“Yes,” Mother said, closing her eyes. “Yes, you should go.” Miriam knelt beside Mother’s chair and hugged her fiercely. She embraced her in return, then gently pushed her away. Miriam stood and went to join Abba.

“Dry your eyes, Miriam,” Abba said, “so the neighbors won’t know that we’re leaving.” Miriam wiped her eyes on her coat sleeve and walked through the front door with him. She heard weeping behind her and couldn’t look back as the door closed. “You remember what we must do?” he asked when they reached the sidewalk.

“Yes, Abba.” They walked through the streets together to the crowded market district, carrying empty shopping bags. With the crush and press of shoppers all around them, Miriam and Abba quickly tore off the loosened yellow stars that identified them as Jews and stuffed them into their pockets. They faced imprisonment if caught without them. No one seemed to notice. They continued walking, stopping at a produce vendor to buy fruit, adding it to their bags as if they were ordinary people on an ordinary shopping day. Surely the fruit vendor saw Miriam’s shaking hands as she paid for her purchases, or noticed her ragged breaths. And the soldiers idling on the street corner —could they tell that she and Abba were Jewish? What if they stopped them and asked to see their identity cards? Miriam’s insides churned as she struggled to breathe, battling her rising fear. And sorrow. She mustn’t cry.

Abba filled their bags. He and Miriam continued walking through the marketplace, then out of the Jewish district for the first time in months. Grotesque posters in shopwindows and on billboards depicted Jews with exaggerated facial features and denounced them as an inferior race. What if Rolf had tricked Abba, and the Nazis were waiting inside his apartment to arrest them? “Everything will be fine, Miriam,” Abba said as her breathing became labored. “We’re almost there.”

Abba rang the bell to Rolf’s apartment. He answered a moment later and invited them inside. Miriam needed to sit down as fear threatened to overwhelm her. Rolf brought her a glass of water. “Where’s your wife, Professor Jacobs?” he asked.

“She isn’t coming.” Miriam saw pain in Abba’s eyes as he removed his glasses and rubbed them. He’d been forced to choose between staying with his wife of twenty-five years and leaving with his daughter. Miriam wondered if Abba would have stayed behind if she had.

“Shall we go, Professor?” Rolf asked after they’d rested and regained their composure. Abba nodded. They left through the back door and went down a rear staircase to where the car was parked behind the building. Miriam gripped the railing on the way down, her knees trembling. They were three ordinary people, traveling west out of Cologne, going on a holiday in the countryside the way they had when Miriam was a child.