dawn.
The city of Paris was only just waking up, stretching and yawning and breaking its fast like it would on any other day. Morning, at least, was something the Gestapo could not control.
Shoshanna Dreyfus did not rise.
She never went to sleep.
Instead, she stood by the window by turns, sometimes breaking away, to turn, to watch Marcel where he lay sprawled across the bed they shared. His sleep undisturbed, his breathing even, his bare chest shimmering dully in the half-light, rising and falling like the tide.
Instead, she paced the empty lobby, already draped in swastikas. already filled with filth.
(She had wanted to spit out the bitter taste in her mouth as they had hung the bunting, the banners; she had refrained. It wouldn't do. She must wait. She chewed the soft flesh of her lip instead, trying to appear blank, clueless.)
Instead, she drank a glass of something without taste. Whether wine or water, she had no recollection. It didn't matter. And so, at dawn, when the rest of Paris was waking up, Shoshanna collapsed into her bed, cheek pressed into the cool pillow, curled up atop the sheet.
Tonight she must burn everything. Burn herself, burn Marcel, burn the life out of those bastards. The Nazi swine who would swarm into her cinema.
It was like burning bridges to light the way.
Shoshanna Dreyfus did not rise.
She never went to sleep.
Instead, she stood by the window by turns, sometimes breaking away, to turn, to watch Marcel where he lay sprawled across the bed they shared. His sleep undisturbed, his breathing even, his bare chest shimmering dully in the half-light, rising and falling like the tide.
Instead, she paced the empty lobby, already draped in swastikas. already filled with filth.
(She had wanted to spit out the bitter taste in her mouth as they had hung the bunting, the banners; she had refrained. It wouldn't do. She must wait. She chewed the soft flesh of her lip instead, trying to appear blank, clueless.)
Instead, she drank a glass of something without taste. Whether wine or water, she had no recollection. It didn't matter. And so, at dawn, when the rest of Paris was waking up, Shoshanna collapsed into her bed, cheek pressed into the cool pillow, curled up atop the sheet.
Tonight she must burn everything. Burn herself, burn Marcel, burn the life out of those bastards. The Nazi swine who would swarm into her cinema.
It was like burning bridges to light the way.