When Vernhes decided to extend her role from gathering information to passing false information in the other direction, she had objected that her relationship with the German officers was not such that she was likely to tell them anything. They would be suspicious from the start. She begged not to have to do it. Vernhes had insisted. It was an order and he had the authority to give it. He was now the commander of the battalion of the United Resistance in the region.

The major made it easy for her. He liked to use force or the threat of force, so each occasion that she had something to tell him had the appearance of compulsion. Yet she knew that although he put his hand on the pulse of her neck, or struck her with his false hand, it was for show. She was in a cage made of her own submission and could not escape. The violence was unnecessary.

She had slept little and badly all the time that the Germans were in occupation of the house. Sometimes, sitting up in her bed at night watching the stars through the open window, she would tell herself that it was part of the skill of the bully to make the victim feel as if she were to blame, as if she had willed her own subjection. She did not convince herself. She should never have allowed herself to become his creature. She thought of Lucien Maniotte dying, silent, under torture; Henri beaten and starved in prison in Racines, and was filled with shame.

Yet the next time he used coercion, she submitted once again.

He would summon her late to the library, where he had made his office. When the summons came, her palms began to sweat lightly and she held them to her sides, pressing them into her cotton skirt to calm herself. He would be seated when she entered and kept her standing while he talked, a monologue, which required only a listener.

She saw his pistol lying on the blotter on the desk in front of him. She fixed her eyes on it as soon as she entered, its implicit threat stoking her terror of what he would require this time.

When he ordered her to approach, she did so. Would he have shot her if she had turned and run out of the room? She did not try to escape, so she never knew. Unbuttoning himself, he pushed her to her knees. When she turned her head aside, her eyes closed, his false hand rammed her face round; the gun in his right hand clattered against her teeth. He used it as a lever in a lock to force her mouth open, tearing her lip. Her head was held as if in a vice, that moved it like a machine, his false hand on one side, his live one, still holding the gun, its butt pressed against her skull. Her ears were full of the crackling of her hair.