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It was widely known that the army of occupation
Was in full retreat. The small provincial
roads
Rumbled now every night with tanks and trucks,
Echoed with cries in German, much mach schnell,
Zuruck, ganz richtig, augenblicklich, jawohl,
Audible in the Normandy countryside.
So it had been for days, or, rather, nights,
The troops at first making their moves at
darkness,
But pressures of haste toward the end of
March
Left stragglers to make their single ways
alone,
At their own risk, and even in daylight
hours.
Since the soldiers were commandeering
anything
They needed—food, drink, vehicles of
all sorts—
One rural family dismantled their bicycle,
Daubed the chrome parts—rims, sprockets,
spokes—with mud,
And wired them carefully to the upper boughs
Of the orchard. And the inevitable came
In the shape of a young soldier, weighted
down
With pack and bedroll, rifle, entrenching
tools,
Steel helmet and heavy boots just after
dawn.
The family were at breakfast. He ordered
them out
In front of the house with abusive German
words
They couldn’t understand, but gesture
and rifle
Made his imperious wishes perfectly clear.
They stood in a huddled group, all nine
of them.
And then he barked his furious command:
Fahrrad! They all looked blank. He shouted
again:
FAHRRAD! FAHRRAD! FAHRRAD!, as though sheer
volume
Joined with his anger would make his meaning
plain.
The father of the family experimentally
Inquired, Manger? The soldier, furious,
At last dredged up an explosive Bicyclette,
Proud of himself, contemptuous of them.
To this the father in a small pantomime—
Shrugged his shoulders, palms turned out,
a helpless, long,
Slow, shaking of the head, then the wide
gesture
Of an arm, taking in all his property —
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Conveyed, "Nous n’avons
pas de bicyclettes"
More clearly than his words. To the young
soldier
This seemed unlikely. No one could live
this far
From neighbors, on a poor untraveled road
That lacked phone lines, without the usual
means
Of transport. There was no time to search
The house, the barn, the cowsheds, coops,
pens and grounds.
He looked at the frightened family huddled
together,
And with the blunt nose of his rifle barrel
Judiciously singled out the eldest son,
A boy perhaps fourteen, but big for his
years,
Obliging him to place himself alone
Against the white-washed front wall of the
house.
Then at the infallible distance of ten feet,
With rifle pointed right at the boy’s
chest,
The soldier shouted what was certainly meant
To be his terminal order: BICYCLETTE!
It was still early on a chilly
morning.
The water on the tire-treads of the road
Lay clouded, polished pale and chalked with
frost,
Like the paraffin-sealed coverings of preserves.
The very grass was a stiff lead-crystal
gray,
Though splendidly prismatic where the sun
Made its slow way between the lingering
shadows
Of nearby fence-posts and more distant trees.
There was leisure enough to take full note
of this
In the most minute detail as the soldier
held
Steady his index finger on the trigger.
It wasn’t charity. Perhaps
mere prudence,
Saving a valuable round of ammunition
For some more urgent crisis. Whatever it
was,
The soldier reslung his rifle on his shoulder,
Turned wordlessly and walked on down the
road
The departed German vehicles had taken.
There followed a long silence,
a long silence.
For years they lived together in that house,
Through daily tasks, through all the family
meals,
In agonized, unviolated silence.
- Anthony Hecht
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