Supplies were getting scarce, Cassis had explained when I had asked him about it. Even Germans had to eat. “And they eat like pigs!” he had continued with indignation. “You should see their canteen – whole loaves of bread, with jam and pâté and rillettes and cheese and salted anchovies and ham and sour cabbage and apple – you wouldn’t believe it!”

Leibniz closed the door behind him and looked around. Away from the other soldiers his posture was relaxed, more like a civilian’s. He reached in his pocket and lit a cigarette.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded at last. “We don’t have anything!”

“Orders, Backfisch,” said Leibniz. “Is your father about?”

“I don’t have a father,” I replied with a touch of defiance. “Germans killed him.”

“Ah. I’m sorry.” He seemed embarrassed, and I felt a little swell of pleasure inside. “Your mother, then?”

“Out back.” I glared at him. “It’s market day today. If you take our market stuff we won’t have anything left. We just manage as it is.”

Leibniz glanced around – a little shamefacedly, I thought. I saw him take in the clean tiled floor, the patched curtains, the scarred stripped – pine table. He hesitated.

“I have to do it, Backfisch,” he said softly. “I’ll be punished if I don’t obey orders.”

“You could say you didn’t find anything. You could say there was nothing left when you came.”

“Perhaps.” His eyes lit on the bucket of scraps by the window. “Fisherman in the family, is there? Who is it, your brother?”

I shook my head. “Me.”

Leibniz was surprised.

“Fishing?” he echoed. “You don’t look old enough.”

“I’m nine,” I said, stung.

“Nine?” Lights danced in his eyes, but his mouth stayed serious. “I’m a fisherman myself, you know,” he whispered. “What is it you fish for around here? Trout? Carp? Perch?”

I shook my head.

“What then?”

“Pike.”

Pikes are the cleverest of freshwater fish. Sly and cautious in spite of their vicious teeth, they need carefully selected bait to lure them to the surface. Even the smallest thing can make them suspicious: a fraction of a change in temperature; the hint of a sudden movement. There is no quick or easy way to do it; blind luck apart, catching pike takes time and patience.

“Well, that’s different,” said Leibniz thoughtfully. “I don’t think I could let down a fellow fisherman in trouble.” He grinned at me. “Pike, eh?”

I nodded.

“What d’you use, bloodworms or boluses?”

“Both.”

“I see.”

This time he did not smile; it was a serious business. I watched him in silence. It was a ploy that never failed to make Cassis uneasy.

“Don’t take our market stuff,” I repeated.

There was another silence. Then Leibniz nodded.

“I suppose I could manage to think of some story to tell them,” he said slowly. “You’d have to keep quiet, though. Or you could get me into real trouble. Do you understand?”

I nodded. It was fair. After all, he’d kept quiet about the orange. I spat on my palm to seal the bargain. He did not smile, but shook hands with perfect seriousness, as if this were an adult arrangement between us. I half-expected him to ask me for a favor in return, but he did not, and the thought pleased me. Leibniz wasn’t like the others, I told myself.

I watched him go. He did not look back. I watched him as he sauntered down the lane toward the Hourias farm and flicked his cigarette end into the outhouse wall, its glowing tip striking red sparks against the dull Loire stone.

I said nothing to Cassis or Reinette about what had occurred between Leibniz and myself. To have spoken of it to them would have robbed it of its potency. Instead I hugged my secret close, turning it over in my mind like a stolen treasure. It gave me a peculiarly adult feeling of power.