Reminded of the upending of our plans, our lives irrevocably changed, I clench my jaw to keep myself intact. I explain simply, “She’s family, and we leave together or not at all.”

After a pause, the man turns sharply and strides away. It seems a rejection until he reaches the door, where he peers out the window and flips the sign to declare the shop closed. Then moving toward me, he’s about to speak but stops short, an internal debate.

What is he not saying?

Evelien scampers back to my side. “Can we eat now?”

The clerk offers a smile I’m unable to read. “Come upstairs,” he says. “We have food and will discuss everything further.”

***

On the upper floor, in the kitchen of his modest home, the clerk hastens to clear the table of battered books in various stages of repair. “Sit and rest, and my daughter will prepare you both a meal. Perhaps some hutspot. Mixed with even a bit of sausage.”

The teenager, bearing a petite if solid form, plants a fist on the hip of her skirt. “Father, you know we scarcely have enough—”

“You will feed them.”

With eyes weary beyond her years and limp brown hair framing a pretty face, she expels a huff. But she then marches toward the cupboards.

Evelien tightens her hold on my hand, registering the tension. To ease it, I assure the clerk, “Sir, we would be more than glad to pay you.” Aside from being fair, it’s only practical. “As soon as we cross the border, we’ll no longer need guilders.”

“True…yes, but…” He struggles to finish. “That could be a while yet.”

It seems we’ve arrived at the underlying issue.

“How long is a while?”

“A week—I believe. Possibly more. I am uncertain.”

I gape at him. Given the circumstances, anything beyond a few days is eternity. “Why so long?”

Before he can answer, his daughter sets a plate of sliced bread firmly on the table. “Because your assigned mountain guide is dead. As are the two airmen he was escorting.”

The clerk tsks at her. “The child,” he says. His daughter looks away, incensed. But moisture glimmers in her eyes, a suggestion of grief, before she retreats to the stove in the corner.

He angles back to me, applying a smile. “I must return to the shop. When an update comes through, we will know more. Until then, the other safe houses are full, but you will stay here for now.”

His daughter jumps in. “No. They can’t! We already—” She catches herself and goes silent. I sense her fuming as her father waves Evelien and me toward the chairs at the table.

“Enjoy the bread,” he says with forced cheer, “and we will get you some milk.” With that, he joins his daughter at the stove, where they argue in low tones.