“We can’t leave him”: the day the father found out about his daughter’s pregnancy
Before I open the door to this secluded farmhouse, where honor is heavier than life, I ask you for one important gesture. This is history. The stories of thousands of Chimene women have been erased from family archives. If you believe that suffering deserves to be told on the Secret Forbidden War program, subscribe now and turn on notifications.
This is your way to break the silence. And write comments where you are watching this video from tonight. Paris, Docar, Brussels or Montreal? Your presence gives us the strength to tell the unspeakable. Now get ready. This is not a story of a war with weapons. It’s a silent war that goes on in the kitchen between father and daughter. We can’t hide it.
Part one. Salanz’s victim. I beg you, father, don’t do this. My name was Salanz. I was 18 years old in 1943. I was not a member of the resistance. I didn’t plant bombs on the train tracks. I was just the daughter of Armand, a farmer from Claude Pierre, a village lost in the Christian fog.
My father was a hero of 1941. He left his left leg in the mountains and his heart in the trenches. All he has left is pride. Solid pride, sharp as flint. For him, his family was his temple, and his reputation his roof. If the roof leaked, the house would collapse, but the roof had been leaking for a long time, ever since the Germans requisitioned the village hall to make it the office of the local tower commander.
This is where it all began. Not in a dark forest, but under the harsh light of an administrative building. We were starving. The farm stopped producing enough crops. The German requisitions took everything from us: wheat, butter, meat. One October morning we received a summons. The father was suspected of hiding grain. It was a lie.
We had nothing, but suspicion was enough to send a person to deportation or, even worse, to execution. My father couldn’t walk to the village with his worn-out wooden leg. Go, Salanch, he told me. Explain it to them. You speak their language a little . You learned it at school. Save us. I left.
I put on my best dress, my Sunday best, to make a good impression. I braided my hair. I wanted to save my father. I didn’t know I would lose myself. The head of the department was named Captain Weibre. He was not old. He had grey eyes, cold and calculating. He didn’t scream, he was even worse. He was polite. When I entered, he sent out his adjutant.
He locked the door. I heard the click of the lock and knew the trap had worked. He sat on the edge of the table, playing with his whip. “Miss Salanch,” he said quietly. Your father is in a difficult position when it comes to opening his funds. In Germany, he cannot be sent to forced labor or to prison in Tula. That’s not true, captain.
We have nothing . “I know,” he interrupted. I know you have nothing, but my reports say otherwise, and I have to believe them. If only he stood up and came closer to me. He smelled of a different cologne and light tobacco. The scent of luxury was in stark contrast to my poverty. Unless we come to an agreement. He put his hand on my shoulder.
I shuddered. You are a beautiful girl. Salanch. Very decent, very French. I stepped back. Let me go. I will pay the fine. I will work, he said. You don’t have money, but you have something else. He pinned me against the wall. His face was a few centimeters from mine. You come here twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
After the offices close, you clean up and keep me company. If you do this, your father’s business will disappear. If you refuse, Gistapa will come for the old man tomorrow morning. Limping, I thought about my father, his pride, and my mother, already crying from fear. I was 18. I had never known a man.
I closed my eyes and said, “Yes.” It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even a desire on his part. It was scabies. I came, he was drawing the curtains. He coldly, methodically, without taking off his shoes, sat me down on the leather sofa. I looked at the ceiling. I counted the cracks in the plaster. I told myself: “This is for dad, this is for mom.
” When it was all over, he would give me a smuggled pass, and sometimes a can of sardines or a piece of chocolate. Payback for shame. I ran back to the farm. I washed my skin with ice water and black soap up to 100% to get rid of the smell, but what’s inside can’t be washed away. Then the nausea started.
At first I thought it was stress, fear, but my body changed. My chest felt heavy and the blood stopped flowing. I understood. Captain Weber left me a souvenir. A German parasite was growing in my French belly. I tried to hide it. I wore wide aprons, I tightened my belt. But on a farm in winter, when everyone lives in one heated room, you can’t hide anything.
The day of revelation came one December evening. We were sitting at the table. Cabbage soup. The smell made me sick. I stood up to vomit from the plate. When I turned around, my father was looking at me. He put down his spoon. His dull blue eyes were fixed on my waist. He saw, he understood, how long – he asked.
His voice was calm. For peace. It was the calm before the storm. My mother, Sicil, froze. What are you talking about, Arman? Shut up, Cicile. He stood up and came towards me. Knock, knock. The sound of his wooden leg. Who? I started to tremble. Dad, who is this? he shouted, slamming his fist on the table.
This is little Martin, Pecker’s son. Tell me it’s him. If it’s him, we’ll marry you tomorrow and that will be the end of it. I started crying. How I wish it was Martin. Martin was kind, but I couldn’t lie. If I had lied and the child had been born blond with grey eyes, everyone would have known. No, dad.
That’s also true. Where are you going? I lowered the commander’s head from the tower, and silence reigned in the kitchen . Dead silence. Heavier than lead. Father despaired. It was like I hit him. Commander, you are with them. It was for you. And I cried through tears. This was before he arrested you. The web blackmailed me.
I did it to save us. I thought he would understand. I thought he would see my victim. What he will see, what lengths I went to so that he remains pure. But I was wrong. Arman did not see the victim. He saw only desecration. He looked at me with disgust that I will never forget. You slept with a German.
You keep a German bastard under my roof. He turned to my mother. Did you hear that, Tsisil? Your daughter is a soldier. My mother cried into her apron. Arman, she wanted to protect us. She has disgraced us, he roared. It would be better to be deported than to be Fritz’s grandfather.
What will they tell the village? And the heroes’ daughter, Verdina, spreads her legs in front of the enemy. He paced the kitchen, breathing heavily, then stopped. He made a decision. Military decisions are put into practice in order to save the body. He pointed at me. We can’t leave her. Dad: “No, this child will never be born as long as I live. There will be no German blood in this family.
But this is my child, and I’m scared. I don’t want to die.” You should have thought about that before you opened your legs to the invader. He looked at my mother. Collect her things. Tomorrow at dawn we will go to our mother. My mother screamed in horror: “Witch, Armand, this is dangerous. She uses dirty needles. You will kill your daughter.
” My daughter died the same day she walked into this office. “It’s cold,” he replied. He sat down again, took a spoon and began to eat the soup as if nothing had happened. I leaned against the sink, holding my stomach with my hands in horror. I didn’t cry anymore. I froze in place. I saved my father from the camps.
And in gratitude he sent me to the slaughter. It was not yet dawn when my father entered my room. He was wearing a long wool coat and his hat was pulled down over his eyes. He didn’t turn on the light. “Get up,” he said. “Of course I obeyed.” I slept in my clothes. Huddled under the blanket, shivering with cold and terror. I put on my boots.
My hands were so numb that I couldn’t even tie my shoelaces. My mother was waiting for me in the kitchen. She brewed inedible black coffee from roasted barley. Her eyes were red and swollen. She came up to me. She held a thick woolen scarf in her hands. She wrapped it around my head, covering my hair, my face up to my eyes.
“Cover yourself properly,” she whispered. Her voice trembled. “No one must recognize you on the road. If they see you, keep your head down.” She slipped something into my pocket. A clean, embroidered handkerchief, so I could squeeze it. She blew on it if it hurt too much. Father stamped his foot. ” Enough, Jeremiah, and Sisil, let’s go.
” He opened the door. The cold hit us. It was pitch black outside, a heavy, silent snow was falling, covering the world with a white blanket. We went outside, and the journey began. It was a five-kilometer ordeal through the forest. Father walked ahead. I walked two steps behind him, like a prisoner or like a dog being led to drown.
The silence of the forest was oppressive, broken by an ominous, binary rhythm that will remain imprinted in my memory until the day I die. Chris. Knock. Chris knock. The sound of his good boot crunching on the snow, a sharp, dull thud, his wooden legs, the frozen ground. He limped, struggling.
The snow was deep in places . I saw him stagger. His left shoulder buckled from the strain. At one point, he slipped on a hidden patch of greenery. He almost fell. Reflexively and out of filial love, I rushed to his aid. I reached out for his hand. Dad, be careful. He straightened up abruptly and pushed me away with a strong elbow. “Don’t touch me,” he croaked.
He looked at me with pure hatred. “Don’t touch me with your filthy hands.” I froze in the middle of the path, my hand raised. This refusal hurt more than any slap. He didn’t even want my help anymore. I had become untouchable, contagious. He continued on his way, his back bent, stubborn: “Slapped, slapped! I followed him. I cried quietly.
Tears instantly froze on the eyelashes. We turned off the main road onto a cattle trail that led down into the swamp. The smell has changed. The air was thick with the smell of stagnant water, dirt and rotten beef. The widow’s hut appeared in the morning fog . It was crooked, made of black boards and long corrugated ta.
A pungent yellowish smoke was pouring out of the chimney . On the fence, pots with rabbit meat, as hard as cardboard, were drying. The place smelled of poverty and death. My father knocked on the door. Three sharp knocks. The door opened slightly. From inside he brought boiled cabbage and old rags. A fat widow has appeared. She was small, thin as a vine. with huge, gnarled hands and black nails.
She looked at my father, then at me. She smiled. She was missing two front teeth. Ah, this is Armana’s father, baby. Come in, come in. It’s not warm enough outside for sinners. We entered. The only room was dark, lit by a fire in the fireplace and a smoking kerosene lamp. In the center stood a large rustic oak table covered with cracked red oilcloth.
There is a large pot of boiling water on the stove. On the workbench I saw various things: the one with the chipped enamel, a red rubber enema on a gray cloth, long metal shackles, knitting needles, bicycle spokes. I felt my legs give way. My father, he did not take off his hat, he took out a small canvas bag from his pocket. put it on the table.
It made a metallic ringing sound. Silver coins, farm savings. The price of our survival next winter. This is all I have, he said. Vdoval took the bag, shook out the contents and nodded. This will do. Your daughter is a tough nut. Everything should be fine. She turned to me. She looked at me as if she was judging the church of births. Take off your panties.
girl and lie down on the table. I looked at my father for the last time. Dad, please, can we go home? I’ll say that I lost my child. Nobody will know. He didn’t look at me. He looked at the fire. Do as she says. I’ll be waiting for you outside. You leave me alone. I don’t want to see this. I don’t want. I didn’t hear it right.
When it’s all over, knock on the window. He turned around. He went out. The door closed. I found myself alone with the witch. A heavy silence reigned again. Is it disturbed by the sound of water gurgling in the boiler? Widow Hera wiped her hands from the dirty apron. Come on, don’t make that face.
You are not the first, you are not the last. Soldiers leave their mark, don’t they ? She took a rubber bulb. Lie down on the table, spread your legs and, most importantly, don’t move. If you move, I will pierce your womb, and then Father Armand will not pay anything, because he will have to pay for the funeral.
Besides, I, trembling with shame and cold, took off my clothes. I climbed onto the ice client. I looked up at the black ceiling beams above. I clenched my mother’s handkerchief in my teeth. The widow approached with her tools. I closed my eyes and thought about Captain Weber’s face. I thought about my father. standing on the street in the snow about two men in my life.
One brought me here out of lust, the other out of pride. I’m the one who will bleed. I won’t go into details of what happened on that table. There are pains that cannot be expressed in words. Pains that belong to the body and die with it. I’ll just say one thing: I didn’t scream. I bit higher into the scarf of my sea until my teeth pierced the fabric.
I tasted the salt of my tears and the iron of my own blood. I looked at the crack in the ceiling beam. I focused on this crack. I said to myself: “I am a crack, I am not flesh. I am dead wood.” Widow Fat worked quickly, without emotion, as if she were feeding on chicken. I heard the sound of instruments, the sound of water, her ragged breathing, and then a searing pain, sharp as lightning, pierced my stomach to my spine.
My body arched involuntarily. “Here!” – the widow grumbled. The bag is pierced. Nature will do the rest. She stepped back . She threw something from the table knife into the bucket . Soft knock, get up. But be careful, everything will work out. I sat down. The room was shaking. Black spots appeared before my eyes.
I looked at my legs. There was a little blood, but fresh, bright red. The widow handed me several rags of old grey rags. Put them in your underwear. Squeeze tightly and drink it. She gave me a glass of thick brown liquid. These are spanjarzhi from contractions. It will ease the pain. I drank it. It was unbearably hot.
I felt sick, but I held back. I wanted it to end. I wanted to empty myself. I got rid of it. My fingers could no longer find the buttons. I was like a broken, tattered doll. The widow opened the door. Dawn broke. A grey, dirty, sunless day. My father was there. He leaned against a tree, smoking a pipe. He looked at the crows in the sky.
He didn’t look at the hut. When the door creaked, he turned around. He sought my gaze. For a split second I saw the problem, but his face immediately froze like an armored door. “Is it over?” – he asked the widow. “It’s over, Armand, take her.” She mustn’t catch a cold. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t say goodbye.
He clicked his heels. Silk. He continued on his way to the forest. I had to run to catch up with him. Every step was torture. Every time I stepped on the ground, it felt like there was a knife writhing inside me. Warm liquid flowed between her thighs, soaking the rags. I felt dirty. I felt empty.
The way back was longer than the way there. I was lagging behind . I tripped over roots hidden under the snow. At some point I fell. My knees hit the observance. I lay on all fours, watching the red drops fall from my skirt onto the snow. White, like pebbles in a children’s book.
But I didn’t want to look for the way back. I wanted to get lost. I wanted to fall asleep there in the cold and never wake up again. My father stopped 10 meters further. He didn’t fit. “Get up, Salanch,” he said without turning around, “ we’re not stopping. If we stop, we’ll freeze. It hurts, Dad. Pain can be tamed. Go. That’s the price.
A price is always a price. I got up. I walked. I walked out of hatred. I walked so as not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me die in the snow. When we arrived at the farm, my mother was waiting for us at the threshold. She was pale as a sheet. As soon as she saw me, she ran up. She hugged me before I fell.
She smelled of linen and pain. My baby, my poor baby. She almost carried me to the bed. She undressed me. She saw the blood-soaked sheets . She cried, but quietly, so as not to upset him. Father remained in the kitchen with tears. He poured himself a glass of wine. He sat by the fireplace and stretched his good leg toward the warmth.
He had done his mission. Honor was saved. The problem was solved. I spent the day in a half-sleep, lulled by the cramps that twisted my stomach. Mother changed the bed linen. She gave me herbal teas. It will pass, she said. This feud is going away. Tomorrow you will be as good as new. But it was not so. In the evening, the temperature rose.
It was not a light fever, it was a raging fire. I began to shiver. My teeth chattered so hard that I could not speak. I was cold, terribly cold. And yet I was covered in sweat. My stomach became hard as a stone and hot, scalding to the touch. Mother came to me with a candle. Seeing my face, she screamed, choked. You are red, brick red.
Armand, Armand, come quickly. Father came in. He had a newspaper in his hand. He leaned over me. He put his hand on my forehead, immediately removed it. Jaud, he noticed. We must call a doctor. Armand, to Dr. Lucroy. No, the word fell as if nearby. Armand, she will die. Look at her. If we call a doctor, he will see, my father said calmly.
He will see what we have done. He will see the infection. He must report the abortions to the police. Do you want me to end up in jail? Do you want people to find out? I don’t care about jail. She is your daughter. For the first time in her life, my mother dared to confront my father. She stood up in a damp apron with slight anger. I will go myself.
My father grabbed her by the hand. He roughly lifted her onto the bed. No one is leaving. We will treat it ourselves with alcohol compresses and prayer. And the infection, it happens. The woman is strong, she has peasant blood in her . It will spill out. He looked at me. I came to my senses at times. I saw his blue eyes.
There was no more anger . Now there was fear. Panic, which he tried to mask with authority. He had played with fire, and now the house was burning. Sleep, Salanch, he said more quietly. Lud, don’t give up. He left. My mother stayed. She spent the night changing the cold compresses on my forehead. I was delirious. I saw things.
I saw Captain Vebi laughing, handing me chocolate that had turned to coal. I saw a fat widow with needles instead of fingers. And I saw a baby, a tiny blond child, crying into the snow. And I couldn’t. I had to leave, because my legs were paralyzed. Around 3 a.m., the pain changed. It was no longer a cramp, it was poison spreading throughout my body.
The widow’s needle was unclean. Tetanus, sepsis, gangrene. I didn’t know the name of the disease. I only knew that it was winning. I grabbed the mat by the hand. Mom, I’m scared. I don’t want to go to hell. You won’t go to hell, my angel, you’re a victim. God knows that. But God seemed far from the truth that morning I couldn’t move my legs anymore.
My stomach was purple. The silence in the house was no longer the silence of mystery. It became the silence of agony. On the third day, a smell appeared. It was n’t the smell of illness, it was a sickening, disgusting smell, like forgotten meat, the salty and damp smell of gangrene. My stomach turned into a hard wooden board, covered in purple veins.
I could no longer bend my legs. The pain was no longer localized. It was everywhere: in the blood, in my breath, in my hair. It was as if I was floating in a cottony fog. I saw my mother crying at the foot of the bed. She no longer changed the bed linens. There was nothing to wipe. The blood stopped flowing. Her hotel was on lockdown.
an infection that had infected everything. My father no longer entered the room. He remained in the kitchen, sitting on his straw chair, the gun clean again and again . Click, click, click. He stood guard over his crime. Around noon, the muffled silence of the snow was broken.
The powerful mechanical roar of an engine. It was not the neighbor’s tractor, it was a city engine, a military engine. My mother rushed to the window. She pulled back the red drapery curtain. She turned with a guilty face, clutching her throat. Armand, a black car with a flag. My father stood. The chair scraped on the floor. I heard a heavy thud. his wooden legs.
He lowered the rifle. He couldn’t shoot at the service car. “Hide!” he ordered in an even voice. “Throw the linen in the agon, close the two bedrooms, but you can’t hide death when it’s already in the walls.” I heard how The car doors slammed shut, German voices in the yard, short shouts of orders, then a knock on the front door, an authoritative knock that didn’t ask permission.
“Open up!” – my father opened. Cold gushes into the house. It was followed by the sound of polishing the floor. I recognized the voice. This polite voice. The icy man who whispered terrible things to me at the town hall. Captain Weybor. “Mr. Armand,” he said. Your daughter did not come to work either yesterday or today.
She is ill, captain, my father replied. Highly contagious flu. Really. flu that prevents her from even going out for socializing. “I don’t like the lack of discipline,” Armant said. “When there is an agreement, you keep it.” I heard Weber’s footsteps approaching the kitchen. He sniffed. It smells strange here , it seems he has gone silent.
He recognized the smell. He was a soldier. He knew the smell of infected wounds. Where is she? She’s sleeping, captain. Don’t disturb her. Step aside. I heard a noise. The muffled scream of my mother, the sound of my father’s stumbling feet. My bedroom door swung open. The harsh daylight blinded me.
Weber’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a long grey leather coat and a fur cap. He was huge. He came in, saw, saw my waxy face, chapped lips, sweat stuck to my forehead. He saw the unnatural shape of my belly under the sheet. He came closer. He didn’t take off his gloves. He lifted the sheet.
My mother screamed, “Don’t touch her.” Ver ignored my mother. He looked. He saw purple spots rising up my thighs. He carefully lowered the sheet back down. He turned to my father, who was still standing in the doorway, pale as death but straight as a rod. “What have you done?” – asked Webr. His voice was no longer polite. He was dangerous.
My father did not answer. Weber stepped towards him. He grabbed him by the collar of his flannel shirt and threw him against the wall. “I’m a doctor by training, Arman,” the officer hissed. “I know what I see.” Sepsis after abortion. You sent him to Artarius. My father met his gaze. My family’s honor is none of your concern. Webr laughed.
Dry, joyless laughter. He threw my father aside like a dirty rag. Honor. Are you talking about honor? You chose to kill her. How to take responsibility? He turned to me. He looked at me with a strange expression. It wasn’t pity, but anger. The master’s anger. I belonged to him, and my father destroyed me.
She was my child. Weber demanded cruelly. I didn’t have the strength to answer. I just closed my eyes. “Yes, it was your child,” my mother screamed, falling to her knees. It was your child and he didn’t need that German bastard. He forced him. He took him out into the snow. Save her, I beg you, take her to the hospital.
You should look at my mother, then at my father, then at me. He made the calculation. He was a pragmatic man. If I died here, it would be in vain. If the child were his, it would be an insult to the rich. But above all, it would be a loss of control. He snapped his fingers at his men waiting outside.
Sanitary, tragi, Sopford, orderly, stretcher. Immediately. My father stepped forward. You won’t take her away. She will stay here. She is my daughter. Ver brought out his rapist. He pointed it at my father’s chest. She’s not your daughter anymore, you old fool. You have lost this right. After selling her to a butcher, she is now under the protection of the German army. Two soldiers entered with messages.
They lifted me up. I screamed in pain as they carried me. Careful, I owked Weber. They carried me out of the bedroom through the kitchen. I saw my father for the last time. He stood against the wall. The German pistol was pointed at him. He didn’t look at me. He looked at the floor. He lost. He wanted to erase the shame.
And now this shame has become public, official and armed. I was loaded into an ambulance, which pulled up behind the Mercedes. Versel is next to me. The engine started. I felt the unevenness of the road. Webr looked at me. He took off his glove. He placed his cool hand on my burning forehead.
“Are you stupid, Salanch?” – he muttered. “You should have told me. Ray cares for his children, even the illegitimate ones. I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to tell him I hated him as much as I hated my father, that I was a victim of their ego war. But I had no voice left. I had been rescued from the farm, but I was a prisoner of the enemy.
And I felt the poison in my laughing veins because I knew it was too late. Neither a French father nor a German officer could defeat the death that the widow had sown. The military hospital in Tula was a world of white and chrome, a fortress of cleanliness that smelled of earth and wax. I lay on a bed with immaculate sheets, so hard they creaked under my weight.
Around me were doctors, men in white coats, speaking German, busy with tubes, syringes, and vials of plasma. They were trying to rebuild the ruined mud hut, but we had nothing It worked. Don’t fix a house whose foundation is rotten. Captain Weber was there. He wouldn’t leave my side. He paced the room like a caged wolf.
His boots pounded the tile floor. “Save her,” he barked. “I need the best antibiotics. “Summon a surgeon from Limoges if necessary.” I looked at him through the gray veil. I saw his anger. It was not love, but wounded pride. His toy was broken. His offspring was killed. A doctor approached him. He spoke in a quiet voice, but in the clinical silence I heard.
Tsushipet, Heropmen, too late, captain. Gangrene has reached his kidneys. His heart is failing. It’s a matter of hours. Verzamer. He took off his cap. He ran a hand through his slicked-back blond hair. For the first time, I saw a crack in his icy armor. He walked over to my bed. He took a chair and sat down.
He took my hand. My hand was cold. His hand was warm. “Salanch,” he said quietly . I turned my head towards him.” “Why?” he asked, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. “Why didn’t you call me? I would take the child and send him to Germany. He would have grown up in a good family. You would be free. I gathered my last strength.
I had to speak. I had to make my verdict before I went. “Freely,” I exhaled. My voice was just a dry, empty throat, like fallen leaves. I fixed my gaze on him. I have never been free. Vera, neither with you nor with him. I started coughing. There was a taste of iron in my mouth.
Did you want a son for the Reich? He wanted a virgin daughter for the sake of his reputation. I squeezed his hand, not out of affection. And to make him listen, I was just a battlefield. You fought for my body and burned everything. Webr lowered his eyes. He knew I was right. And the child? – he asked. It was a boy. I smiled.
A sad, broken smile. We will never know. The widow threw him to the pigs like trash. Here’s your great reif. So much for the French honor of fattening pigs. The device next to me started beeping more slowly. My tired, poisoned heart slowed down. I thought about my mother. I hoped that she had gone away, that she had left the farm, but I knew that she would not leave. She will stay.
A shadow among shadows. I thought about Father. Tell him. And I was stunned. Bert leaned over. What? What should I tell him? That I’m going to shoot him? No, don’t kill him. That would be too easy. I took my last breath. The air smelled of cleanliness in the distance of dirt.
Tell him that his honor is not touched. Tell him I’m dead, clean. Darkness rose, not the frightening blackness of the forest, but a soft, velvety blackness. I let go of the German officer’s hand and left. Epilock. The Silence of Claude de Pierre. Salanch died on December 14. 1943. Captain Weber did not shoot at Arman. He made it worse.
He brought Salanz’s body back to the farmhouse in a locked coffin on a chain, paid for by the German army. He put it on the kitchen table. He looked at Armand, who stood leaning on his wooden leg. His eyes were dry. Weby uttered just one phrase: “She’s asking you to live with this.” Then he left. Liberation came in 1944.
Tricolor flags bloomed in the windows. Women had their hair cut publicly in the Village Square. The militiamen were shot, but no one came for Arman. He did not collaborate with the occupiers, he did not inform on anyone, he simply lost his daughter to a tragic illness. This is what it said on the death certificate.
Honor was preserved, no one knew. But Armand’s punishment was not public. It was private. His wife, Tsisil, stopped speaking on the day of the funeral. She became not mine in the literal sense. She cooked, she had everything, but she didn’t say another word. She moved around the kitchen like a ghost, looking through her husband as if he were transparent.
Armand lived another 20 years, 20 years sitting in this kitchen, 20 years hearing his wife’s silence, 20 years looking at Salanz’s empty chair. They say that at the end of his life he went mad. Neighbors said they heard him talking to himself at night. He walked around the yard, knocking, knocking, knocking. He knocked on the barn door again and again, begging, “Open up, Dad’s here.
We’re not doing this. We’re going home.” But the door remained closed. Arman died alone one winter night. His Verdun medal was pinned to his moth-eaten jacket. He was found curled up and frozen. In his fist he held a small embroidered handkerchief, torn by his teeth and stained with long-dried blood. The only legacy of his glory.
It was a story hidden by the main story. A story that is not in textbooks, because it speaks not of victory, but of the defeat of humanity in the very heart of families. Thousands of women paid with their lives for their reputation. They died on kitchen tables. In a wretched hut, the victims of war are unleashed by men.
If you wish to give these shadows a name, if you wish for Salanch’s sacrifice not to be in vain, perform an act of remembrance. Write Salanch’s name in the comments so that she exists and is no longer hidden. Subscribe to Warbid Secrets. Turn on notifications because it’s quiet right now. We will be here to break it. Thank you.
And never forget that the honor that kills is not honor, it is pride. M.
