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“You understand the power of music, Josie. It’s something that usually takes years to grasp, but you have found your own way to use that power to reach your soul, carry you to another, safer world. But remember that, as well as the piano, you have Grand-Mère, Grand-Père and me to help you during these bad times. I’m so proud of you.”

Josie throws her arms around Andrée, weeping quietly. It has been months since they’ve seen her cry. Agent quietly stands and places his hand on the child’s shoulder, before slipping out of the back door.

“Would you like to play a duet with me?” Andrée whispers into Josie’s hair.

“‘Clair de Lune’?”

“‘Clair de Lune.’”

Tina and Louis sit side by side on the sofa as they listen to the haunting sounds created by their daughter and the young girl they have come to call their granddaughter.

The following Monday, Tina boards the early train to Rambouillet. An hour outside Paris, far enough away to feel different to the city, close enough to return the same day. Her cover story is simple: visiting her cousin Marguerite who is recovering from illness. She has the cousin’s address memorized, the details of her illness rehearsed. Pneumonia. Recovering slowly. Needs company. With her, a large carpet bag, knitting needles protruding from balls of wool recycled from one of Andrée’s old jumpers. The physical part of her cover: an older woman passing time on a train journey, knitting.

The train is half empty. There are a few workers, a German soldier sleeping with his head against the window, an old woman with a chicken in a basket. Tina sits with her handbag on her lap, her coat buttoned despite the warm weather. She looks like what she is, a woman in her sixties, unremarkable, invisible. She takes out her knitting. Knit one. Purl one. A scarf in the making.

At Rambouillet station, she steps onto the platform, orients herself. The church sits in the main square, opposite the Café du Vieux Chêne. Colonel Pallas’s instructions were specific: She was to arrive at eleven o’clock, head to the church, and sit in the pews. You’re praying for the speedy recovery of Cousin Marguerite. Wait.

The contact will approach only if they’re certain it’s safe. If they don’t come, return the next day at the same time. And if necessary, a third day.

Three days. Three visits to the church at the same time. Every instinct Tina has developed as a member of the Resistance screams that this is dangerous. Patterns are dangerous. Leaving Paris by train three days in a row is suspicious behavior. Any repeated behavior puts her at high risk of being noticed. But there’s no other way. The camera and the film she is to collect are too valuable. The network needs them to document German positions, troop movements, fortifications.

The church is modest, its facade yellowed with age. Its interior is dim. It is empty. There are no worshippers on a weekday morning. Tina chooses a pew toward the back.

The deacon appears: a young, slim man. He walks down the aisle, giving Tina a long look. She wonders whether this is the most conspicuous place possible. He would know his parishioners, but she appreciates that it’s safer than the café across the square. His eyes meet hers in the gloom, but he merely nods, moves on and disappears again.

Eleven fifteen. No one enters the church.

Eleven thirty. A woman enters, glances at Tina, and sits across the aisle. She has a shopping basket. She’s a local, Tina decides.

At noon, Tina stands up to leave, chilled from sitting so long in the unheated building. The first day has yielded nothing.

The second day, Tina takes the same train at the same time. This consistency is part of her brief, but it makes her skin crawl. Anyone watching will notice. Anyone looking for patterns will see.

At the station at Rambouillet, she spots him immediately. A man in a gray coat, leaning against the wall, reading a newspaper. But he’s not really reading—that’s obvious. She watches his eyes flick up, scan the platform, return to the paper. Gestapo or Militia, Tina thinks, and decides Gestapo. He doesn’t quite look like a local.

She doesn’t change her pace. Doesn’t look at him directly. Just walks past him and into the town, toward the square. Her heart hammers, but her face remains calm. An old woman visiting her cousin. Nothing suspicious. Nothing worth noting.

Le Vieux Chêne is busier today. There are more locals sitting out front. Tina enters the church and takes her pew. The deacon is at the front, arranging the altar cloth, moving about as though preparing for a service. Now she notices something else. A couple are here today, across the aisle. They are whispering together, and there’s an urgency to their conversation. Are they locals? Or are they watching?

Eleven fifteen. The same middle-aged woman as yesterday enters, carrying a shopping basket. She sits two pews over.

Tina’s instincts prickle. Is this the contact? The instructions didn’t specify male or female. But her eyes are on the cross at the front of the church. She doesn’t appear to have noticed Tina. The deacon moves down the aisle again, and once again Tina meets his eye: He’s wondering why he has a new parishioner, keen, here two days running. She clasps her hands tightly and gazes toward the front of the church, praying to a God she doesn’t believe in that today isn’t the day she is caught. Eleven forty-five. The woman leaves.

At noon, Tina once more leaves the church. On the street, she passes the woman with the shopping basket. For just a moment their eyes meet. The woman’s expression is apologetic. Sorry, they seem to be saying. Not today. It’s too dangerous.

Tomorrow then. One more try.

Tina almost doesn’t go. Louis is against it. “Three days is too many. They’ve noticed you by now. The locals will probably be talking about you. That couple in the church, the man at the station, they’re watching, I know it.”

“It’s the last time,” Tina tells him. “The contact needs to be certain. Needs to know I’m committed, not a Gestapo trap. And to the locals, I’m an old woman who’s rediscovered her faith.”

“And if they arrest you?”

“They won’t. I’m just there to visit my cousin. What threat am I?”

But on the train, her confidence wavers. Three days. Three identical trips. Anyone watching will see the pattern. And patterns get people killed.

The man in the gray coat is at the station again. This time he’s not pretending to read. He’s watching passengers disembark, his eyes sharp, calculating. When Tina passes, she feels his gaze follow her. Her neck prickles, but she doesn’t turn. Just keeps walking, slow and steady, an old woman with nowhere urgent to be.