At first Tom had dreaded the meetings with Brigitte. Now the days between began to drag. Not that he wasn’t without occupation. Rousseau gave him the occasional errand to keep Tom coming and going so his presence in the neighborhood would be noted. Once he made Tom go to the cinema.

He also had Tom keep up a minimal pretense as Rommel’s watchdog of Dutch conscripts. Rousseau provided him with a list of benign questions, and twice he had been to the Cimenterie office to interview conscripts—twice, he met with men whose open hostility baffled him at first, until he put himself in their shoes. Anyone who spoke fluent Dutch and wore a German uniform had to be a traitor. They themselves were slaves, conscripted to labor for the Atlantic Wall. They had no choice. Major Kees Nieuwenhuis had a choice. He should have chosen hard labor. He chose to lick Hitler’s boots.

This morning Rousseau decided Tom needed to be seen with him. They would walk together as if Tom had asked Rousseau to show him the sights. A tall blond in a German officer’s uniform and a short well-dressed Frenchman provoked looks quickly averted—just the sort of thing Rousseau said he wanted. Let them pity poor Monsieur Rousseau, those who knew him, let them wonder what had happened that he should come under what was surely unfair scrutiny. It was exactly the sort of diverting nuance some Resistance cells needed; summon a bit of attention in order to deflect it. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Tom, but this was what was explained to him when they set out on an excursion Rousseau would later come to regret.

They had been walking for an hour in the city of Caen, strolling through winding narrow streets, Rousseau pointing out historical landmarks, mostly abbeys and very old churches: the Church of St. Pierre just outside the Château de Caen in the heart of the city, dating to the thirteenth century, the Church of St. Gilles, the Church of Notre-Dame-de-Froide-Rue. He was just pointing out another when they came upon a scuffle beside an awning-covered newspaper stand in a marketplace.

A German soldier and two men wearing Milice-insignia caps stood around a man on his knees in the gutter. Each time the man tried to rise, one of the three booted him down. He had a bloody nose, a bloody lip, and a bloody scrape on his chin, as if he’d been shoved face-first into the pavement. After one final kick he stayed on his knees in the gutter, dripping spittle and blood.

“What are they doing?” Tom whispered, horrified.

“Keep walking.”

Tom tried, but he couldn’t. He stopped even with the group, watching openly while everyone else—some gathered at the newspaper stand, some standing in doorways, some at windows above—watched furtively.

“Keep walking,” Rousseau hissed.

Then came a thin wail, and attention went to an old man with no coat, wispy gray hair lilting in his rush to the group. Anguished, he tried to get to the man in the gutter, but one of the Milice pushed him back. When he tried again, the Milice backhanded him. He staggered, fell, and sat weeping on the sidewalk, holding his bleeding mouth.

It wasn’t just that the Milice had backhanded him; it was the way he did it, with form, with style, like a tennis shot, knowing all eyes watched. It was all about the power he had to do it and how he’d made it look.

Tom barely felt Rousseau’s hand on his arm. He shook it off, and before the Milice knew what had happened, a tall blond officer had him by the throat and against a newspaper rack. The rack toppled backward, and Tom followed him down. He clutched a handful of collar and flesh, hauled him to his feet, and slammed him against the newsstand counter, scattering customers and papers.

The other Milice and the German didn’t know what to do. Perhaps Tom’s size and rank silenced them.

Rousseau came to Tom’s side, but Tom didn’t take his eyes from the shocked and reddening face of the gasping man who scrabbled at Tom’s hand.

“Major Nieuwenhuis, please,” Rousseau said in Dutch, “I would suggest these three know their business.”

His fingers dug deeper, the man began to choke. He clawed frantically.

“I would suggest you are endangering this man’s life, and that you will not make your superior officer happy with this behavior. Your superior will be angry.”

Tom released him. The man gasped and twisted away from the counter, bending double to cough and clutch his throat. Breathing hard, Tom looked at the Frenchman on the street. The elderly man was now quietly weeping at the younger man’s side, smoothing his hair, helping him to stand.

“We must go,” Rousseau said urgently.

Tom leveled a look at the other two men. He kept the gaze on them while he adjusted his hat and smoothed his coat, and, for final effect, brushed off the rank insignia on his shoulder. Rousseau touched his elbow, but Tom wouldn’t budge, not until the elderly man led the younger away.

Rousseau set a nonchalant pace until they took the first corner; then he picked up speed, taking corners and turns and curving alleys until they came to a small stone church flanked by apartments built into its sidewalls. They ducked inside, Rousseau absently crossing himself at the threshold. They went into the sanctuary, a cold, echoing chamber that smelled of incense and mildew. Rousseau knelt and crossed himself again before entering a pew. Tom slid in next to him, hat on his knees.

They sat in a frozen silence until Tom finally said, “You’re not happy with me.”

“I blame myself. I blame myself!”

“How can you take credit for what I just did?”

“I have not put enough fear in you. I have not shown you the beast.” And Rousseau told him what they had done to Clemmie’s granddaughter.

The horror Tom had felt in the marketplace was nothing to this. Nothing to the tears in the eyes of Michel Rousseau, this great, iron man Tom had come to respect as much as he respected Roosevelt and Churchill. For the first time, Tom understood Rafael.

“She was so very brave,” Rousseau whispered, lips trembling. “Right until the end. I thought I knew what I had. I did not know until then. I have been alone ever since.”

They did those things to Clemmie’s granddaughter?

Electricity on his skin, breathing hard, Tom got up and paced the aisle. A priest appeared to the right of the altar, saw Rousseau and then Tom. He hesitated, then came toward them. Tom waved him off with a growl. Taken aback, the man paused, then slipped away.

He wanted—he needed to be in a P-47 dive, bearing down on target, stick in his hand, red button under his thumb, a never-ending stream of death.

Tom stood next to Rousseau’s pew. He finally sat down.

“You have not seen street massacres,” the older man said, his face vacant. “You have not seen bodies piled up on each other, like sacks of fertilizer. You have not seen devastating retribution for a simple act of defiance. A woman who protested the billeting of a soldier was shot in the face. Boom, her face exploded, she was gone. You have not seen Jews herded into the Vélodrome in Paris, you have not seen their children torn from their sides. I have seen these things.” His breath caught. “They are in my eyes and they are in my chest. You are no longer in civilization, Tom. Everything around you is a false front. It hides hell.”

Tom’s imagination, fed by Rousseau’s words, showed him all.

“Who knows what that man had done,” Rousseau said bleakly. “Perhaps he looked at one of them the wrong way. Perhaps, and most likely, they only thought he did. What shocked you so is commonplace to us. After every fresh atrocity, the shock wears away, and you get used to everything. Your true self, your first self, is hidden away under numbness, waiting for the long night to be over.”

“No one helped him.”

“They want to live.” Rousseau looked at Tom. “They could be Resistance and know that to prevent one man’s beating may put other lives at stake. It is just another kind of hell.”

Cabby did not want to play chess today.

He sat at the window in a slouch, idling with a black button he’d taken from his pocket. Brigitte sat on the bed with her workbasket, embroidering a blue pillowcase with bright-red poppies. She had begun to look forward to these visits from Cabby. Even if he sat sullen and silent, his presence was strangely comforting. She felt as if she had in her room a little piece of Vera Lynn’s song.

She hated to tell him there was no news on the bridge. Ernst, one of the bridge soldiers, told her Alex was still on the mend. There was no getting information out of Ernst. He never talked. Cabby took the news with indifference.

“People are afraid of me,” he finally said. “I’m not used to that.”

Brigitte glanced up from her work.

“I went to the cinema in Caen. I go to buy my ticket, and the ticket girl goes white as snow. I go take a seat, and the whole place goes quiet. I try to hunch down, hide my height, but it’s no good. Greenland says I have to wear my uniform everywhere, or I’ll be asked for my papers. I only felt better when it got dark. I’m not used to frightening people. I hate it. I worse than hate it. It’s evil.”

“Some like it. Claudio likes it.”

He didn’t answer.

“Even if he doesn’t move in today, he’s sure to come. Today is the day he meets with his superiors in Ranville. He always comes here after.” She watched for a reaction. He only studied the black button.

“It gets to you, the feeling here,” he murmured. “Hacks away at you. I finally feel it. I feel trapped, like I’m in that cabinet, like I’m in it wherever I go. Sometimes I close my eyes, and I’m with my girl again. I’m back in the air, stick in my hand, man on my wing. A clear target, a mission accomplished. We head home, and I land and taxi, shut her down, talk with the ground crew. They cuss me out if she took a shellacking. We go to debriefing, then mess. If it’s a good day, and everyone came back, then Oswald does his guts-and-glory shtick, this crazy song and dance, and we all sing with him, and pretty soon Captain Fitz gets sick of it and starts yelling, and Smythe is already halfway to oblivion with that English beer . . .” A faint smile came.

“What if it is not a good day?”

“Then it’s quiet.”

“That is how it was when you did not come back.” She smoothed the work on her lap, murmured, “It has been time enough, Cabby.”

“I don’t feel like going. Do any guys . . . Is there ever—” he jerked his shoulder and shifted in his chair—“round two?”

“Sometimes,” she replied archly.

“Hey, you wanna see a picture of my little brother?” He dug in the pocket of his jacket, hung over the back of the chair. He took out an identification booklet, took it out of its slipcover, and paged through it. He winged a picture at her, like a playing card.

She caught it and studied the boy. She smiled. “He looks naughty.”

“He is. Gives my folks a heck of a time. Teachers, too. I was a good boy.”

“I don’t believe that.” She grinned.

“I was,” he protested. He was about to say something else, but his face gained a curious expression, and he went quiet.

“What is it?”

He didn’t answer for a time.

“I controlled my patch of sky,” he said quietly. “I was in control. I had firepower, with my girl. Now I got nothing. This gun?” He leaned sideways to show the Walther P38 on his hip. “No bullets. That’s me.”

Brigitte handed back the photo. “Did you name your plane?”

He put the picture carefully back into the booklet. “A name never came. She was just ‘my girl.’ We have a couple of RAF pilots in our squadron. You should hear them talk about their Spitfires. One guy told me it was the most charismatic plane ever built. Charismatic, what a word. Well, he never flew a P-47.” He dropped the booklet into the pocket. “Twenty-three missions with my girl. She took care of me, then took one right in the heart. I couldn’t watch her go down. I couldn’t bear it. They were beating a man today, Brigitte.”

The needle and thread stilled.

“His father came running. He was an old man, and one of them hit him in the mouth, and in that second, I was caught between Kees and Cabby and Tom. My name is Tom.”

“Which of you won?”

“Tom.” His shoulders came down. “I could have killed him. Greenland told me how stupid I was. There were a lot of people watching. But I couldn’t just watch. Did I give away who I am?”

“Yes!” Brigitte exclaimed, setting the sewing aside. “I am glad that is who you are.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to Greenland,” he said, gloom filling the blue eyes. “I can’t stop who I am. I’m no spy. I—reacted instinctively, like a pilot, like I’m trained. What was I thinking? I was so arrogant, thinking I could pull this off. Who am I kidding? I’m a pilot, and that’s what I’m good at, and that’s where I want to be. I want to be back where I belong, with the guys, fighting from the sky.” He noticed he still had the button in his hand. He pocketed it. “I’m worried about Greenland. There he sat, powerless. I never saw him powerless. It’s like it drained right out of him. The stuff he’s seen would unhinge—”

A tap came at the door.

Her eyes flew wide. She stared in alarm at Cabby. No one ever knocked with a customer inside. That’s what a closed door meant.

Cabby swiftly unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off. Brigitte pushed the pillows from the bed, swept aside the workbasket, and jerked back the bedspread. In two strides, Cabby was in the bed and under the covers.

Brigitte mussed her hair, then went to the door, complaining loudly in French, “Someone better be dying.” She opened it a crack, standing behind it as if she were not dressed.

It was Marie-Josette. She came close to the crack in the door and whispered, “Claudio is here. I thought you’d want to know.” She slipped away.

Brigitte eased the door shut. She turned to Cabby.

“What did she say?” he whispered, throwing off the covers.

“Claudio is here. Why would she warn me?”

“What do we do?”

Brigitte put up her hand in warning and went to the door. She laid her fingertips on it, then her ear. Soon she heard Colette and Claudio quietly bickering as they came up the stairs. It stopped when they reached the top. All was silent. Then a creak of floorboards as they continued down the hallway, until Colette’s door clicked shut.

“You must leave.”

She tossed him his shirt. While he put it on, she grabbed his jacket and held it at the ready. He slipped into it. She handed him his hat. She went to the door, ducked out, and waited motionless as she stared down the hall at Colette’s door. Then she beckoned Cabby. He went down the stairs before her, trying to be quiet. They slipped into the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, and she saw him to the back door. He gave her a fleeting look in good-bye, then was gone.

She hurried to the front room, where the phonograph played Glenn Miller. The front room was directly under Colette’s.

She heard Cabby’s motorcycle start and listened very hard for any movement upstairs, tilting her head toward the ceiling. There it came—a quick trample to Colette’s window, where Claudio surely watched Cabby drive away. Brigitte’s fingers crept to her stomach.

Marie-Josette sat on the sofa, paging through a magazine.

“Thank you,” Brigitte said quietly.

“Don’t mention it.”

Brigitte’s mind raced. Why should Marie-Josette warn them? She wondered what to say, if she should say anything at all.

“I overheard them last night,” Marie-Josette said softly, flipping pages. “They were in the kitchen. Thought everyone was asleep. Claudio was excited about something, I don’t know what. But I heard him say the name Cabby.”

Brigitte clutched a handful of her skirt.

Marie-Josette raised her large eyes to Brigitte. “I don’t know what you’re involved in, and I don’t want to. But I know you don’t have sex with him.”

“How do you—?”

“Please,” Marie-Josette scoffed. Then her face became more serious than Brigitte had known, showing the lines of humanity she had longed to see in Colette, because she thought Colette was deeper, smarter, more able for it; here it was in Marie-Josette. She had silenced all traces of silliness and frivolity and joie de vivre. It left her grave and forlorn, and somehow prettier than ever. “Oh, Brigitte,” she whispered. “Be careful. Whatever you are doing, please be careful. You’re all the family I have.”

Brigitte sat beside her on the sofa. She put her arm around her shoulders. “Marie-Josette, I am finally happy. I am doing something. It’s not much, but it is something. I’m in secret accord with the unseen force about us. It’s a force for our good, that wants our freedom, and I am moving with it.”

Marie-Josette’s eyes filled with tears. “I want to move with it, too. But I am so afraid. What will happen to us? Is there no saving who we were? I am so tired, Brigitte.” The tears spilled. “I’m tired of hunger. I’m tired of men. I grieve for the children who have lost their papas. I grieve for the Jews. I grieve for us, who have turned them out. I grieve for good people who have become what they don’t want to be.”

“The invasion is coming, Marie-Josette.” The words felt worse than useless; they felt like a parody. Oh, God—please. Help her to see what I saw! Help her to believe! “Look at me. They are coming. Men, guns, a force like you wouldn’t believe. Thousands of them, tens of thousands, right on our doorstep! Any day. Any moment.”

Tears mingled with Occupation mascara and left a dusky trail on Marie-Josette’s face. She brushed a hand under her nose. “He told you that?” she asked, dubiously hopeful.

“I have seen it with my own eyes.” She cleared the coffee table. She took a stalk of dried flowers from a vase, broke off two stems. She snatched Colette’s workbasket, rummaged for buttons. Then she laid a stalk on the table and opened the world to her friend.

“This is England. And this France. . . .” She held up a button. “This? Ten thousand men! . . .”