“It is the truth!” Ans had been warned back in Leiden not to befriend anyone if she was ever arrested because the Nazis often planted spies in prison cells. This friendly woman’s abrupt arrival made Ans suspicious. She’d spoken only superficially with the other women sharing her cell, but they all had a core of tensely coiled fear that this talkative one lacked.

“My name’s Trix. What’s yours?”

“Bernandina . . . but if you don’t mind, I don’t feel much like talking right now.”

“You might feel better if you told me all your troubles and had a good cry —”

“Shut up and leave her alone,” one of the others said. Ans looked up at her gratefully. The nosy cellmate retreated.

The guard returned for Ans the next day, leading her through the labyrinthine hallways until she stood before a Nazi judge for her hearing. The fox-faced Gestapo officer was her accuser. “This is your last chance to tell the truth so I can help you,” he told Ans.

“But I did tell you the truth.”

The judge beckoned for the officer to come forward to speak privately in German. “I think she’s a courier for the Resistance, but I have no proof,” the officer told the judge. “She claims to be a farm maid, but she seems too bright and well-spoken.”

“Does she have the hands of a farm maid? Tell her to show me her hands.” The Gestapo officer ordered Ans to hold out her hands. She pretended to be baffled and held them up as if in surrender. The officer yanked them down and pushed them in front of the judge so he could examine them. For the first time in her life, Ans was grateful for red-chapped washerwoman’s hands.

“They’re the hands of a maid,” the judge said. “Was she carrying contraband?”

“No, but she admitted that she’d been to Bodegraven, so she might have delivered it before her bicycle was commandeered.” Ans objected to the word commandeered. Her bike had been stolen, plain and simple. But she didn’t dare react.

“Ask her how to milk a cow,” the judge said. Again, the Gestapo officer translated the request into Dutch, and again Ans tried to appear baffled, as if there were no mystery to milking a cow. She described the process, including a warning to watch out for the cow’s rear hooves.

“You have to squeeze and pull . . . Here, I’ll show you.” She grabbed her accuser’s hand, using his fingers as teats to demonstrate the gentle squeeze-pull motion that drew out the milk.

“Such a clever girl,” he muttered in German, his fox eyes narrowed. “A little too clever for a dairymaid, I think.”

“I only learned how to milk after I came to this country,” she told the judge. “I wanted to be a housemaid, but the only work I could find was on a farm.” The Gestapo officer didn’t translate what she’d said.