Her stomach rolled with nausea. “You’ve seen this happen, Erik? You’ve witnessed them torturing people?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you all night! I kept playing the scene over and over, horrified by how close . . .” His breath caught. “Why would you do such a stupid thing? Doesn’t our love or our future mean anything to you?”

“It means everything to me! That’s why I’m doing this. What kind of future will we have under Nazi rule? Under a regime that tortures people? The Netherlands is my home, Erik. If there’s any chance at all that I can help free my country, then I need to take that chance.”

“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” He shook his head as if waging an internal battle. “I can’t sleep or eat or live knowing how much danger you’re in! I love you, Ans, and I need to protect you from them! Don’t you understand that? I know what they’re like! I know the things they’ll do!”

“How can you keep working for them?” she asked.

He looked away. A bicycle swished past, splashing water from the wet street. “You know the answer. We’ve had this conversation before.” And they’d also heard stories about life in a Nazi labor camp. He reached for her hand. “I need you to promise me you won’t deliver those newspapers again. Otherwise . . . I don’t think I can do this, Ans. I can’t love you as much as I do and know how much danger you’re in. You’re naive and idealistic, and you imagine that it’ll do some good to fight them, but it won’t. You can’t win. They’ll break you. And I couldn’t bear that.”

“I love you too —”

“Then promise me! Promise me right now or I’ll have to walk away!”

“I promise,” she whispered. She could do that much for the man she loved. She would tell Eloise and the others that she had to stop delivering newspapers.

But she hadn’t promised anything else.

CHAPTER 25

DECEMBER 1941

The warm farmhouse kitchen was the same as it had always been for the more than twenty years that Lena had lived here, the fire burning brightly in the stove, her family listening to the boxy wooden radio on the stand in the corner, her knitting needles flying as she worked to finish a pair of socks for Wim. Maaike had her new set of paints and brushes spread out on the table, a gift on Sinterklaas Eve. Wim sat on a chair by the stove beside his father, learning how to carve with the pocketknife that had been his present. The fragrant aroma of hotchpotch from their evening meal still lingered in the air. Everything seemed the same as always.