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“I hope you’re right.”

“I must be right. The alternative is unthinkable.” She stands, pulls Andrée to her feet, embraces her.

“Please stay safe, cher ami.”

Walking back down the stairs, Andrée feels lighter and heavier at once. Lighter because Josie has a safety net now, someone else who will protect her. Heavier because she had to ask, because the danger is real enough to need contingency plans.

If something happens. If they come. This child will have somewhere to go. Someone to care for her.

It’s not enough. But it’s something.

Andrée stands before her sparsely filled wardrobe, feeling absurd. She’s going to a nightclub. With a fellow Resistance operative. In the middle of an occupation. While hiding a Jewish child. While forging papers for men fleeing conscription. While risking arrest and torture every single day.

It’s ridiculous. And yet, she’s excited.

She chooses the blue dress, the one she loved wearing before the war. It still fits, though she’s thinner now. Everyone’s thinner now. She puts on lipstick—precious, hoarded—and combs her hair. In the mirror, she looks almost like the person she was three years ago. Almost.

“You look beautiful,” Tina says from the doorway.

“I look nervous.”

“You look like a woman going out for an evening. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re allowed to live, Andrée. Even now. Especially now.”

At eight o’clock precisely, Cat arrives. He’s wearing a suit: elegant, expensive, the kind that marks him as aristocracy. His hair is combed back, his shoes polished. He looks as if he belongs in the best clubs in Paris.

“You look wonderful,” he says, and means it.

“You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Shall we?”

They walk arm in arm, looking like any couple going out for the evening. A German patrol passes them without a second glance. Why would they? Well-dressed, respectable, moving with confidence. Not the kind of people who hide Jews or forge documents or pass intelligence to London.

Le Bal Blomet is close to Montparnasse, its facade modest but its reputation legendary. Before the war, it was where Paris came to be entertained. Now it’s where Germans come to pretend they’re cultured, to show they appreciate French artistry even as they crush French freedom.

Inside, it’s warm, dimly lit, filled with cigarette smoke and expensive perfume. The tables are full. German officers in uniform, French collaborators in evening wear, a few brave souls who’ve come to hear Charles Trenet, regardless of who else will be there.

Cat leads Andrée to a table near the stage. Not front row, too visible, but close enough to see, to hear. A waiter appears immediately, takes their order. Wine. Real wine, not the swill most of Paris drinks now.

“Your father’s connections?” Andrée asks, glancing around at the crowd.

“Something like that. The owner owes our family a favor. Several favors.” He leans closer. “Don’t worry. We’re safe here. Just another couple enjoying an evening out.”

The lights dim. Conversations quiet. And then he’s there.

Charles Trenet walks onto the stage and the room goes quiet. His reputation as a “singing vagabond” arrives with him, his smile wide and infectious. Not yet thirty years of age, his brief stint in the army has done nothing to diminish his fresh-faced looks.

The band strikes up, its opening chords softening to silence as Trenet pulls the microphone close to his mouth and the band waits for its signal to join him. He pauses. Only when he knows he holds the room⁠—

“Boom!”

And the band joins in, the audience applaud. The night has begun.

He is not singing his signature song the way he recorded it; this is his version for a live audience. A version to wake them up. Show them the man behind the recordings and still photographs.

As the last note sounds, the room is thrown into darkness. The audience cheers wildly, stamps their feet, and the dim lights return.

Between songs, Trenet speaks or rather croons to the few women in the room. He tells them of the special place Montparnasse has in his heart, a place he now calls home. How his love of jazz brought him here and how fortunate he was to meet the poet and Catholic mystic Max Jacob, who inspires his lyrics.