Intersection Column | On Music and Espionage
- mtlmagazine
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
by Roseanna M. White
When I was seven, my mom enrolled me in piano lessons with our church pianist. She was a family friend, and she did a great job teaching me to play. For several years, I continued taking lessons from her, until eventually the sort of music I wanted to play didn’t quite mesh with what she wanted to teach, and we sought out a new teacher.
I remember playing a sample of my favorites for this new teacher, Mrs. Peto, including Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” Even at age eleven, I loved classical music. Mrs. Peto was impressed, and though she didn’t lead me down the classical path either, she did introduce me to a lot of Christian music that combined the elements I loved—glissandos and tricky fingering and flourishing motifs—with familiar melodies. I adored her lessons and came out as a trained church musician, which served me well in life.
Years later, my mom told me that Mrs. Peto had asked her if I intended to go professional in a classical sense, saying she wasn’t the right teacher for me if so. My mom assured her I didn’t—which was true. But even so, those years later, I gasped to realize that she thought I could have done it. I could have focused on my favorite composers and brought them to life on the stage.
That wasn’t my path, but it’s still my musical love. My radio is always tuned to the classical station, and my idea of “praise and worship” is usually a Bach chorale from the St. Matthew Passion. So when I saw social media videos featuring classical, professional musicians who like to sneak into public places and give free concerts, a character began to take form in my head. A concert pianist who did this very thing just to bring joy to people. And what if it was during the Nazi occupation of France, and he did this instead of continuing his career on stage, knowing that a huge percentage of his audience would have been comprised of their occupiers?
I decided to pair this hero with a heroine inspired by the real-life head of France’s largest intelligence network during the war, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade. My fictionalized version, Zelie, takes some liberties with history but is based almost entirely on this amazing woman. So when I learned that Marie-Madeleine was in fact a talented pianist who had been accepted at one of Paris’s most elite conservatories—then declined attending so she could get married—I was thrilled at how well her backstory would mesh with my hero’s.
This widow was la patronne, “the boss” of thousands of spies and intelligence-gatherers and couriers, with a remarkable mind and a near-perfect memory and a tireless drive to reclaim a free France for the sake of her children. But she was also a woman with the soul of an artist, who sought music to soothe her and sustain her. So a pianist who left the stage in order to serve his people, who took on another historic role in my fictional world—conducting a youth orchestra that let him travel the country and carry messages with him, plus broadcast encoded phrases on their radio show—was a perfect match for her.
The Spy Keeper of Marseille is a story that shares a lot of real, heart-pounding, mind-boggling history about these intelligencers who were working closely with Britain’s MI6 during the war, braving the threat of execution and soldiering on through betrayal in order to help the Allies. And it’s also a story that looks at the hearts behind these historical figures.
She was a mother who missed her children fiercely but couldn’t risk leading danger right to them—and who believed in working for the France she wanted them to grow up in, even at risk of death. She was a leader who questioned whether she was really the best person for the job, but who never failed to make the right choice when a choice was put before her. She was a woman afraid to open her heart again, but who couldn’t deny that she needed what music—and a certain musician—brought into her life.
And of course, a hero who knows that sometimes, the best words we can say aren’t spoken at all. They’re played with notes on a page, with fingers on keys. That melody can say You’re more than you think or You brought joy to my life. Who knows that sometimes we have to fight for freedom with weapons—and sometimes it takes a song to remind us of what we’re fighting for at all.
About the Author
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, award-winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads into the unsuspecting world, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books . . . to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
About the Book
In World War II, Zelie Bellerose becomes one of the most trusted operatives in Alliance. With enemies closing in, Zelie must earn the trust of her network and prove herself to those who doubt a woman’s place at the helm of France’s largest spy ring. A freed POW and former concert pianist, Marcel Laurent agrees to spy for Alliance by sending coded messages over the airwaves. Zelie and Marcel grow closer through their shared love of music, but betrayal from within Alliance puts everything they’ve fought for at risk.