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“The camps are still operating. People are still alive in those places. The Russians are liberating camps in the east. The British and Americans will liberate the ones in the west. Andrée could be in any of them. She could be alive, and soon she will be rescued.”

“Or she could be dead. Louis is dead. Why should Andrée be any different?”

Maurice takes her hands. “Because you must believe. For Josie. For yourself. You must believe until you know for certain. Otherwise, what’s the point of any of this?”

Tina nods. He’s right. She knows he’s right. But believing is so hard. Hoping is so hard. Every day is so hard.

“I’ll keep believing,” she says finally. “For Josie. For Andrée. I’ll keep believing.”

Josie sits at the piano, her fingers hovering over the keys. She hears the music in her head, and it fills her with hope.

Today she’s working on a Chopin nocturne from one of Andrée’s books. It’s difficult. More difficult than anything she’s learned before. But she’s determined. When Tata Andrée comes home, she’ll play it for her. Perfectly.

When. Not if. When.

She practices for hours every day. Bach in the morning before school. Chopin in the afternoon when she gets home. Scales and arpeggios. Sometimes she makes up her own melodies, improvises, lets her fingers wander across the keys and find their own music.

Tina listens from the kitchen. The music is beautiful and defiant. It is proof that music survives even when everything else is broken.

“That’s lovely, Josie,” she calls. “Are you composing your own music?”

“It’s not right yet, but yes, I’m trying to find my own sound, the sound of my life, not Bach’s or Chopin’s. Does that make sense?”

“Maybe one day you, too, will become a famous composer.”

Josie laughs. “I don’t think so, but maybe one day I can teach someone else to play.”

“Your own children perhaps,” Tina says.

“And grandchildren. I will teach them to play just like Tata Andrée taught me. I just must stop making so many mistakes.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, but you keep playing. That’s what matters.”

Josie nods, starts the passage again. Gets it right this time and smiles to herself. It’s progress. When Tata Andrée comes home, she’ll be so proud.

The guards are twitchy. Even Andrée, crawling through the melting snow with blackened feet, can see it. They’re waiting for something to happen. They’re scared of what is heading their way.

“The Russians,” the women whisper to each other when the guards aren’t listening. “The Russians are coming.” They’re getting closer every day, and when they arrive, the Germans will run. Or fight. Or kill everyone to hide the evidence of their barbarity.

No one knows what they will do. But everyone is afraid.

Andrée tries not to think about it. Instead, she turns her attention to making it through each day, through each hour and minute.

Her feet are beyond recovery, she knows this. Even if she survives, even if liberation comes tomorrow, her feet will never heal properly. The frostbite has gone too deep and the damage is permanent.

At night, when the pain is worst, when she can’t sleep because her feet burn with a cold fire, she thinks of Josie at the piano playing “Clair de Lune.” She imagines her getting better every day as she waits for Andrée to come home and resume their lessons. And Maman and Papa too, all waiting for her.

I’ll go home, she tells herself. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I’ll go home.

The news on the radio is almost too good to believe. The Americans have crossed the Rhine. The Russians are at the gates of Berlin. The war is ending. Not might end. Not could end. Is ending.

Josie listens to every broadcast, her face pressed close to the radio. “They’re liberating the camps, Grand-Mère. They’re finding people. Survivors. Tata Andrée could be in one of those camps. She could be free any day now. And Maman and Léon. They all could be free very soon.”

Tina wants to share Josie’s hope. Wants to believe that Andrée is in one of those camps, waiting to be found. But ten months of silence have worn her down. Ten months of not knowing have taught her that hope is dangerous.

In her heart, she fears Ruth and Léon won’t be coming home. She’s heard about the extermination camps. About the fate of the Jewish people deported east.

“Maybe,” she says carefully. “We’ll see, ma chérie.”