The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (43 page)

She could be in England. Now, at this moment, in England. But she’s here in France, which is where she’s meant to be, where she wanted to be, where her mission lies. She dozes, awkwardly, on a bench, trying to stay awake for the train announcements, her head falling towards her chest and then jolting upright.

Yvette. Did Yvette really give her away? Yvette, the mother whom she mothered. Yvette who slept with Emile. Once, that would have been impossible to imagine, yet now everything seems possible, even a voice calling her out of sleep saying, ‘Marian? Marian Sutro?’

‘Yes?’

It’s the oldest trick in the book. It’s the pitfall of bilingualism, the moment when the wrong switch is thrown, the wrong response given, the wrong word uttered.

Yes.

She’s not Marian Sutro, she’s Laurence Follette, student, living near Toulouse.

Yes
.

She looks round and they’re standing there, two men in dark blue suits and heavy overcoats, and between them, smiling faintly, the Alsatian woman.

It’s like the bullet that hits you – you never hear the shot being fired. She moves to rise from the bench but it’s too late, far too late. Someone has already grabbed her by the upper arms to hold her down. There’s a brief struggle to handcuff her while passengers look on indifferently. A girl being taken into custody. It happens all the time. Who knows why? Who cares?

Simon Mawer was born in England in 1948 and spent his childhood moving backwards and forwards from England to Malta and Cyprus. He has lived in Italy for over thirty years, teaching at an international school in Rome. He is the author of two works of non-fiction and eight other novels, including:
Mendel’s Dwarf,
which was longlisted for the Booker Prize;
The Fall,
which won the Boardman Tasker Prize;
A Jealous God; The Bitter Cross; The Gospel of Judas;
and
The Glass Room,
which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009.