Page 119

“No, Josie, I haven’t heard from Switzerland. Patience, remember.”

But Tina doesn’t say what she’s really thinking: What if Andrée doesn’t last until liberation? What if she’s already gone and we just don’t know it yet?

She keeps these thoughts to herself. Locks them away. Josie deserves hope, and Tina will give it to her, even if she has little left of her own.

Walking is no longer possible for Andrée. Not really. She can just about stand, but putting weight on her blackened feet sends such waves of pain through her body that she sometimes screams. The guards beat her for screaming. So she learns to bite down on her pain.

On hands and knees, she crawls from the barracks to the worksite, dragging herself through the snow, hauling logs when she can grip them with hands that are themselves beginning to show signs of frostbite.

The other women try to help. They take turns supporting her, letting her lean on them, carrying more than their share of the work so Andrée can do less.

But there’s only so much they can do. They, too, are weak. They, too, are suffering from frostbite.

The women don’t have the energy to get to know each other. Conversations, even at night, are rare. It’s body heat the women want from each other, not their history.

One woman, a Belgian named Claire, whispers to Andrée one evening in the barracks, “You should go to the infirmary.”

“What infirmary? You know there’s nothing like that here.”

“I just . . . your feet. They’re getting worse.”

“I know they are.”

“If you can’t work . . .”

“Then I die. I know. So I’ll keep working.”

And she does. Day after day. Week after week. Standing when she can. Crawling when she must. Working until her body gives out and she collapses in the snow, and the guards kick her until she gets up again.

At night, in the barracks, she hums. “Clair de Lune.” Chopin. Bach. The music is all she has left. All that reminds her she was once something other than this broken creature crawling through the snow.

Maurice knocks on the door with a package wrapped in brown paper. Tina opens it to find bread, real bread, not the tasteless gray stuff from the ration line, and proper cheese, a Camembert de Normandie.

“Maurice, where did you⁠—”

“Never ask, Madame Tina, just accept it. You and Josie need to eat. I have also taken some to Mme Stéphanie and Monique.”

Tina’s eyes fill with tears. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It’s nothing. Really. How is Josie?”

“She’s . . . she’s coping. Better than I am, I think. She has hope. I don’t know where she finds it, but she does.”

Maurice steps inside, closes the door. “And you? How are you?”

They’ve become friends over the months. More than friends, they’ve become confidants. He is the only person Tina feels she can speak to honestly and who understands.

“I’m tired, Maurice. So tired. And I don’t . . . I don’t think she’s coming back.”

There. She’s said it. The thought she’s been carrying for months. The fear that wakes her at three in the morning. The certainty that grows stronger every day. Andrée isn’t coming home.

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s been eight months, Maurice. Eight months since they took her. Eight months of no news. Just silence.”

“I understand, of course. And no word about Josie’s mother and brother either. We don’t know even where they were taken. I’ve heard rumors, but I don’t want to believe them. They are too horrible. Evil.”

“It’s all right, Maurice. It’s good of you to not want to tell me about the camps, but I’ve heard about them too.”