I rush to the neighboring door in the hall. I’m about to knock when Klara swings the door open, and we both gasp. But then she smiles. “Come and we’ll take you to the shelter. It isn’t far.” Her calm demeanor is moderately reassuring.

I hustle regardless to put on shoes and fasten my coat over my nightclothes. Led by Mrs. van der Meer, the newlyweds and I emerge on the square, where searchlights streak the sky, crisscrossing their ghostly white beams. We funnel with the crowd along the street and into a large, well-lit underground shelter.

There, we settle on the floor. Edgy among strangers, I watch Dirk shuffling a deck of cards. Another couple has asked him and his wife to play bridge.

Klara turns to me. “Would you like to play too?” She manages to project over the humming that has swelled to a flight of a million bees. “If so, we could always pick a different game.”

Explosions echo from German flak, of which I’m to look accustomed.

I pin a smile over my dread and kindly decline.

Eventually the all-clear signal sounds. As patrollers order us all back to our homes, I think of Bethnal Green station. How once again I face the unwitting threat of being killed by my own side.

Chapter 56

The day that follows, I decide, calls for an expansion of canvassing. Since Arie has reportedly passed through the square multiple times, he’s obviously traveling from a starting point to a destination.

I take brief breaks from Domplein to snoop around canal areas and cinemas, given his passion for bridges and enjoyment of picture shows. Not that I expect him to be lazing about, but I have to be resourceful. Proactive. I’ve never been good at sitting back and waiting for things to come my way.

All around Utrecht, German warning signs and swastika flags are ceaselessly disturbing. Yet ever more troubling is the frequency of three posted Dutch words:

Verboden Voor Joden. Forbidden for Jews.

News of segregation laws, then mass deportations to work camps, have long been filtering over the airwaves. The only Jews anymore in Holland, people say, are detained or living in hiding. But with assertions so extreme, part of me figured the reports were propaganda.

To see traces of evidence firsthand now tears at my heart, leaving me to question how far the Nazis’ cruelties have gone.

Unable to wrap my mind around it all, I channel my thoughts away, back to my mission. What I came here to do.

Throughout the city, I watch and listen, simultaneously vigilant over being discovered and trailed by someone other than Arie. It’s a tiresome undertaking with so many faces, especially on a Monday now with businesses open. Lines stretch everywhere for everything. The market, the bakery, the greengrocer. Certainly at the butcher’s, for those hoping for a bit of sausage, or at least minced horse meat to spare.