The distant rumble and flashes made Franz Hofmaier uneasy. He knew the chance of a shell landing nearby was small, but in this cursed land unpleasant surprises were constant. The Russians were retreating, which was good — but were they preparing a counterattack? He thought about the enemy’s positions and those of his own unit. A bad feeling gnawed at him.

He opened the door of the battered Mercedes and stepped out, lighting a cigarette. His boots already looked like pig farmer’s galoshes — mud everywhere, thick and sticky.

The village they had taken a few hours ago, Gordeyevo, had a single street. The houses were wooden, with straw roofs. The church looked ridiculous with its damp-darkened walls and copper domes that over time had taken on the color of moldy cheese. Misery everywhere. The only decent building was the schoolhouse, where until recently the Russians had treated their wounded.

Hofmaier approached the gate and flicked away his cigarette butt. The soldiers on guard raised their hands in salute. Just then one of the sappers, Brückner, ran up.

“Sturmbannführer, we found nothing. The cellars are clean. But we’re still checking.”

“They didn’t have time to plant explosives — we surprised them.”

“So it seems. Still, you might want to wait a few more hours.”

“No, no, I’ll go in. I need to see where we’ll quarter the officers.”

“As you wish.”

“Actually — is it completely empty inside?”

“Yes, they took all their junk. In the infirmary section there’s only one corpse and one wounded woman.”

“Hm,” Hofmaier grunted and headed for the entrance. He felt a pang of irritation seeing the broken windows.

In the classroom there were about twenty cots. A half-naked dead soldier lay frozen in an unnatural pose on the floor, his glassy eyes staring in horror at the flies swarming on the ceiling. On the bed in the corner lay a young woman, covered up to her neck with a torn gray blanket. She gave the officer a cold look and turned her head toward the window. Her hair was long and black, her face deathly pale.

“We checked her, she’s unarmed,” one of the sappers called out.

“Why did they leave her?”

“No idea, Herr Sturmbannführer.”

“Do you speak German?” he asked gently, turning to the wounded woman.

“No,” she replied with a mocking smile.

“Really?”

“Really. I know only a few German words.”

“French?”

“Oh yes,” she sighed. In her black eyes there flashed a trace of curiosity.

For some reason Hofmaier had expected her to know French. Her expression radiated a kind of aristocratic dignity that didn’t fit the miserable surroundings at all.

“Remove this carcass!” he ordered the nearby soldiers, pointing at the dead Russian. Then he turned to the woman and spoke in French:

“Why did they abandon you here?”

“Well ... I can’t move, and I would have taken up too much space in the truck. They just told me there was no room for me.”

Hofmaier approached and pulled back the blanket. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t lying about her condition — he was sick of the filthy tricks of the communists.

The woman was encased in plaster up to her chest. Her legs were immobilized in a spread position, with a one-meter wooden rod wedged between her ankles. Only her toes — discolored and smeared with iodine — and the inner parts of her thighs near the groin were visible. The cast widened at the hips, narrowed elegantly at the waist, and widened again. One strap of her surprisingly clean white bra had snapped, revealing the upper edge of the areola of her left breast.

“Now are you convinced I’m not dangerous?” she asked, frowning angrily. Her hands trembled nervously, drawn up behind her shoulders.

“Forgive me,” the officer said, turning away to hide his blush. For the first time since the war began, he felt awkward. He covered the Russian woman again and went to the window to light a cigarette.