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But at home, sitting at the piano, her hands in her lap, Josie thinks about Grand-Père, for whom she will never play again. She thinks about Tata Andrée and wonders whether she will ever play for her again. She wonders about her mother and Léon, where they might be now. She wants to show them how well she plays, how much she has learned.

Tina finds her there one evening, her head resting on the closed lid.

“Tata Andrée would be so proud of you,” she tells her.

Hanukkah arrives on early, on November 29. Last year they celebrated with Dancer and Philippe. This year Dancer and Philippe are gone.

Josie knows what happened. Dancer was arrested. Tortured. She broke after days of resisting when they threatened Philippe and she gave up the Levallois family to save her son. And then she and Philippe disappeared. No one knows where they went. No one has seen them since the arrests.

“Do you think they’re alive?” Josie asks.

“I hope so. I pray so. Dancer did what any mother would do. She chose her child. I can’t fault her for that.”

“Do you think Tata Andrée has forgiven her?”

“I know she has. She would have done the same for you.”

On the first night of Hanukkah, Josie and Tina light candles at the dining table. Just the stubs of two candles in ordinary holders. But they say the blessing anyway.

Josie’s Hebrew is better. She’s been practicing. Preparing for the day when she can show Maman how she has kept her faith.

“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.”

Tina squeezes her hand. They have no latkes this year. No doughnuts and no dreidel. No gifts. Just two candles burning in the darkness of a Paris winter. They are two women, one nearing the end of her life, one whose life is just beginning, remembering who they are and where they come from and why they are here together.

“We celebrate resistance,” Josie says, echoing Dancer’s words from last year. “We celebrate survival.”

“Yes,” Tina says. “We celebrate the miracle of still being here. Still being us. Despite everything.”

They sit together, watching the candles burn down. And Josie thinks of Maman. Of Léon. Of Dancer and Philippe. Of everyone she’s lost and everyone she’s hoping to find again.

The candles flicker. But they don’t go out. Not yet.

Christmas morning arrives cold and quiet. Like too many recent Christmases, there is no feast. The food situation hasn’t improved since liberation. But Tina has saved what she could. She’s banked her rations, which have now stretched to a small chicken, a few potatoes and a little cheese. Maurice continues to bring them what food he can glean, which they share with Stéphanie and Monique.

Josie helps her prepare the meal. They work companionably together in the small kitchen.

“Do you think Tata Andrée is celebrating Christmas?” Josie asks.

“I hope she’s somewhere warm. Somewhere safe. I hope she knows we’re thinking of her.”

“Do you think she’ll come home soon?”

Tina pauses, her hands still in the potato water. “I don’t know, ma petite. The war is still going. The camps are still there. But when it ends, when it finally ends, she’ll come home. I must believe that.”

“I believe it with all my heart,” Josie says, wrapping her arms around Tina.

Tina revels in the hug. Thinking.

“Josie, there is something I want to tell you.”

Josie pulls back to look her in the eyes.

“Three days ago, I wrote to the Mission for Deportees and Prisoners of War in Switzerland. Maurice got hold of the address for me. They are going to try to trace where Tata Andrée was sent and where she is now.”

“Really? Do you think they can help?”

“If anyone can, they can. We must be patient. While the war continues, communication is difficult.”