The black masks would soon be inside.

“Mom, I’m jumping down. It’s not that far. And then I’ll catch Rasmus. And then . . .”

“Jump, Hugo. Jump!”

She looked sad when she said it. But determined.

He crawled into the hole, braced his hands against the wood of the basement ceiling, hanging there with his feet down, straightening out as far as possible. And let go. It was a pretty good landing. When he looked up, Rasmus, younger and smaller, but more agile, always had been, his little brother landed softly, Hugo hardly needed to help him.

“Mom, listen. There’s an iron stand here, I’ll push it over and you can hand Luiza to me. Bend down into the hole. Do it, Mom!”

Her little boy. Who was so big, so wise.

With Luiza tight between her hands, she leaned over and down into the hole in the floor of the closet, stretching every joint in her body, and when Hugo reached his little sister’s foot, Zofia loosened her grip. Luiza seemed unaware that she had changed hands, that Hugo, balancing on the iron stand, had ever for one moment not been holding her.

“And now, Mom, now you can . . .”

When the front door couldn’t withstand longer, it fell heavily backward, into the hall, and the bang was as loud as a gunshot. Zofia barely had time to close the hatch, close the closet door, and turn around. That was it. Then they were in front of her.

Chapter 47

We heard children’s voices.”

They cut off the escape route between an unmade bed and a closed closet. They were taller and wider than Piet, intense and at the same time in command, and they were carrying guns she’d never seen before. Their black masks made their eyes animal-like, staring and aggressive.

“Little boys. Your boys.”

Zofia had often imagined this. Not because she wanted to experience pain or anxiety or because she was trying to understand what Piet had experienced so many times. It was to prepare herself. As if she’d known for a long time that life would bring her to this moment.

“I used to know your husband a bit back in the day. And I happen to know he has not one, but two boys—the ones I just heard.”

But now that it was happening, she didn’t feel the way she’d always expected to. She wasn’t shaking. It wasn’t hard to breathe. She wasn’t afraid.

“You don’t wanna talk? No problem. We’ve searched for children before, found them under beds and behind shelves, dragged them out against the protests of their hysterical parents and done what we came to do. But that was just a job. Pay the rent, put bread on the table.”