Few people had come to the greenhouse in the summer heat, but as Ans and Havik passed another couple, he murmured softly, pointing to plants and trees as if enjoying a leisurely afternoon. “Does your policeman friend know you’re meeting me?” he asked when they were by themselves again. “And that your Jewish friends need to go into hiding?”

“He knows they’re my friends and that I’m outraged by what the Nazis are doing to them —and what they’re forcing him to do. But I told him my friends moved to Amsterdam. I didn’t tell him I was contacting you.”

“Good.”

“But Erik isn’t like them. He’s just playing along with the Nazis. He joined the Nazi Party to keep his job.”

“Then why didn’t you ask him for help? Why didn’t you tell him you needed to hide your friends?”

The question startled her. She didn’t know why. And yet she did know.

“You aren’t sure if you can trust him, are you?” Havik asked.

“I don’t want to get Erik into trouble. He saved me after he caught me delivering your newspapers. He didn’t turn me in.”

“You’ve learned the first lesson of working with the Resistance —don’t trust anyone.”

“I’m trusting you.”

Havik waited until another couple walked past. “Never forget, if we were able to follow you and learn all about you, then your boyfriend and his Nazi friends could too.”

It frightened and enraged Ans to think that she was vulnerable. Then she thought of Miriam and Avi being hunted and pursued by the Nazis, and she put her own feelings aside.

“I would do anything to save my friends. Please tell me how I can do that.”

“How many are there?”

“Three. Mir —”

“Stop. Don’t tell me their names.”

She let out her breath and started again. “They came to the Netherlands as refugees from Germany. My friend is a little older than me, married to a man from Berlin. They have a baby —”

“A baby!” Havik stopped walking. “How old?”

“She was one year old in March.”

He shook his head. “It’s very difficult to hide small children with their parents. Families are too conspicuous. Babies cry and give away hiding places. Alone, a child can pose as an orphan.”

“I know. That’s why we need to move them to a safer place. The Gestapo has searched our house three times. They haven’t discovered my friends, but we’re worried that the baby will cry at the wrong time or that our neighbors will hear her.”

“You’re wise not to trust your neighbors. Some of them notice too much. That’s why we hide small children by themselves, ideally with families in small towns or out-of-the-way farms.”

Ans immediately thought of her parents’ farm. Elisheva would be safe there.