‘Let’s take the shortest way home,’ said my mother. So we went along the canal.

‘We’ll be home in no time,’ said my father.

‘I hear that more and more people are going into hiding,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said my father, ‘we’re going to try and find something for you, too.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I won’t go by myself.’

‘It would be easier if we still lived in Breda,’ said my mother. ‘We’d have a place in no time. We don’t know anyone here.’

‘There we might have been able to stay with neighbours,’ I said.

‘Or in any number of places, for that matter,’ said my mother. ‘We had friends everywhere.’

‘It costs so much money here,’ said my father. ‘How am I supposed to come up with that kind of money?’

‘If only we knew more people,’ said my mother.

‘Let’s wait and see,’ said my father. ‘Maybe it won’t be necessary. And if it isn’t, then you’re stuck being with strangers and causing them trouble.’

We had reached our house. My father stuck the key in the lock. Instinctively I looked up and down the street before going in. The heater was on in the living room, and the table was set. My mother had seen to that before we left. My father went off to wash his hands. Then he stood with us at the table, removed the embroidered cloth from the Sabbath challah, tore off the end and divided it into three pieces that he dipped in salt while reciting a prayer. I mumbled a bracha and ate the salty crust.

‘This is good,’ said my father as he took his seat.

The girl

One Friday afternoon my mother sent me out to do some shopping. ‘Just go to Weesperstraat,’ she said. ‘You’ll find everything you need there.’

Aunt Kaatje was coming to dinner. My father had to collect her from the old folks’ home since she could no longer go out by herself. She was over eighty and was the twin sister of my grandmother, who had died several years before the war. She was delighted whenever my father picked her up to eat with us, for then she could talk about the past, about the time when her husband was still alive. At around the turn of the century she had made numerous trips to foreign countries and could still remember every detail. Since she didn’t have any children, she had gone to live in the home after her husband died. Her biggest regret was not being able to travel any more.

‘There’s still a chance I’ll take another trip once the war is over,’ she said once when she was visiting.

‘Aunt Kaatje loves shortbread,’ said my mother. ‘Don’t forget to pick some up.’

I promised not to forget anything. While I was putting on my coat, my mother came into the hall.

‘Come back soon,’ she said. ‘It gets dark so early.’