As the hours had dragged on, Aviva had left the pencils and papers where they lay and curled up in a listless ball on the cot, staring at three small paintings of ballerinas that had been hung high on the wall opposite. The airman had whispered stories about his childhood and Sophie and Aviva had listened. Eventually, he’d fallen asleep stretched out on the floor next to the cot, succumbing to the anxiety and exhaustion of his journey. He didn’t wake when the hidden door had finally opened and Sophie and Aviva had emerged into an apartment with curtains pulled tight against the darkness outside.

La Chanteuse had served them a simple but surprisingly decent meal of bread, soup, and hard cheese. She had remained tight-lipped and said almost nothing, other than to explain that the airman would remain hidden in the wardrobe room until she could make further arrangements and that Sophie would not be returning to her hotel room tonight. That no one would be leaving the apartment tonight. Curfew had come and the city had once again gone dark.

Wordlessly, Sophie had helped tidy up the few dishes and had gazed around the apartment, thinking that it, along with the woman who lived in it, was a study in contradictions. The highly visible pro-Nazi literature that lay scattered about the apartment. The concealed room in which a small girl was hidden, presumably Jewish. The food in the cupboards and the stack of unused ration books and coupons. The array of fine classical art that hung on the silk-covered walls of the apartment and the three Impressionist Degas paintings that hung in that hidden room. A woman who had accepted a gift from Göring and used that circumstance to protect an Allied airman.

“Are the dresses in that wardrobe really gifts from Göring?” Sophie asked into the new silence.

“You heard that conversation.” Not really a question, just a dull confirmation.

“When the wardrobe was open, every word. Did he tell you that you looked like an angel?” With La Chanteuse’s rich, honey-colored hair, hazel eyes, and her graceful carriage, Sophie wasn’t surprised.

“Yes. That was the truth.” Her answer was flat. “I wear them to sing in.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“They make my skin crawl. But all the best disguises do, I suppose.”

“You sing often at the hotels.”

“Just at the Ritz. But not as much since…since Aviva, but enough to remain routine. Welcomed. Included in conversations or, even better, dismissed as mere décor during others.”

“I wondered.”

“About?”

“Where La Chanteuse had come from.”

“We can’t stay here much longer.” The statement was abrupt.

“I beg your pardon?”