‘I’m …’ I started.

‘We know,’ said the man. ‘Your brother called us from the station and told us you’d be coming alone.’

‘Did he tell you anything else?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘He said that his wife had been detained at the checkpoint. He was going to join her as soon as he hung up.’

I followed them into the living room, where they pointed to a deep chair.

‘I’m very sorry,’ said the man, ‘I don’t have enough room for you here, but I do have another address you could go to.’

The woman set a cup of tea in front of me. I was still holding my brother’s bag, so I put it on my lap and took a sip of tea.

The crossroad

That same evening I went back to Amsterdam.

‘You’re welcome to spend the night here,’ they told me in Utrecht. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to go back to Amsterdam right away. They urged me to at least have a bite to eat or rest for a while. But I wasn’t tired and I wasn’t hungry. Instead I phoned an acquaintance in Amsterdam.

‘Just come here,’ said Wout. I had met him some weeks earlier at the house of a Jewish family. My parents were already gone. ‘Call me if you’re ever in trouble,’ he’d said. I hadn’t given him another thought.

A few hours later I boarded the train with my brother’s bag. This time I didn’t worry about checkpoints, I didn’t keep an eye out for policemen or soldiers, I didn’t look for a particular compartment. A lot of my fear had fallen away. If I were caught now, at least I would no longer feel I’d be left behind, all alone.

Wout was waiting for me at the Amstelstation. ‘I’ve arranged things with Uncle Hannes,’ he said. ‘He’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.’

I didn’t ask who Uncle Hannes was. It sounded as if he was talking about one of my uncles, and I left it at that.

‘Is that bag all you have?’ asked Wout.

‘I have a suitcase with some clothes,’ I said, ‘but it’s still at the house on Weteringschans.’

Wout promised to pick it up for me.

The next morning I met Uncle Hannes at the bus stop on Surinameplein. He was an old man with a ruddy, deeply lined, weather-beaten face. I was carrying the suitcase with clothes. I’d left my brother’s bag with Wout. I didn’t know where we were going and didn’t ask. I saw that we had left the city and now found ourselves on a country road with meadows on either side.

At a crossroad, Uncle Hannes signalled me and we got out. The bus took off with a roar. The old man produced a bicycle from behind a tree and tied my suitcase onto the rear luggage rack.

‘Walk down this road,’ he said, ‘until you get to the fifth farm house.’ He nodded at me and got on his bike.