To anyone watching, they appeared to be a couple taking a stroll after dinner. They were similar in age and demeanor. They didn’t speak, but that was not so unusual. Couples often had little to say at the end of the day, yet were happy enough to be together in silence. They got into a car that had been parked not far from the church. The key was hidden under the seat. The car had been stolen in Nice and driven here to use until the time came to ditch it and find another.

“Are you old enough to drive?” Ettie had always been one to challenge boys her age.

“I’m the best driver you’ll ever meet.” He took out a blindfold, pleased to have the upper hand when he saw the shock on her face. “It’s better for you not to know where we’re going. Then you can’t divulge the address.”

Ettie felt a sort of terror slide under her skin, yet she didn’t flinch when he blindfolded her. She thought of the Morning Star, Esther, and how she had rescued a nation when no man could have done so, and as she imagined this heroine, Ettie’s nerves died down. In the car the young man told her about the underground movement of young Jews who resisted in every way they could, trying to rescue the next generation. They had learned to make explosive devices, most often pipe bombs that would stop German convoys or trains. When they could, they procured papers for families or children, whom they transported to passeurs, local people who were lifelong residents of the small villages who knew this wild, mountainous countryside, and could see Jewish refugees to the border. The organization was divided into small groups, cells that worked together, who often didn’t know the names or locations of the other cells so they would have less information, for the good of all.

“I deliver you, and then, after they train you, if you’re any good, you’ll be my partner,” the young man said.

“Good at what?”

“What do you think?” her companion said. “You went to the priest.”

“I’d like to destroy the people who killed my sister.”

“How do you plan to do that?” he asked.

She had no idea. A knife in her hands would do little.

When she didn’t answer he said, “We’ll show you.”

She turned her head so he would not see that beneath her blindfold she was crying, tears streaming down her face. Whatever she did could never bring her sister back. Perhaps the boy felt for her. “I’m Victor,” he told her despite the rule to keep his identity secret. “From Paris.”

“I’m called Nicole here,” she said. “My family called me Ettie.”