Ans waited until the professor returned from work and was with Eloise in their bedroom before telling them that she had to go into hiding. Eloise moaned and sank down on the edge of her bed. “It’s just like before. I’m losing everyone.”

“The underground is just being extra cautious until this mess at the apartment in Zoeterwoude settles down. Once I know it’s safe, I’ll come back and we can travel together again.” Ans had feared Eloise would break down the way she had after the Leopolds left. But even as Ans watched, she saw Eloise summoning her strength.

“Meta and Sientje are depending on me,” she said. “And you can tell the underground to send more people now that Max and Ina are leaving.”

“I’ll do that.” Ans had written a letter to Erik while she’d waited for the professor to come home, explaining that there was an illness in her family and that she had to return to her parents’ farm. He probably would see through the lie. He would know she’d been involved with the raided apartment. She couldn’t recall ever telling Erik where her parents lived, but she supposed the Gestapo could easily find out if they were after her. She wouldn’t really go to the farm, of course, but to whatever safe house the underground chose for her. She handed Eloise the letter.

“Will you please give this to Erik when he comes looking for me? Otherwise, he won’t know what happened to me.”

“Are you sure he can be trusted?” the professor asked.

“He saved my life today. If he hadn’t warned me about the raid, I would have gone to that apartment. I would be in prison right now.”

Ans hugged Eloise long and hard when it was time to leave. She hugged the professor, too. She couldn’t find words to tell the Huizengas how much she’d grown to love them. How much they’d influenced her life. But Havik arrived, driving a telephone repair van. It was time to go.

Ans picked up her suitcase and hustled out the back door with Max and Ina. “Do you really repair telephones?” she asked Havik as they drove away.

“It’s the reason I’m exempt from the labor camps. The Nazis need their telephones.”

Ans huddled in the back of the van with her friends, her bones jarring on the bumpy cobblestone streets, wondering about her future, wondering which direction they were driving. She wished she could have said goodbye to Erik —and to lovely Leiden, the place she’d called home for nearly five years. She refused to cry, refused to feel sorry for herself. Max and Ina and all of those wretched people in the apartment in Zoeterwoude faced a future much more precarious than her own.

CHAPTER 42