Miroslav pointed to the radio.

            Denmark, and Norway.

The newspapers next morning told stories in black letter of the Danes’ feeble resistance. Black arrows on a gray map speared the Norse coast above the Arctic Circle.

They couldn’t possibly mean Narvik could they?

Trn got down the atlas and Miroslav looked over the page with him.

Surely they mean Larvik.

They mean both, Miroslav said.

A mild May day a month later and the papers said the Wehrmacht had broken the frontier of the low countries. They heard the fanfare from the radio one afternoon that heralded an announcement of victory from the front and the armies of Italy had joined with those of the Reich and crossed into France. Crackling through the ether the miraculous waves brought them the boots of German soldiers parading past the Arc de Triomphe. Miroslav shook his head. Who would have thought those bastards could demolish in four weeks what they couldn’t touch before in four years? From the Eiffel Tower a flag with a black and crooked cross slapped the wind. Hitler was driven through the empty city to see it. 

They sat on the couch listening, he and Miroslav, Alena pacing with folded arms. Trn looked at the clock.

They’ll burn London now, Miroslav said. Like they did Rotterdam. Like Warsaw.

Is there not one man in Paris with a rifle and a rooftop? Alena said.

The toes of her shoes pointed at him.

And you. When the Germans came all you could do was tell me to fill the tub with water while you ran to the shop for bread.

Her heels cracked the parquet.

A historian, a student of history, that’s what you say you are and that’s all you could think to do.

Miroslav said, What would you have him do, Alena? Even the president said don’t resist.

Trn looked at his watch. I must leave to get Aleks.

And look where it’s got us, such strategy. At least that regiment in Silesia resisted.

And now they’re all dead, Miroslav said. Is that what you want, the whole country dead? Every city a smoking ruin? The hospitals and schools hulks of rubble and the people inside too?

Alena’s face crimped. Miroslav, Trn said, laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. She wiped at both eyes.

No, Miroslav said. Listen. Have you not read what this Luftwaffe does to bodies of flesh and bone? Do you need to put your hand into a charcoaled corpse? Had their bombers flown here you would have been the first crying like a Magdalene.

Why do you never do anything? Her voice trembled toward Trn. You sit there and you sit there and you never do anything.

The chair she flung herself into screeched upon the floor and they each stared at a different pattern in the carpet and there were no more trains west.

***