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water.
    She waits for him to bring her the kettle of hot water. Two more rounds will follow until the bath is sufficiently warmed, but the sight of the rushing water is a relief. She undresses with the door closed, and the simple ritual of removing her shoes and her skirt soothes her. She unbuttons her blouse and removes her slip and underpants. She does not look at herself in the mirror above the sink. She does not glance at the skin, now stretched taut and white. She places one foot in the water, then the other before she sits and pulls her knees to her chest. She closes her eyes and twists back her hair. Then, softly, quietly, thinking no one will hear her, she begins to sing. Not out of joy. But out of longing. Out of a desire for comfort. Just like her mother did, all those years before.

FIVE

    Verona, Italy
    A PRIL 1943
    From the age of eighteen, Elodie attended full-time classes at the Liceo Musicale
,
studying chamber music, music theory and later orchestra training. In the hallway, she would often pass her father, a professor there.
    But she began to notice slight changes in him. A look of strain, of increasing agitation, had replaced his former peaceful expression. He had believed the Liceo to be sacred, one of the few places where Fascism couldn’t penetrate. The saluting and the marches to show support for Mussolini, indeed all of Italy’s politics, had, for the most part, remained outside its walls. But the anti-Jewish laws enacted four years before, forced out every Jewish professor from his position, and Jewish students were no longer able to enroll. Elodie remembered with great clarity the day her father came home enraged and related how Professor Moretti had been told he could not even retrieve some papers in his office.
    Her father’s reaction came flooding back to her the moment Lena mentioned to her that she’d been privately instructed by Professor Moretti since she was seven years old. Moretti’s family had the apartment above Lena’s, and the two families had been friends for years. It was Professor Moretti who first noticed Lena’s musical potential, studying the young child’s hands, the expansion between the fingers, and her unique ability to follow complicated rhythm patterns, and had encouraged her parents to nurture it. Over the years, through private lessons after his regular day of teaching at music school, Moretti had taught Lena everything she knew, from first learning to hold her bow to mastering complex chamber pieces. Even now, her parents paid for her to have private instruction with him, giving him the chance to bring in a limited income to his struggling family, since he could no longer work at the school.
    One afternoon, after they had finished classes, Lena looked particularly upset.
    “What’s the matter?” Elodie pressed.
    Lena shook her head. “Things have become worse for the Morettis. They are practically starving. My mother tries to send them some soup and what few vegetables she can spare, but they are embarrassed by the charity.”
    She paused and then whispered, “I’m going to join Luigi tonight for a meeting.”
    Elodie didn’t understand her. “A meeting for what?”
    Lena shook her head. “Of people who want to stop all of this.” She took a deep breath. “Our country will be unrecognizable in a few months. Just wait, Elodie; you’ll see.”
    “You’re barely nineteen, Lena.” Elodie attempted to be logical. “You can’t exactly fight the Fascist army.”
    “Well, I’m certainly not going to watch as my professor is rounded up with his family and act like I’m blind to it.”
    “But you’re not going to do anything that could put you in danger, are you?” Elodie winced just imagining what the police might do to Lena if she were arrested.
    “Danger?” Lena smiled and her eyes looked like firecrackers. “Well, no one will help me get false papers for the Morettis until I prove myself to them. That’s why I’ve been helping them distribute