The question stopped her. She was afraid to say too much to this kind stranger or talk about her work with the Resistance. The Nazis still might be searching for her under her real name, and if she went home, she feared they would hurt her parents —and discover Elisheva. “I was living in Leiden when the war started,” she finally said.

“I think we can help you get to Leiden if that’s where you’d like to go. Until recently, we always provided rail tickets to paroled prisoners, but train travel is impossible right now. Our relief vans travel to the various jails and prisons around the country, so we might be able to shuttle you from place to place and eventually get you to Leiden.”

“Thank you. I would be very grateful.” She would find a way to get home to her farm from there, but first she needed to make sure Eloise was all right. Ans’s greatest fear was that Eloise had sunk so deep into despair after her husband was arrested that she would try to harm herself.

“But before you go,” the woman continued, “you should know that many, many people are starving in the western part of our country, especially in cities like Amsterdam and Leiden. The Nazis were so furious when all of the railroad workers went on strike as our queen asked them to do that they stopped distributing food in order to punish us. The Nazis have also destroyed many of our harbors to prevent the Allies from using them, and that means there are no food shipments by sea, either. Our Red Cross has organized soup kitchens in the cities, but we’re running low on food ourselves.”

“It’s a good thing I learned to get by without much food in prison,” Ans said. She pulled the waistband of her slacks out to show how huge they were. The woman looked away.

It took nearly a week of shuttling from place to place, but eventually Ans said goodbye to her Red Cross hosts outside Leiden’s train station and walked across the bridge into the old city. The train station had suffered bomb damage, and the city’s buildings and streets looked tired and beaten down —as did the people she passed. The Red Cross had fed Ans along the way and she’d regained some of her strength. They’d also given her a secondhand winter coat.

She took a detour past the café where the Resistance once relayed messages, hoping to contact Havik again, but the café was closed and shuttered. She drew a deep breath, steeling herself for the worst, and hurried to the Huizengas’ town house on the Witte Singel, walking around to the rear and knocking on the kitchen door. She had no idea what she would find.