Ans de Vries arrived at the Leiden train station toting all of her belongings in two canvas bags and a pasteboard suitcase. She couldn’t help grinning as she walked down busy Rapenburg Street, thrilled to be moving to such a bustling place. The air smelled of coffee and of the fishy canals and rivers, not of manure. The streets hummed with traffic. Bicycles whooshed past and leaned in tangled piles outside shops and houses. Church steeples and the domes of an observatory poked above the trees in the distance.

Ans followed the directions Opa had given her to meet with her potential employer, Professor Herman Huizenga. She would have skipped like a schoolgirl all the way there in her eagerness to begin her new life, but the cumbersome baggage slowed her steps. A fifteen-minute walk brought her to his office at the university, a venerable old building of aged brick and polished wood, rich with centuries of history. She climbed the stairs to the second floor. His door stood open. Ans set down her luggage, straightened her blouse, and smoothed back her fair hair before knocking on the doorframe. She hoped she didn’t smell of cows.

“Come in, please.”

She stepped through the doorway with what she hoped was a confident smile and extended her hand to the gentleman seated behind a desk. “Hello, Professor Huizenga. I’m Ans de Vries. I’m here about the job as a lady’s companion?”

He stood, unfolding his lanky body, grasshopper-like, and shook her hand. “Very nice to meet you. Please, have a seat.” She had never seen an office like his, lined with shelves of leather-bound books that spilled over onto the floor and every available surface. Scientific gadgets and contraptions she couldn’t begin to recognize adorned every pile and table and shelf and chair. What an interesting person he must be to have such an office.

“Thank you for coming, Miss De Vries,” he said when they both were seated. “You have been told what this job entails?”

“You would like a companion for your wife.” Ans had been surprised and pleased that no cooking or cleaning was required. It seemed too good to be true.

“Yes, an assistant of sorts, keeping Eloise company when I’m at work or when I need to travel to conferences. You’ll escort her when she goes out and help her pass her days agreeably and be a friend by her side. Sometimes she will ask for help dressing for the day and preparing for bed at night.”

“May I ask why she needs my help, Professor Huizenga? Has she been unwell?” The professor wasn’t old, probably in his early fifties. Surely his wife had friends and family members who could accompany her.