Violins of Autumn Read Online Free PDF

horse-drawn cart waits.
    Denise stops to stroke the white blaze between the horse’s huge chestnut-brown eyes. “Look at you, you beauty. You look just like my Gingersnap.”
    The horse’s nose twitches up to reveal a toothy smile.
    Pierre turns at the waist. “You—” he says. “What’s your name again?”
    I glance side to side, supposing he means me, since Denise is still getting acquainted with the horse.
    “Adele.”
    “Adele, the bags of clean laundry go in the cart,” he says as he enters the barn.
    I wander closer. Beyond the doors, two bulging duffel bags sit propped against each other on the cement floor. I struggle to lift one, wondering if it’s filled with rocks. Together, Denise and I carry the bags to the cart and heave them over the backboard.
    “I’ll go tell him we’re finished loading the bags,” I say.
    Even with the double doors wide open, the interior of the barn dims within my first tentative steps. The containers and supplies we dropped are nowhere to be seen. Everything appears normal, giving no sign of Pierre’s involvement with the Resistance.
    He isn’t in the main section of the barn, so I walk farther inside.
    “Don’t touch that!”
    I spin around with my hand over my pounding heart. Through a trapdoor in the floor, Pierre emerges. At the top of the ladder, he effortlessly hauls himself out of an underground chamber. He fits the door into place and covers it with a hay bale.
    “I wasn’t touching a thing,” I say.
    He points to a grimy canvas sheet draped over what looks to be, from its lumpy shape, an unusually big bicycle.
    “You weren’t touching that?”
    “N-no, I wasn’t,” I stammer. “I came to tell you we’ve loaded the laundry.”
    “You managed to get the sacks into the cart?”
    “Well, yes,” I say warily. “Do you need us to load anything else?”
    “No, that’s all. You and the other girl climb into the wagon. You can sit on the hay.”
    I trudge back and meet up with Denise at the cart.
    Pierre tosses two more burlap sacks into the back and takes his place up front. He steers us down a laneway that runs the length of the property between the barn and the road. I hold tightly to the side rail to keep from bumping around.
    “Should you be traveling in broad daylight, Pierre?” Denise asks. “What if you’re caught transporting supplies?”
    “This area is very remote,” he says. “That’s why men who escape the compulsory labor service are drawn to these forests. We rarely see Germans pass through anymore, and usually they are on the move to somewhere else. The towns and cities are risky, yes, but not here. That will change when the invasion comes, of course. Then all the major roadways will be clogged with Germans heading north.”
    I can’t blame anyone for running away from the compulsory labor draft, the
Service du Travail Obligatoire
, created in response to Germany’s employment woes. With the majority of their workforce at war, they need replacement workers, and France has plenty of people. Problem solved. Does the injustice of taking men and women against their will not matter to the Germans? Do they even see it as an injustice to begin with?
    The horse plods down the country road. I could outpace it on my bicycle.
    Denise laughs. “Pierre, your vehicle is literally the one-horsepower model. She’s a beauty, but not very speedy.”
    He hunches further in on himself, clutching the reins. “I had a car before the war. A sleek metallic-gray Simca. I held on to it for a while, but at what cost? My mother was going without laundry soap and sugar, and standing in line for hours for a lousy fifth of a pound of butter. With fuel rationed, the pumps drying up, and no petrol coupons to be had, I was left admiring a car I could not even drive. When the war is over, I’ll have another car. I’ll drive it fast and whenever I choose.”
    The cart rolls to a stop on a secluded side road. Pierre leaps down and strides to a mass of overgrown