“I’m sorry I didn’t bring something more to eat,” I tell Willem and Leo. “I came straight from work.”
Leo snorts, spearing another pickle. “You don’t see any of us carrying cakes, do you?”
“So are the others bringing the food? Or do you take turns, or…”
A thin dribble of vinegar trickles down Leo’s chin; he catches it before it hits the table. “What, now?”
“The food. Does one person host, and bring everything, or do you take turns?” His stare is blank. He has no idea what I’m talking about. I whip my head over to Ollie by the door. His shoulders are hunched up around his ears so his strawberry hair disappears into his collar, and the infinitesimal tilt of his head tells me he’s been listening to everything we’ve said. Leo is still waiting for me to explain my question.
“I’m sorry,” I say stiffly. “I got confused. Would you excuse me? I forgot to ask Ollie something.”
He doesn’t turn to face me, even though he’d have to be deaf not to hear me stomp up behind him. When I’m standing so close our sleeves are touching, I whisper quietly enough that Willem and Leo won’t overhear.
“Ollie. Where did you bring me?”
“What do you mean?” He raises his eyebrows.
“You know what I mean. What kind of meeting is this? Judith’s not even coming, is she?” My heart has started to thud. “Who are you really watching for?”
Was I a complete fool to trust Ollie after all? I thought he was safe, but it’s not like you can tell a Nazi informant just by looking. I move toward the coatrack, but before I can take my coat, Ollie nods toward the door. On the other side, two figures approach, one of them clearly Judith.
“What is this meeting?” I ask again.
“It’s about to start,” he says, raising his eyebrows again. “If you’re going to leave, be careful on your way out. The door closes fast.”
So he won’t stop me if I try to leave, but if I do choose to go, I’ll also be missing out on my chance to ask Judith about Mirjam. My only lead, my only clue, and a decision to make in less than a second. How much do I want to find this missing girl?
“It’s us,” a sharp voice whispers. “It’s Judith and Sanne.”
Ollie opens the door, and I don’t leave through it.
Judith really is stunning, with her pale parchment skin, molasses-colored hair, and a gaze that could cut glass. Sanne, the other girl, is friendly-looking, plump, and pretty, with white-blond hair that floats with static electricity when she takes off her hat. “Sorry we’re late; roads blocked,” Sanne explains, lightly patting Ollie’s shoulder and moving to greet Leo and Willem.
Before I have a chance to say anything to Judith, she brushes past me, too—either preoccupied or deliberately ignoring me—and takes a seat on the sofa.
“Judith,” I begin, but Ollie interrupts me by clearing his throat. Later, he mouths to me. After the meeting. You promised.
He sits on the edge of the sofa, and Sanne takes one of the chairs. It’s a fluid movement, one that says she’s done it a million times, that in this meeting everybody knows their place.
“Hanneke?” Ollie looks up at me. I’m the only one left standing, halfway between the door and the sofa. “Hanneke, are you sitting?”
One seat remains, a squat velveteen footstool. I move toward it slowly and sit down.
“Everyone, this is Hanneke,” Ollie says. He doesn’t introduce me further, so they must have been expecting me. There must have been a vote, or a discussion at least, about my presence. “As I told you all before, I vouch for her.”
He says this last part seriously, and with it, he puts me in a terrible position. Because I can’t say now that he shouldn’t vouch for me. How will Judith ever talk to me about Mirjam if I say I can’t be trusted? But still… what has he just implied that I can be trusted with? What is he bringing me into?
“Now,” Ollie continues, “the first order of business is to discuss the ration-card bottleneck. The Germans are getting more and more strict with—”
“Wrong,” Willem interjects. “The first order of business is for us to agree what it is that we’re celebrating. It’s been my birthday twice already this month.”
“And Leo and I have already been engaged several times,” adds Sanne.
Willem turns to me and explains, “We can’t tell people what we’re really doing, so we always have a pretend celebration in mind, that we’ll all use as our excuse if we’re stopped.”
“We used to say it was Bible study,” Sanne says. “But once I was stopped and the soldier asked me which book we’d been reading. I told him Genesis, because it was the only one I could remember, and then we decided none of us knew the Bible well enough to have that be our cover.”