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Andrée glances around the square; it is deserted, so she heads up the steps to Joséphine’s building and waits for the concierge to let her in. A small woman with a scarf tied over her hair, she eyes Andrée sympathetically.

“Madame, bonjour,” Andrée says. “Do you think it would be acceptable for me to enter the apartment of the family of my pupil Joséphine, who were taken last night? Only if the door is open, of course. They have several of my music books that another child might appreciate.”

The concierge looks at her carefully. Andrée can see her deciding—a familiar scenario in occupied Paris: Can I trust this person standing before me?

With a shrug, the woman disappears into her apartment, making it clear that she doesn’t want to know anything about what Andrée is about to do.

Andrée quickly mounts the stairs and locates Joséphine’s apartment: the second one on the right. The door is open. The lock broken, the handle still intact. She can see where the wood splintered when the boots of the Gestapo kicked the door in.

Stepping inside the apartment, Andrée gasps as she gazes around the home so lovingly tended by Ruth and her children. The sideboard is covered in family photos. She looks at them, not recognizing Ruth’s late husband, whom she never met. She selects two to take with her. For Joséphine. One is a formal setting, the other a candid photo, slightly out of focus, but Andrée can see why Ruth has chosen to give it pride of place. In it, none of the family are looking at the camera. They are laughing and looking at each other, arms and legs entangled, sitting on a rug in what she recognizes as the park across the street in the middle of the square.

Andrée looks at the candlesticks on the table, placed in the center, ready for Shabbat, which she remembers is tomorrow. The family should be gathered around their sabbath table, lighting the stumps of candles, saying their prayers, giving blessings.

Andrée lightly runs her fingers across the candlesticks. Their silver sparkles with love and care, a symbol of the Jewish faith. She wonders if she could take them with her for Joséphine. But if she is stopped on their way home and searched, these candlesticks would be impossible to explain. Reluctantly, she leaves them where they are.

She moves around the apartment, looking for Joséphine’s room, but finds Léon’s first. His school smock is laid out neatly on a chair, along with trousers and a neatly pressed shirt. He should be wearing that right now, sitting in the classroom at the Lycée Buffon in boulevard Pasteur, with his friends. Instead, he’s . . . where . . . ?

The second room is clearly shared by Ruth and Joséphine. Andrée can’t bring herself to look too closely at Ruth’s meager belongings, and tears spring to her eyes. Wiping them angrily away with the sleeve of her coat, she concentrates on looking for a bag, something to put whatever she can find of Joséphine’s. Her heart is racing—she’s aware of the broken door to the apartment, the risk of a neighbor guessing what she’s doing, the Gestapo coming back to look for the missing child. She must act quickly.

At the back of a small wardrobe, she finds a suitcase and pulls it out into the room. Flipping open the lid, she gasps, a hand rising to her mouth. Inside are men’s shirts, trousers, underclothes, a pair of shoes. She feels her heart clenching.

Time stands still as she looks at the clothes: all that remains of Joséphine’s father. Is she also looking at the remains of her mother, in the few dresses hanging in the wardrobe? With a heavy heart, she reverently removes the clothes from the suitcase and places them on the rumpled bed Ruth and Joséphine had fled from only a few hours earlier.

With the suitcase empty, Andrée focuses on gathering a small girl’s clothes. Her pale pink school smock is resting on a nearby chair, ready to be worn. She gently folds and places it in the suitcase. Small cardigans and blouses are taken from hangers, folded and joined with the uniform. In a chest, she finds underwear. Then two pairs of shoes. They all fit easily into the suitcase.

Only then does she allow herself to look for something personal to Joséphine. She sees a pile of books. Flicking through, she guesses they are the right age for her. Kneeling on the threadbare rug over the wooden floor to shut the case, she sees something pink and soft on the floor, half under the bed. Pulling it free, she holds a crocheted toy, a well-loved bear. She locates the piano books and stuffs them inside also.

Not allowing herself to think, fighting back both fear and terrible sadness, she places the bear in the case, closes it, and, without looking back, leaves the apartment, pulling the door closed behind her. She makes her way quickly back down the stairs. The door to the concierge’s apartment is firmly closed. She doesn’t want to see Andrée leaving—Andrée understands that this is a sign that she is safe for now.

Chapter Three

Outside the building, Andrée scans the street. Is anyone watching her leave? Will a curious neighbor see the small suitcase and think her a thief? Informants are everywhere. She hasn’t quite thought through what she’ll say if she’s stopped. She’ll mention the piano books, but what if the Gestapo ask to see inside the case—how can she explain the clothes of a small girl? The suitcase itself is enough to draw the sly attention of the Gestapo.

Moving toward home, Andrée pauses to take in the park at the center of the Square Saint-Lambert, through which Joséphine must walk to her school, the Lycée Camille Sée. Andrée teaches piano two mornings a week to girls at the school who don’t receive private lessons at her home, as Joséphine has done for the past couple of years. In the center of the park, the flower beds have been transformed into vegetable patches by those living on the square. As the rationing grows ever more severe, and hunger bites, the citizens of Paris have begun to grow food anywhere they can. Today the patches are largely bare, as winter approaches. The scrubby tops of turnips and swede are visible—traditionally food for horses, but now they supplement the meager diets of hungry Parisians.

On the other side of the square is her parents’ bookshop, where her father will be working. Perhaps she should go there first. She pauses. One thing she knows is that hesitation is always risky. How many times has she heard of operatives being stopped because they drew attention to themselves through indecisive behavior? The act is a huge part of the game of staying safe, of hiding in plain sight. She draws her shoulders back. She’s retrieved her piano books. Now she might drop them at her father’s shop. That’s the story.

She makes herself walk slowly and confidently across the street and down a few steps into the newly created neighborhood park that sits below street level. Inside the park, she hesitates again, berates herself again. But it is empty, save for a woman pushing a baby carriage and an elderly man sitting on one of the benches. She recognizes neither of them. She can hear the echo of girls’ voices from inside the school—it must be break time. She sets off toward her parents’ shop.

As she walks, she takes in the trees sheltering the park from the streets above. Not for the first time, she reflects on what a wonderful vision the designer had for this space, sinking it below street level, creating a park that in time will give shade to all inside. Not yet ten years old, the carefully chosen trees and shrubs have some growing to do. The paths that dissect and surround the square invite people to meander through. Today Andrée will not meander. Not only is she in a hurry to get to the other side, but the early arrival of winter has stripped the trees and bushes of their leaves—and cover. Only the hardiest of blooms struggle to bring a little color to an otherwise bleak world.

Andrée walks briskly through the park and exits. Without looking left or right, she crosses the street to the building that houses her parents’ bookshop.

Louis looks up from his newspaper at the sound of the shop bell. It takes a moment for him to register it is his daughter. She has her hat pulled low, and he is not expecting her. As Andrée pushes her hat up to reveal her eyes, he hears the bump of the suitcase hitting the floor.

He moves quickly to the glass door and glances out onto the street. Has she been followed? He flicks the open sign to closed and turns to his daughter.

“Ma petite, is everything all right? Your mother? Joséphine?”

“No, no, they’re fine, Papa,” Andrée reassures him. “I collected Joséphine’s things from the apartment. It was sad in there. I felt like a thief creeping around.”

Her father reaches out and pats her cheek. They both understand how she feels. But even in the relative safety of the shop, neither of them dares show emotion. Someone could enter at any moment, despite the closed sign.

Andrée picks up the suitcase and takes it to the small counter. She clicks it open, while Louis looks out onto the street again.

“I think I got everything she needs, and I grabbed two photos from the sideboard. But I was worried about walking home with the suitcase.”

Louis picks up the bear and sighs. The enormity of what they are doing threatens to overwhelm him again.