“You don’t know that,” I say.
“Don’t you think I want to help you? Don’t you know how hard it is for me to think about what might happen to that girl, all alone? I want to be like Bas all the time because he was charming and fun. But he wasn’t perfect. Someone has to be the careful one. Someone has to think, every moment of every day, of how dangerous a single slip could be.”
His hair is squashed to one side of his face; he has purple bags under his eyes. He must be exhausted. I don’t know how many miles he had to bicycle into the country to take Judith to her hiding place, and then he came straight here after. Seeing him makes me aware of how tired I am, as well. Whole worlds have happened since the last time either of us slept.
“Hanneke? Ollie?” It’s Mina, still sitting at Mr. de Vries’s desk, still holding the slides. She obviously hasn’t even been following our conversation.
Her face is frozen in horror.
“Mina? What is it?” I ask. She points to the slides in her hand, toward the last series of images that we hadn’t yet looked at. “Is Mirjam in those, too?” I go back to the desk, leaning over to see whatever she’s pointing to. “Let me see.”
“It’s not that. It’s… they’re closing down the crèche.” She hands me the magnifying glass before continuing. “Look, in this one—there are the other helpers, taking all the children into the theater. They never go in a big group like that. They’re going to close the nursery and transport the children with Mirjam.” I squint my eyes and see a parade of small children, and two of the young women I’d seen working in the nursery with Mina.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to Mina. “I know you knew them well.” But she’s shaking her head, pointing again at the slide.
“No. Look,” she says. “Look.”
I look. And I finally understand what she’s talking about. The older children from the crèche are walking into the theater. Two of the younger ones are in carriages. And one carriage in particular. The carriage holding the photographs of the brutal war and secret resistance, and everyone I have met and grown to care about in the past few days.
“They’ll find the camera in a minute,” Mina says. “The Nazis. When the carriage goes to the transit camp. And then they’ll find all of us.”
Ollie looks completely confused; he has never heard of the camera and has no idea what Mina is talking about. But I do. And I know that a few minutes ago, when we saw Mirjam in the photographs and Ollie told me that nothing had changed—he was wrong. Everything has changed.
Sunday
“What are we going to do?” Sanne asks for the fifth time, and for the fifth time, nobody has an answer.
Ollie flew around the city on his bicycle to gather everyone here, first to his apartment, where Willem had already left for an early class, and then to Leo, who promised to fetch Sanne and come straight to Mrs. de Vries’s. Now everyone is here but Willem and Judith, who knows more about the theater than anybody else and who can never come to another meeting again.
“I can’t believe you would be so stupid,” Leo snarls at Mina. “I had no idea you were taking pictures. We’re trying to save actual lives, and you’re flitting around with your camera? I told everyone you were too young.”
“Don’t yell at her,” Ollie warns. “Don’t yell at all.” He nods meaningfully toward the study’s closed door. Mrs. de Vries is furious that we’re all here. She hasn’t moved once from the front window, promising she’ll make us all leave immediately if she hears a noise coming from the study.
“It’s already done, Leo, okay?” Sanne says. “It’s too late to change that she did it. Now we have to figure out: What are we going to do?”
“Let’s think it through,” Ollie says. “Maybe nobody will find the camera. Mina was using it to take pictures for months, and the other volunteers in the crèche didn’t realize it. Is that a possibility?”
Mina bows her head miserably. “You know it’s not. When the transports get to the transit camps, they search everyone’s personal items—sometimes people try to sew jewelry or money inside their coats and suitcases. The guards will rip that carriage apart at the seams. And when they do…”
We all know what will happen when they do. Pictures of the resistance workers. Pictures of dozens of hidden exchanges, of children going into hiding, of innocent, innocent people.
“But how do you even know they’ll take the carriage to the station?” Sanne asks. “When people are called for transport, they’re usually allowed to bring just one suitcase apiece. Why would guards let a family bring along a carriage? Maybe it will just be left in the theater.”