“The food,” she replied without hesitating. “The wonderful spices.” She named some of the dishes Erik had taught her to make, and his smile vanished.

“Stop. I’m going to give you one last chance to help yourself, Bernandina, and then it will be too late. You must stop this game of lies you are playing and tell me the truth about why you went to Bodegraven. Tell me the names of the people you’re working for, and I’ll see that you’re given a nice bed in the prison in Vught and special treatment there. Because you will be going to Vught for breaking curfew, I promise you. Why not make it easier on yourself?”

“I am telling the truth. I work for the Dykstras. I went to buy shoes.”

“Then heaven help you, because I can’t.” He yanked her to her feet and opened the door, then pulled her back into the office. “She wouldn’t break,” he told one of the other Gestapo men in German.

“Shall I work on her?” the man asked. Ans closed her eyes, praying that she would hold up, that she wouldn’t betray anyone.

“For now, her only crime is breaking curfew,” the first officer replied. “She had nothing incriminating on her. I had a hunch that she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but it was only that. We need to look for cracks in her story first. Put her in a cell.”

A guard led her down a corridor in a cellblock that reeked of urine and unwashed bodies and unlocked a door. Her cell was only ten feet by seven feet and already held four women who were asleep on the floor on straw mattresses. They grumbled as they moved aside to make room for Ans. She could smell the bucket in the corner that served as a latrine and stepped carefully over the other women to use it as they settled back to sleep. The only light came from a high window that faced the corridor.

Ans was desperately thirsty. She stepped over the women again to reach a metal water pitcher and tin cups near the door, but the pitcher was empty. The guard hadn’t given her a mattress, but Ans knew she wouldn’t sleep anyway. She sat down with her back against the wall, wrapped her arms around her bent knees, and tried to pray.