As she spoke, images appeared and disappeared in her mind like a shutter opening and closing: fern fossils fronding delicately over rock, cotyledons puncturing the surface of a stone, the barest tracing of Zamites leaves carved into limestone. And then pictures of herself, very few, taken on the rare occasions her mother picked up the camera, showing a Jessica yet to grow into her gangly limbs and too-large smile, her blonde hair a ferocious tangle down her back, skin tanned to a then-unfashionable brownness, nose freckled by the sun.

More snapshots: Jess playing in mud, scrambling over rocks until her kneecaps were bereft of skin, swimming in the lakes and rivers even though her parents were warned about parasites and crocodiles. Her mother wearing a floppy hat, stained by mud and dust, grinning at Jess. Happy, always so happy to have her hands in the dirt, to prize away stories of a time long past, to clatter out papers and findings on the old typewriter. And her father, the quieter of the two, not quite of this world, his head always in the past, dreaming, perhaps imagining Ginkgoales into being.

It was an unorthodox childhood of intermittent schooling, of having to grasp German, Italian and French; she had to either learn the language or be excluded from playing with the other children during the short spells she had at various schools. Her education was propped up by as much reading as her parents were able to obtain books to supply. And so Jess’s life had formed from two seemingly opposite sources: the mysteries of what the ground held and the stories recorded in books. Which meant she’d always done well at English, History and Science but had never had any interest in or flair for Mathematics.

“May I speak?” The woman’s voice was smoothly polite and Jess blinked, shutting out the past and cursing herself for being so distracted.

“Europe is at war; you’ve photographed plants,” the woman stated.

Jess realized that she hadn’t even waited for the woman to introduce herself; that she’d barged in and, rather than confidently stating her qualifications, probably arrogantly confirmed everything the woman might assume about models—that they were used to having the floor and thought far too highly of themselves.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. Should she admit to nerves? They’d hardly send someone into a war zone if they suffered from nerves in an office in broad daylight. “I’ve photographed more than plants. I had some pictures and articles published in French Vogue in 1939, showing the exodus of Americans out of Paris. American Vogue have also published my work about female camouflage and propaganda artists.”

Jess stopped speaking. She waited. And waited. And waited.

She was used to being appraised; she couldn’t walk into a party or a club without feeling dozens of pairs of eyes wash over her. But this was different. This was scrutiny of a kind so intense she could feel herself melting back into her chair, looking down at her lap, not wanting the woman to find anything within her that made her the wrong choice of person to be granted a passport.