“It will be.” He pushed his chair back from the table as if to give himself room to gesture when he spoke. “Right now, we’re all standing where King Hezekiah and his people stood. The enemy says, ‘Trust us. Join us. All will be well.’ But we each face three choices.” He ticked them off on his fingers, one by one. “We can lie low, mind our own business, and simply adjust to Nazi rule. Or if we like the way they’re doing things and we want to get ahead, we can collaborate with them, join the Dutch Nazi Party, and help them usher in their new Reich. Or, like Hezekiah, we can resist, refusing to surrender and assimilate.”

Ans thought of Eloise and her determination, at first, to fight back against her enemy. News of Allied defeats had destroyed her will to resist. Depression had pulled her down into a pit like quicksand.

“And will you be telling our congregation to resist?” Mama asked. Ans saw new lines in her face too.

“I will be telling our people that we need to make a conscious choice. To do nothing is to choose the enemy’s side. So there are really only two choices in the end —give in or fight back.”

“Do you think that’s wise, Papa? Please don’t put yourself in danger.”

“Engelena, it would be much more dangerous for me to face God at the end of my days and explain why I did nothing.”

“Your father is right,” Papa said. “I may have been sent home from the battlefield, but I’m going to continue to fight. Any nation that would bomb an unwary city and kill a thousand innocent civilians must be stopped.” His words and the urgency in his voice made Ans’s heart speed up. Was this her calm, quiet papa?

Mama was biting her lip, struggling against tears. “But, Pieter . . . our family . . .”

“I know. But what will their lives be like if they grow up under Nazi rule, learning their values and imitating their hatred?”

Ans understood Mama’s fear. She also knew that what Papa and Opa said was true. She thought about their words as she bicycled back to Leiden the following day, and about the question Eloise had asked when she’d first made up her mind to fight back: “Are you with me, Ans?” If so, Ans knew she would need to learn what it meant to fully trust God.