CHAPTER 1

'Please tell me you've got hamburgers today,' I said, browsing the grease-spotted menu.

'Yes, ma'am,' the colored waitress, whose name I already knew was 'Jonesy', answered, pulling a pencil from behind her ear and suspending it over her order pad, 'but they won't last long.'

So I hadn't dreamed the sizzle of beef fat on the grill and the odor of frying red meat that struck me when I walked into the diner.

'Thank goodness. I'll have a cheeseburger, medium, French fries, and a glass of milk. And I'm expecting someone to join me.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Jonesy said.

The diner was hot and close with the body heat of hungry people crammed into booths. Steam fogged the plate glass window that fronted Pennsylvania Avenue. Happily, the smell of grilled onions and frying bacon disguised the odor of people who couldn't bathe or wash their clothes as often as they'd like. If you lived in a boarding house with a dozen other people your time in the bathroom was limited.

Alessa di Luca sat down opposite me in the booth, sliding across the seat and tugging off the heavy coat I'd seen her wear every Friday evening for a month. And I thought, for the umpteenth time, that it looked like a man's discarded greatcoat she'd picked up at a thrift shop. One button didn't match the others, and the seat fabric was rubbed shiny from wear.

'Am I late?' she asked.

'Not at all. But I ordered already. I couldn't wait! They have hamburgers and cheeseburgers!'

Jonesy appeared at Alessa's side.

'If you still have hamburgers, I want one,' Alessa said.

'We do, ma'am,' Jonesy said. 'But they're going fast.'

'Well done, please,' Alessa said.

'Fries with that?'

'No thanks. Coffee if you've got it. With lots of milk.'

I didn't know Alessa well, but I liked her very much. We'd been casual friends since we met at a Friday night knitting circle I attended, where she generously repaired my frequent dropped stitches. We'd had coffee together a couple of times. Last night she'd asked me to have lunch with her today, and I was happy to spend time with someone congenial I didn't work or live with.

Alessa was a war refugee who spoke English fluently with an Italian accent. Despite her thrift shop clothing she had soft hands, perfect skin and lovely manners, so I assumed she was a gentlewoman in 'distressed circumstances', waiting until the end of the war to discover if she could return to Italy, or if her home even existed any more. Thousands upon thousands of refugees from all over the world like her waited in dread, with a spark of hope, for news of their homes and loved ones.

So I didn't know Alessa's story, and I didn't ask. In Washington, DC, in November of 1942, no one had time for such pleasantries. Besides, it was none of my business, and I was accustomed to secrets.

'You got our last hamburger, ma'am,' Jonesy said to Alessa as she set our plates in front of us and poured fresh coffee for Alessa.

The new arrivals in the booth behind us heard her, and a hum of disappointment and frustration rose and fell, as they adjusted to getting grilled cheese sandwiches or hot dogs for lunch.

I tucked into my burger. I was hungry. Dellaphine, the cook and housekeeper at my boarding house, didn't prepare any meals on the weekend except Sunday dinner. I'd eaten a single slice of toast, without jam even, for breakfast. I wasn't complaining, mind you. I felt lucky to live at 'Two Trees', where I got breakfast and dinner during the week, had my own bedroom and shared a bathroom with Phoebe and Ada.

My cheeseburger, topped with a thick slice of fried onion and sweet pickle relish, tasted heavenly, and the salty fries weren't the new mealy frosted kind, but fresh-cut and crisp, with the skin on. I ate half of what was on my plate before I paused.

'This is a popular place,' Alessa said, looking around. Every booth and counter stool was full, and a dozen people waited near the door for a seat.

'There are so many boarding houses in the neighborhood,' I said. 'You can hardly get in for breakfast during the week. And the food's not too greasy.'

'I'm not particular,' she said.

'Who can be?' I said.

'No one. We must remember those who have nothing to eat at all, and be grateful.'

I searched for a topic of conversation. Not easy, when so much of my life was off-limits.

'What part of Italy are you from?' I asked.

'Not Italy, Sicily,' she said. 'Our island hasn't always been part of Italy. We Sicilians are sensitive about our heritage. We even have our own language, although only the country people speak it now. I could tolerate Mussolini, but I left after the Nazis came to build their air bases and the bombings began. I stay with my mother's cousin here. I suppose you would call me a poor relation.'

'I have a dear friend who's a refugee on Malta,' I said. 'The Nazis bomb it every day. Every single day.' I'd gotten two letters from Rachel after she'd escaped to Malta. She insisted she and her children were safe. I chose to believe that for my own sake, since I'd done everything I could for them.

'The Germans bomb Malta from their bases in Sicily, and the British bomb Sicily from their bases on Malta,' Alessa said. 'Yet the islands are less than a hundred kilometers apart. The situation would be absurd if it weren't monstrous. And our little island is so very lovely. Sometimes I daydream that I'm picnicking on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of Palermo, where there are only fishing boats, no warships, drifting at anchor, eating focaccia, sipping limoncello and listening to the breeze rustling through the leaves of lemon and almond trees.'

'I'm so sorry,' I said.

'With God's help I'll go home some day.'

'What part of Sicily are you from?' I asked.

'Near Palermo,' she said. 'But I cannot say more.'

'I understand,' I said. 'I didn't mean to pry. I'm from Wilmington, North Carolina, myself.'

'The South? Where the cotton plantations are?'

'Wilmington's on the coast. We make our living from shipbuilding and fishing.'

'You came here to work for the government?'

'Yes, soon after Pearl Harbor.' Washington, DC, once a sleepy southern city, was now a boom town crammed with soldiers and sailors. Washingtonians repeated constantly the wisecrack that DC was an occupied city – occupied by its own troops! Not to mention thousands of government workers, job seekers, drifters, prostitutes, con men, pickpockets and just plain hoodlums. Washington's homicide rate was more than twice New York City's!

'So, busy as you must be with your job, what inspired you to take up knitting?' Alessa asked.

Smile crinkles formed at the corners of her brown eyes, and her mouth turned up in an impish grin. Despite her troubles Alessa still had a sense of humor!

'Because I'm so good at it?' I grinned back. 'You're awfully nice to correct my mistakes every single week!'

'Don't be silly,' she said. 'I'm sure you are very competent ... at something else!' We both laughed out loud.

'Oh, I don't know why I bother,' I said, 'but there's all this talk about the need for socks in Europe. Maybe I should switch to scarves. They're easier.'

'It doesn't matter what your socks look like,' she said, 'as long as they are warm.' Without knowing it Alessa repeated what Joe, the refugee Czech who boarded with me at 'Two Trees', said every time he noticed me struggling with my knitting needles and yarn.

There were...