Ans had become even more involved with the underground, meeting regularly with Havik, delivering false ID cards and stolen ration books. She’d helped Miriam and Avi hide in the town house attic and had carried Elisheva to the farm past terrifying Nazi soldiers. Any one of those actions could have gotten her arrested, imprisoned, or shot. But she wouldn’t stop doing this work, even if it meant losing the man she loved. Miriam said Avi had assured her that the Nazis couldn’t destroy their love, but maybe he was wrong. Weren’t they coming between Ans and Erik, sabotaging their love for each other?

“Life under the Nazis is becoming unbearable,” Ans said after searching for a place to begin. “I hate that they’re pulling us apart. You’re working for them, and I . . . I’m working against them.”

She paused, fearing his reaction. Havik had warned her not to trust anyone, and now that she’d told Erik the blunt truth, she wondered if he would feel it was his duty to report her.

When he didn’t respond, she dismissed the thought, trusting his love. “I don’t think either of us is going to change our mind, are we? You aren’t going to stop . . . and neither am I.” She looked at him, waiting for his reply.

He gazed forward at the canal, shaking his head. “I’m in too deep,” he said. “They’ll never let me leave.” And he would never be allowed to quit the NSB. She remembered the disgusting Nazi propaganda she’d seen in his apartment. The Dutch Nazi Party held rallies around the country, and the thought of Erik participating in one of them made her sick to her stomach.

She swallowed hard, struggling to speak the next words. “Then we have to decide what we’re going to do. Should we keep seeing each other even though we’re on opposite sides, or say goodbye?”

“No,” he groaned. “I don’t want to say goodbye. You’re the only person who makes my life bearable. I need you, Ans. I need your goodness and your love to make up for all the things I’m forced to see and do every day.”

“Would it help if you talked to me about it?” She knew how much she longed to unload the burden she was carrying.

“I can’t talk about my work.”

“Because you aren’t allowed to or because it’s too hard?”

“Both.” They sat in silence watching a duck waddle out of the canal, shaking its feathers. Erik gently caressed her shoulder, giving her comfort.

She lifted his other hand to her lips and kissed it. “I don’t want to lose you, Erik. But I can’t stop doing my work.”

“Ans, please . . . how can I make you understand how dangerous —?”

“I know how dangerous it is. But I’m a Christian, and my faith compels me to fight against evil.”