“Laura need not be jealous,” Adele said dismissively. “I saved my best strawberries for the children as I always do.”

Mayim and I shared a smile. I stretched out my legs and rested my head against the wall behind me, casting my gaze over the silhouettes of the trees and the buildings behind us as the golden sun dipped behind them.

“No Jürgen again tonight?” Adele said. I could hear the disapproval in her voice. “So he’s working the weekend, then. You need to help him find some balance.”

“And how do you propose I do that, Aunt Adele?” I asked, swallowing a sigh. She wasn’t wrong. Jürgen was sleeping on the couch at his office more and more.

“Did you hear about Mrs. Haas?” Adele asked us grimly, referring to one of her widowed friends. “Gestapo. They took her a few nights ago. She was no more engaged in activities disloyal to the Reich than I am a pumpkin. She was fighting with Walter Berner. He lives upstairs from her, remember? He just didn’t like the way her dog barked at night. It seems clear that he called in a tip to the Gestapo out of spite, and now that poor, fragile old woman is in a concentration camp somewhere.”

Mayim and I exchanged a glance over Adele’s assessment of Mrs. Haas as fragile and old, given the woman was probably at least ten years younger than Adele. Even so, the thought of the Gestapo dragging her from her home left me ill.

“Aunt Adele…” I dropped my voice. “You shouldn’t speculate like that. You never know when someone is listening.” The courtyard was relatively safe, surrounded by other courtyards, and I couldn’t hear any movement, so I assumed they were empty. But beyond the courtyards were windows, and who knew who might be behind them?

“I’ll speculate all I want, Sofie,” Adele said, looking down her nose at me. “What are they going to do—arrest me for pointing out the blindingly obvious?”

“You really do need to keep your voice down,” Mayim whispered, her tone slightly panicked. Adele sighed, then nodded.

“Yes, okay. Thank you, Mayim.”

“Every night before I go to bed, I review every interaction from that day and ask myself—did I do anything that might be perceived as disloyal?” Mayim said softly, startling me. “Some nights I can’t sleep because I worry that I might have accidentally said something to draw attention to myself—to cause trouble for us all.”

“I hate that you have to live like that,” I whispered, throat tight.

“The calculus is different for you, Mayim,” Adele said gently. “And you have your whole life ahead of you. This is no way to live. Have you thought about that? What your future will look like?”

“I think about it every day.”