Estelle held out her hand, and the little girl took it without hesitating. She tried not to notice how fragile the child’s bones felt beneath her touch. Or how silence and sadness had replaced the laughter and vitality as the months had crept by. Or how long it had been since Aviva had last asked about her family. Or spoken about anything at all.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said, leading Aviva through the living room, past the rumpled blankets and storybooks on the sofa where the girl had been napping. Evenings and early mornings were the only time Aviva came out into the apartment. Estelle was too terrified to let her roam the apartment during the day in the event that she would be discovered.

The new tenants in Estelle’s building who had appropriated the desirable apartments left empty by the Jewish roundup last year, including the Wylers’, were predominantly German or the families of French industrialists, all becoming wealthy with their Nazi partnerships. She was now surrounded by sympathizers and collaborators, all of whom would be only too happy to denounce Estelle if they knew what secrets she hid in her apartment. Only her social reputation and continued visibility as one of them kept her safe. Kept Aviva safe.

Estelle no longer hid Allied airmen—the little girl hiding in her wall made that too dangerous—but she did continue to frequent the bars and restaurants at the Ritz, though not as often as she once had. She still listened to the men in grey who gorged themselves as Paris continued to starve and reported what she heard. She still had no idea if anything she had ever shared had made any difference. Even once. But she would not dwell on that.

Estelle brought the little girl into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. The hidden door was already open. “Look,” Estelle said, stepping inside. “Look what I found for you.”

Aviva let go of Estelle’s hand and crawled up onto the bed, staring up at the three paintings Estelle had hung on the wall of the hidden room. They were the Degas paintings, the ones that had once graced the Wylers’ apartment. It had taken her an hour to extract them from behind her dressing room wall but, looking at Aviva’s rapt expression now, it had been worth it.

“What do you think?” Estelle asked.

The child reached up to touch the corner of the closest one. Across the canvas, a collection of girls in a pastel palette of gauzy costumes rose up on their toes across a stage, all under the watchful eye of their teacher. Aviva smiled—the first time in months she’d seen Aviva smile. Estelle looked away, her eyes burning. Aviva deserved to be surrounded by family and friends and laughter, not silence and fear and darkness. Estelle wasn’t sure how long the little girl would last living like this.