Inès looked up and saw Céline walking toward the main house. “Oh, hello.”

“Is everything all right? Where are you going?”

“To Reims,” Inès said without slowing down. She glanced up at the sky; the sun was already hanging low. She’d have to hurry in order to make it to town before darkness fell.

“To Reims?” It was as if Inès had just told her she was planning to drive to Berlin. “Whatever for?”

“To see Edith,” Inès said. She unlocked Michel’s Citro?n, slid in, and slammed the door.

Céline stepped up to the window and waited until Inès rolled it down. “Edith?”

“My best friend. You remember her. The one who introduced me to Michel?”

“Of course I know Edith,” Céline said, staring at her oddly. “But don’t Michel and Theo need the car to visit the vineyards for the harvest tomorrow?”

“I’ll be back in the morning.” Inès turned the key and the engine purred to life, but still, Céline didn’t move. “Yes? What is it?”

“Are you sure it’s safe? You know about the German checkpoints . . .”

Inès had heard that the Germans were blocking roads here and there, stopping all traffic and asking the nature of each driver’s business. But she didn’t have anything to hide. All her papers were in order, tucked neatly in her handbag. “I’ll be fine, Céline. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Biting her lip, Céline stepped aside. As Inès backed out and pulled down the drive, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Céline still standing there, her shoulders stiff as she watched Inès drive away.

? ? ?

By the time Inès drove through the outskirts of Reims forty minutes later, with the color leaching from the sky, she had realized that perhaps Céline was right.

There had been no official checkpoints along the road, but there had been plenty of German soldiers passing by in rumbling trucks and gleaming black cars, their gazes menacing. Between the commune of Ormes and the outskirts of Reims, she hadn’t seen a single French civilian.

Still, she made it to the Brasserie Moulin, set on the corner of the rue de Thillois and the rue des Poissonniers, without incident just before the last rays of daylight disappeared. She easily found a parking spot behind the brasserie, for the streets were already all but deserted, the curtains above the storefronts and apartments drawn tight, many of them abandoned. She shouldn’t be here, not with darkness approaching, but once she was inside, she knew Edith and Edouard would vouch for her.

As she pushed the front door open, she was already feeling a bit lighter, a bit more like herself. But the instant she looked up, she stopped abruptly.

She had expected the brasserie to be all but empty as the curfew neared, but instead, it was crowded, bustling, and filled with raucous laughter. It took Inès a second more to register that nearly every man in the room was wearing a German uniform. The four soldiers at the table closest to the door stopped in midsentence and stared as she entered, and she could feel her cheeks heating up.

Had she walked into the wrong place? She ran her fingernails up her left arm and scanned the room quickly, reassuring herself that this was indeed Edouard’s brasserie, but what had become of it? A knot twisted in the pit of her stomach.

“Inès?” Edith hurried toward her from across the room, her hair done up in voluminous pin curls, her red lipstick perfect, her pale green dress unmistakably new. “Why are you here?” Edith hissed, grabbing her friend’s arm and steering her away from the door, toward the back of the restaurant. “And would you smile, please? Pretend you’re having a gay time.”

“What? Why?” As Edith hustled her across the room, Inès locked gazes with a German officer, who winked at her despite the fact that he currently had his arm thrown around the shoulders of a big-bosomed woman in a tight dress.

“Because right now you have the look of a rabbit in the headlights, my friend,” Edith said, her nails digging into Inès’s arm. “Guten Abend!” She paused at the table of decorated officers to flash a broad, fake smile before dragging Inès the rest of the way into the kitchen, through the back hall, and up the stairs into the apartment above.

Edith waited until she’d closed the door behind them before she turned to Inès, her eyes wide and her face white. “What on earth are you doing here, Inès?”

Inès was still shaken, but she’d recovered enough to feel a wave of indignation. “What am I doing here? I should be asking you what you’re doing! You’re entertaining Germans? You’re even speaking in German?”

A muscle in Edith’s jaw twitched. “We can’t afford to turn away business in these times, Inès.”

“Good God.” Inès shook her head. “Are you and Edouard . . . collaborators?” She whispered the last word. She couldn’t have imagined such a thing, but what other explanation could there be?

“No!” Edith grabbed Inès’s hand. “But what choice do we have, Inès? You must see that.”

“I see you serving the enemy.”

“Yes, well, the best way to beat an enemy is to become a friend, non?”

“What are you saying?”