“We have to wait,” I choked out, and that was what we did. But every time I looked at the clock, I was surprised to find how little time had passed.

Eventually, Mayim and I shifted to the sitting room, and the sun began to breach the horizon, golden rays of light slowly filtering through the drapes. Mayim rose and made us some strong coffee in preparation for the children waking up. We sat together on the sofa and sipped the bitter brew.

“You thought they were here for me,” she said after a while.

“It seemed the only obvious reason for their visit.”

“You need Jürgen’s job more than you need me,” she said stiffly. “I’d rather stay at my parents’ apartment than to watch Jürgen dragged from your house by the Gestapo on my account.”

“Last night, Jürgen and I talked about leaving.”

“Leaving…his job?” she said, eyebrows lifting.

“Leaving Germany. All of us. Him, me, you…maybe even Adele.”

“Adele would never leave. She was born in that house—she wants to die in that house.”

“I know,” I laughed weakly, through my tears. Adele had trained us all so well—we each understood exactly what she wanted for the end of her life. “We were going to ask her anyway.”

But then I paused, considering the sequence of these events. Jürgen was so convinced they’d never let him leave. That was exactly why we intended to go quickly and quietly.

“It was after you went to bed,” I told Mayim, trying to join the pieces of the puzzle. “We were in the study. The door was locked. No one could have heard us.”

“Maybe Dietger was sitting outside?” she said. “Near the window?”

“We were in the corner, in the armchairs. The window was closed.”

I rose and walked back across the hall to the study. I had no idea what a listening device might look like—but if there was a microphone in his room, surely I’d be able to find it? Mayim came to help, but after we searched every nook and cranny, we found nothing.

“Isn’t it starting to feel like they have eyes and ears everywhere?” Mayim whispered when we finally gave up and dropped our exhausted bodies back into chairs in the living room. “Nowhere is safe now. Not even our own home. And when we can’t understand how they are surveilling us, we can’t do a thing to avoid it.”

We sat in silence for a long while after that. The sun rose all the way over the horizon. The coffee left in the pot had long gone cold.

“Mama,” Georg said. I turned to find him standing in the doorway, eyeing Mayim warily. She and I shared a sad glance, and I rose from the sofa.