“I asked Eloise if she wanted to go with you tomorrow, and she does.” Ans was relieved, but only for a moment. She remembered feeling that she was in over her head when she’d first arrived in Leiden and the professor told her about Eloise’s depression. Now, if Eloise traveled with her, Ans would be responsible for her safety outside their home. They would be doing dangerous work against a ruthless enemy. Yet Ans truly believed that this was the best remedy for Eloise’s melancholy.

“I love her, too, Professor,” she said. “I’ll do everything I can to keep her from harm.”

The train journey was slow and difficult, taking Ans and Eloise twice as long to get to Amsterdam as it had before the war. The coaches were jammed. At three different stations along the way, Nazi soldiers demanded that Ans and Eloise show their ID cards. Each time Ans presented it, her heart raced out of control. The forged cards she carried would save the lives of dozens of Jewish people who needed them but could cost Ans her life if they were discovered.

The view from the train had been greatly altered as well, in the three years since the war began. The Allies had begun regular bombing raids on shipyards and factories, and Ans saw the damage as they approached Amsterdam. But Eloise had seemed resurrected from the dead from the moment they’d left home, alert and energetic, just as Ans had hoped. She’d shown Eloise the military maps that Havik had given her, along with descriptions and photographs of the military equipment they were looking for. “We need to record any troop movements we see and any fortifications the Nazis are building,” she’d told Eloise. They didn’t dare take notes, but Eloise had an amazing memory, and Ans knew she was making a mental note of every Nazi installation, radar base, and fortification she saw. They would add them to the map as soon as they returned home and sketch in all the details, including activity at the port in Amsterdam.

They arrived at the Amsterdam Centraal station and Eloise, who was very familiar with the city, led Ans through the maze of streets and canals to the Amsterdam Royal Zoo to meet her contact. The war had left the beautiful zoo grounds nearly deserted, but they still served as a valid excuse for two women to visit the city. Ans breathed easily for the first time since leaving home once the exchange had been made and she no longer carried the forged ID cards. She longed for a bracing cup of coffee but knew how scarce it was these days.

“Let’s walk to the Hortus Botanicus on our way back,” Eloise said, “and see what those hooligans have done to it.”