“Look at me, Bernandina.” His voice could have turned water into ice. Ans forced herself to meet his gaze, determined not to let it waver. It was all right to let her fear show, she told herself. An innocent dairymaid would naturally be terrified. His narrowed eyes bored into hers. “We know you work as a courier for the Resistance, so do not deny it.” Ans shook her head, her throat too tight to speak. Did he really know or was he bluffing? “It will be much better for you if you tell me everything. I really do not want to hurt you.”

“But I am telling you the truth.” Before she could blink, the officer lifted his hand and slapped her face.

“Don’t lie to me!” She staggered backwards, clutching her stinging cheek. He pushed her hand down and forced her to look at him again. “You won’t like the prison camp at Vught. You’ll suffer there. Perhaps you’ll even die. Do you want to die, Bernandina?”

“No.”

Terror flooded through her. Then, unbidden, the words Ans had been made to memorize in catechism class swirled softly through her mind: “I am not my own, but I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. . . .”

“I can arrange favored treatment for you in prison —better food, a warm blanket, special favors from the guards. Favored prisoners do not die.”

“. . . He watches over me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head . . .”

“Tell me the truth right now, Bernandina, and I’ll make certain you are favored.”

She swallowed. “I am telling the truth.”

“. . . He also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him. . . .”

“I don’t believe you.” He lifted his hand as if he might slap her again, and she flinched. A tear rolled down Ans’s cheek.

“Why won’t you believe me?”

He glared at her for a long moment before saying, “I have a few questions about your home in Java.” Ans’s stomach rolled, and she looked down at the floor. He reached to lift her chin. “You will look at me when you answer.” Someone must have coached him, because his questions poked at details about her home and her family as if seeking a thread he could pull to unravel her lies. Ans stared into his lean face as she described everything Erik had told her, adding as much detail as she could recall. His expression gave nothing away. Ans had no idea if he was finding errors in her stories or not. The interrogation seemed to last for hours until her legs grew weary and her fear overflowed in tears.

At last he paused, bending until his face was very close to hers. “Do you hope to return to Bandung one day? To your family?”