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glanced at the other girls in the cafe, with American soldiers, but he was quick to shake his head. “No, no … not like that… more …” He indicated “bigger” with his hands, and she looked sadly at him as though she knew better.
    “ Ça n'existe pas … it do not exist.”
    “What doesn't?”
    She touched her heart and indicated “bigger,” as he had.
    “Have you lost someone in the war? …”He hated to ask, “Your husband?”
    Slowly she shook her head, and then not knowing why, she told him. “My father … my brother … the Germans kill them … my mother die of tuberculose. … My father, my brother, dans la Résistance.”
    “And you?”
    “ J'ai soigné ma mére … I … take sick my mother …”
    “You took care of your mother?” She nodded.
    “ J'avais peur ”—she waved her hand in annoyance at herself, and then indicated fright—“ de la Résistance … because my mother she need me very much…. My brother was sixteen …” Her eyes filled with tears then, and without thinking he reached out and touched Solange's hand, and miraculously she let him, for an instant at least, before drawing it away to take another sip of tea, which gave her the breather she needed from the emotions of the moment.
    “Do you have other family?” She looked blank. “More brothers? Sisters? Aunts and uncles?”
    She shook her head, her eyes serious. She had beenalone for two years now. Alone against the Germans. Tutoring to make enough money to survive. She had often thought of the Resistance after her mother died, but she was too frightened, and her brother had died such a pointless death. He hadn't died for glory, he had died betrayed by one of their French neighbors. Everyone seemed to be collaborating, and a traitor. Except for a handful of loyal Frenchmen, and they were being hunted down and slaughtered. Everything had changed. And Solange along with it. The laughing, ebullient girl she had once been, had become a smoldering, angry, distant woman. And yet this boy had somehow reached out and touched her and she knew it. Worse yet, she liked it. It made her feel human again.
    “How old are you, Solange?”
    “ Dix-neuf …” She thought about it for a minute, trying to find the right numbers in English. “Ninety.” She said quietly and then he laughed at her, and shook his head.
    “No, I don't think so. Nineteen?” Suddenly, she realized what she had said, and she laughed too, for the first time, looking suddenly young again and more beautiful than ever. “You look terrific for ninety.”
    “ Et vous? ” She asked the same question of him.
    “Twenty-two.” It was suddenly like boy-and-girl exchanges anywhere, except that they had both seen so much of life. She in Paris, and he with his bayonet, killing Germans.
    “ Vous étiez étudiant? … student?”
    He nodded. “At a place called Harvard, in Boston.” He was still proud of it, even now, oddly enough with her it still seemed to matter, and he was doubly proud when he saw a light of recognition in her eyes.
    “ 'Arvard?”
    “You've heard of it?”
    “ Bien sÛr … of course! … like la Sorbonne, no?”
    “Probably.” He was pleased that she knew it, and they exchanged a smile. The tea and bread and cheese were long gone, but she didn't seem so anxious to leave now. “Could I see you tomorrow, Solange? To go for a walk maybe? Or lunch? … dinner?” He realized how hungry she was now, how little food she probably had, and he felt it his duty to feed her.
    She started to shake her head and indicated the books in the string bag.
    “After? … or before? … please … I don't know how long I will be here.” There was already talk of their leaving Paris and moving on to Germany, and he couldn't bear the thought of leaving her. Not now … not yet … and maybe not ever. It was his first taste of puppy love, and he was totally in her thrall as he gazed into the green eyes that seemed so much gentler now, and so full of