Below them there was no conversation. The major and the lieutenant unfurled their napkins and began their meal. Madame Ariane did not move. It was only after taking several mouthfuls of soup that the lieutenant observed this. With his head bent and his spoon arrested in front of his mouth, his single eye looked at her and then at the major, whose attention was thus caught. Suzie felt the menace as he slowly turned his head to look at Madame Ariane. The lieutenant was smiling. He was awaiting, and welcoming, an outburst. The major put down his spoon with exaggerated care, so that it did not chime on his bowl.

‘You’re not eating?’ he remarked.

‘Thank you, I prefer not.’

The tense silence that followed produced a spurt of adrenalin in Suzie. Madame Ariane appeared submissive; she kept her eyes lowered and said nothing.

The major smiled and lifted his spoon once again. ‘We won’t let your abstinence spoil our enjoyment. I believe,’ he went on, ‘that rigorous dieting is a way of life for fashionable Frenchwomen. A sign of their decadence. Nazi womanhood prizes strong healthy bodies to fulfil its duties of childbearing and homemaking.’

The lieutenant burst out laughing, and Suzie saw Madame Ariane relax slightly. The joke was on her, her action of defiance rebounding on her by the major’s acceptance of it. Suzie thought of the loose folds of Madame Ariane’s dresses, signs that she had once been rounded and filled them out. The agony of not eating the food twisted her own stomach.

The batman removed the soup dishes and placed plates in front of them, returning with a platter containing pieces of fowl and some vegetables, carrots and leeks.

‘What is this?’ the major asked, as the man went to serve him.

‘Guinea fowl, sir.’

One of Micheline’s, Suzie thought. Soon there would be nothing left for them.

‘Serve Madame first.’

The smell of the guinea fowl made Suzie’s saliva run. She clenched her belly to forbid its rumbling and betraying her hunger, hoping that Micheline had something good for them when they escaped from this torture. From the major’s expression, she guessed that he was enjoying Madame Ariane’s suffering.

‘This looks excellent,’ he remarked. ‘Cut it up for me.’ The batman approached and was waved away. ‘No, her not you, I want her to do it.’ He stared straight at her. ‘Cut it up for me.’

Madame Ariane did not move immediately. Suzie wondered if she had understood.

He repeated, ‘Cut it up for me.’

She rose tentatively and stood beside him. With one hand he pushed his plate in front of her. Taking her knife and fork she cut the meat into pieces, manoeuvring it off the breastbone, slicing the thigh meat from the leg. When she had finished, watched by all eyes around the table, she returned the plate to its position in front of the major and sat down again.

Then Suzie understood. She saw him pick up his fork in his right hand, while his left hand, still in its black leather glove, lay inert on the table. She wondered how far it was dead. To the wrist? To the elbow? To the shoulder?