierce defense of his territory. To Emma, seeing the captain in retreat from that noisy annoyance tasted better than bacon.

  The villagers obeyed her cooking instructions, neither smoking, roasting, nor frying the pork, enticing though the flavor would have been. For a culinary people, who in another time could have made a two-day village feast out of that pig, boiling was a masterpiece of restraint. Any regret at making that compromise, however, was overcome by the unfamiliar pleasure of a belly temporarily full of meat.

  Toward midday, Monkey Boy reached the special sycamore at the edge of the bluff above the beach, its trunk wider than the full stretch of his arms. He had already taken his daily drink from all three of the town’s water supplies: the eastern well just outside Emma’s barnyard door; the central well, which fed the village fountain as well as homes and shops along the square; and the western well, which offered the most dramatic views but could turn salty after especially fierce storms at sea.

  The special sycamore was not inviting to a climber, having no branches for the first three meters of its trunk. One limb spread wide over the bluff, however, sculpted by unrelenting ocean winds, and if Monkey Boy leaped his highest, the tree’s extremity hung just within his fingers’ grasp. He wrapped his hands above that limb, hooking his heels as well to hang beneath like a sloth, then shimmying arms and legs up that branch to the trunk. From there it was a scamper, laddering into the highest boughs. The perch he chose leaned this way and that, like the crow’s nest atop a sailing ship. He held the trunk with one arm, and observed.

  Here a crew on the beach below measured the height of the previous night’s tides. There the occupying army was driving steel beams into the sand, their jagged edges pointed out to sea, fitting mines to the tips. He counted two hundred and two. The evenness of the number pleased him. To Monkey Boy’s left, a gunnery officer instructed his men in something, pointing and pantomiming. To his right, villagers under armed guard built wooden forms and set steel rods for a future concrete pouring to serve as an antitank wall. This barrier stretched serpentine along the base of the bluff like a physical expression of the word “no.” Above it all stood a group of officers—nine of them, he tallied; Monkey Boy loved to count—overseeing the work, all of them shielded from the weather by a makeshift canvas canopy.

  In the distance the village rooftops showed through gaps in the trees, slate or tile or cedar shingles and a chimney, all organized around the spire of St. Agnes by the Sea. Monkey Boy tore off a handful of leaves and threw them in the village’s direction. They did not go far, though. Floating this way and that, they parachuted down through the branches. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful.

  But in the next moment, Monkey Boy realized that he had forgotten his body business again. It was exactly like whenever he’d found a hiding place as a little boy, and his mother was looking for him: the moment he had settled into his perfect secret spot, an urge to empty himself would arise, with no regard for the quality of his invisibility. Now it had happened again, and the ground below looked so far away. Not to mention the effort of climbing back again.

  Oh, it was urgent. All that drinking water, plus the gorging he had done on pig all night, his body unaccustomed to so much meat. Now it growled in his gut. There was no alternative. He undid the drawstring of his pants, opening the buttons in front. He slid the trousers down.

  A half-track of the occupying army motored under the huge tree, stopping directly beneath his bare bum. The vehicle idled there while two soldiers conferred before choosing the direction in which one of them had pointed, the engine rattling as the half-track clattered away. Gripping the trunk with one arm, Monkey Boy hung his backside over a limb above where the machine had paused. He began to giggle, smothering his mouth with a forearm. The mirth of his naughty idea erupted out of him, a guffaw in spite of himself, and he spoke to the branches surrounding him. “Bombs away.”

  A week later, Emma asked the Goat where he buried the tarp soaked with pig’s blood.

  “Where crows may go sometimes, but the occupying army never,” he replied. “Dog Hill.”


  In her café Odette deflected all praise of her butchering, instead spreading the legend that Emma had wrestled the pig to death. A success so great deserved a story as unlikely. From that night forward, everyone treated Emma with respect. Her age and gender no longer mattered; they had eaten well because of her.

  The priest stopped her on a lane in the village to remark upon it. “It would appear, Emmanuelle, that your sinful influence has prevailed among the weaker-willed of your neighbors. Fewer of them come to St. Agnes to confess.”

  Emma paused in pulling her wagon the opposite direction. “Maybe that’s because I’m not saying prayers with the enemy.”

  “The occupying soldiers, like us, are children of God.”

  “Then some children of God are murderers.” She began wheeling the wagon past. “Besides, I give our villagers something more nourishing than faith.”

  “There is no such thing,” he answered, limping alongside, trying to keep up. “Life without faith makes a hell on earth.”

  Emma shook her head and said no more. The Monsignor gimped a few more steps before stopping. “A hell on earth,” he yelled. If he added anything more, it was drowned out by the wooden wheels’ clatter on the village cobbles.

  But that conversation came a week after the butchering. On the day immediately following, everyone stumbled around as if in a daze. Moving at half speed, with soldiers of the occupying army scolding them for sluggishness, the sleep-deprived villagers nonetheless possessed a secret, and therefore a new power. Emma stood at the center, but everyone shared in it. Despite their fatigue, all day they winked or grinned at one another, as if the entire village had stayed up late making love.

  The hangover arrived one week later, in the form of the most terrifying man on earth.

  Part Four

  Umbrellas

  Chapter 18

  In April’s last days the apple boughs were flamboyant with blossoms, hundreds of varieties in rows a thousand trees long, pinking the hills and hollows, the world perfumed with softness and humming from the attentions of bees. The officer supervising construction of the seawall provided a prickly counterbalance, braying at the local men performing forced labor under his command.

  “When the Field Marshal visits tomorrow,” he bellowed, his face reddening as he struggled to be heard over the surf, “you will remove your caps out of respect. Failure to do so is unacceptable, and will bring severe penalties.”

  The men paused with their shovels and hoes, several reaching unconsciously to touch the brim of their caps. All men wore hats in those days, berets as common as pants.

  “Back to work,” the officer said, sauntering down the line of laborers. “And tomorrow you will remove your caps.”

  When the Field Marshal arrived the following afternoon, a caravan of cars and security officers preceding his open sedan with flags on all four corners, not one of the laborers was wearing a hat. They had come to work bareheaded, and that is how they toiled all day in the spring sun.

  As lackeys hovered on either side, the Field Marshal conducted a preliminary review, ordering measurements in one place, adjustments in another. Toward the end he peered down on the laborers and said a single word. “Sunburned.”

  “They are not wearing caps today,” the supervising officer said. “Out of respect for you.”

  The Field Marshal raised one eyebrow, whether out of pleasure or skepticism it was impossible to tell.

  “Sir,” the officer said, bowing and backing away, then turning to shout at the men to step lively and work harder.

  The next day dawned gusty with rain, metal-gray clouds hanging ponderous and low, and the Field Marshal in a comparable humor. Following an impulse of either courage or folly, the Kommandant suggested a diversion on the way to inspections farther up the coast. It might lift everyone’s spirits to meet the local woman he insisted was the finest baker anywhere. “An artist of flour,” he called her. The Field Marshal made a face, which the others took for affirmation, and the caravan detoured into Emma’s soggy barnyard.

  As the cars and truck stopped and the Kommandant explained himself to the assemblage, Emma fretted over whether a person unaccustomed to straw in his bread would notice. Either the Field Marshal would discover her subterfuge, or her baking would receive its highest compliment yet.

  But that was a fool’s vanity. If he tasted straw she would die, and her death would cause others to starve, Mémé first among them.

  Dry under an umbrella held by an aide, the Kommandant in his aristocratic lisp professed her praises to the waiting troops, his minions, his visiting superior officer. Emma said nothing, and knew what she knew.

  “Give the Field Marshal a taste,” the Kommandant said in her language. “Let him judge for himself.”

  Emma observed the Field Marshal frankly. He was a handsome man, with sharp cheekbones, his eyes soft as though they had witnessed great sadness, and a tentative manner that she decided might be a form of humility, because every person those gentle eyes fell upon was instantly seized with fear.

  “I apologize,” Emma said. “The bread is still baking.”

  “Mademoiselle, make me look good,” the Kommandant urged, his smile hardening.

  “Your aide normally comes at eight, and it is seven fifteen,” she explained. “I put the loaves in the oven only a moment ago. They must bake for nineteen minutes and cool for ten.”

  “You are saying this commander cannot have a sample?” The Kommandant stiffened. “I order you to give him bread.”

  “With respect, I cannot obey. All he will taste is hot dough.”

  He turned and said something to the Field Marshal, laughing, but it was a strange and strained sound that came out and the Field Marshal’s expression did not change.

  The Kommandant grabbed his aide’s green canvas bag and threw it at Emma’s feet. “You will bring the loaves to the command post on the bluff the moment they are done.”

  “That is six kilometers from here. Will you be sending a car or motorcycle?”

  By way of reply, the Kommandant climbed into his staff car and tapped on the roof. The vehicle sped away, the retinue of other cars and trucks close behind, splashing puddles and dirtying themselves with mud.

  After the last vehicle had lumbered down the lane, Pirate came charging out of the barn in full crow.

  “Oh, now you show up,” Emma said. But the bird only preened and pecked at the ground, pretending not to hear.

  As the loaves baked, Emma knew that there would be no satisfying the Field Marshal. If she made new dough, it was two kneadings and three risings away from the oven—hours upon hours. There was the beauty of baking and the frustration of it: the process could not be hurried, any more than a calf could be forced to grow or a tree to take root. Bread takes its own time. Therefore, if she made a new batch, without straw, she could not deliver loaves to the Kommandant till midafternoon, which would generate all manner of suspicions.

  No, she would have to bring compromised loaves to the command post, and pray that the Field Marshal’s taste buds were as undiscerning as the Kommandant’s. Donning oven mitts, she slid the baguettes one by one out of the heat and onto a cooling rack. The Vs were nearly invisible, fading as the bread torpedoes had crusted and browned.

  Emma was not concerned for her own well-being any longer. She had already accepted the losses inevitable to living in that difficult time. There would be no marriage or children, no home comforts or taste of prosperity. Pleasure had ended with her youth and it was not coming back. Philippe—how she ached for him, his affection, his innocence—would never return from conscription. Or if he did, it would be as a broken shell. The Allies would never invade; the occupying army was a permanent fact of life. Emma’s concern therefore lay with those who depended upon her, whose lives leaned on the crutch of her network. For her to die would be an act of abandonment. Somehow it was easier to worry about Mémé’s survival than her own.

  The command post was not that far. Emma covered a greater
distance in her rounds every day. Nor was she concerned that it had begun to rain in earnest, coming down like a cow peeing on a rock. Wet weather was something the villagers adapted to from birth, as readily as desert people to blazing sun and arctic people to ice. Primarily Emma felt the pressure of time: she had connections to make, trades to accomplish, and needs to satisfy before the evening curfew. The extra walk would compromise everything else, and fish on the dock would not keep unrefrigerated any more than chickens could lay without feed.

  She dug in a cabinet and found an umbrella—not for herself but for the bread, which she slid loaf by warm loaf into the green canvas bag of the Kommandant’s aide, hooking the umbrella handle in as well to keep the bread dry.

  Two baguettes remained on the drying rack. Could Mémé be trusted to deliver them? Not without risking much more than the bread. Could Emma leave the loaves for later? They might harden, or be seen by anyone passing by. Perhaps if she changed her route, asking certain people to make deliveries on her behalf.

  That was it. There were no alternatives. She eased the extra loaves in beside the others, threw the bag’s strap over her shoulder, and set out into the rain. She angled the umbrella to spare the bread, as if the end of the loaf were the face of a baby.

  Chapter 19

  Emma trudged down muddy lanes, angling against the rainfall. She had brewed extra tea to keep Mémé sedate while she was gone, though it was actually ground chicory and rose-ends, supplies of real tea having run out years before.

  Perhaps, Emma considered, she was walking to her execution. She had no alternatives, possessed no weapons. All she had was rage—which might be the better half of courage, but it had never won a war—and fourteen cooling loaves.