He tipped his head toward the wardrobe. “There are…opportunities that would require you to hide people from time to time. But it would be dangerous. More dangerous than hiding an occasional patient.”

“You do remember where I met you, do you not?”

Jerome lifted his hand as though he might take hers but then let it drop to his thigh. “I remember. But this is different than driving an ambulance across a battlefield, Allard. I need to make sure you understand that. I need to make sure that you think your answer through before you agree to anything.”

Estelle considered her next words carefully. “When Rachel and I were young, Serge would often have what he liked to call salons in his home. Artists, writers, intellectuals, all debating, or sharing, or teaching. No subject matter was taboo, no opinions censored. We were probably not more than eleven or twelve when we first started attending, and we continued to do so right up until we left to join the service. The point, he said, was not to learn what other people thought, but to learn to think for yourself. And in learning that, he said, you will learn who you are.”

“He sounds like a very smart man.”

“He is.” Estelle studied Jerome’s fingers where they were splayed over the fabric of his thigh. They were strong and callused yet capable of the most delicate of touches when it came to his patients. They were the hands of a man who had always seemed to know just what to do and had never wavered.

“In this city,” she said, “I am surrounded by people who look the other way and pretend that they don’t see what is happening. Nights like tonight, I am surrounded by even more people who don’t seem to care, so long as they are not inconvenienced or, even worse, can use it to their own advantage. They disgust me. Make me feel filthy.”

“Estelle—”

“You asked me to think my answer through?” she interrupted. “Then here it is. If I am not fighting—if I am not doing everything I am capable of—then I am complicit in every atrocity that has happened and will continue to happen. This I know with every fiber of my being.”

“Then just know this, too, Allard.” Without warning, Jerome leaned forward and brushed his lips across her cheek before pulling back. “Know that you are not alone in your fight.”

Estelle let the warmth of his touch seep into the cold and empty places deep inside her. “I’ll try,” she whispered.

Chapter 7

Chapter
7

Sophie

Bletchley Park, England
16 July 1942

Sophie stared at the work on her desk and tried to remember that she was still fighting.