Annelies

1945

Jekerstraat 65

Amsterdam-Zuid

LIBERATED NETHERLANDS

“It is only the two of us, Anne,” her father says. His voice is cracked. Ragged. Smoke from the cigarette clenched between his fingers migrates upward. Of all of them from their hiding place, it is only Anne and Pim who have returned alive. “Only us.”

This confirms what she already knew without being told, but she does not tell him this. He seems not to be speaking to Anne anyway, but to a void rooted within himself. His face is tightly shuttered, and he glares at the window as if he could see through all the way to the land of death, where his wife, his daughter, his friends now reside.

The sun is sinking away, too weak to hold itself in the sky any longer. Its fleeting light pinks the walls of Miep and Jan’s kitchen. Anne discreetly surveys her surroundings. It feels so strange—so wrong—to be sitting in someone’s home. There are well-swept rugs and well-kept furnishings. Lace doilies with tulip appliqués on the arms of the upholstered chairs and the cloying scent of floor wax in the hallway. A bottle of good Dutch apple brandy has appeared from the hidden recesses of Miep’s bureau, and Jan is pouring it into short white tumblers made from hobnail milk glass.

“Otto,” he says as he splashes the brandy into a tumbler, naming each one of them. Pim is sitting beside Anne, his arm hooked over the back of her chair. The closed mask he wore only a moment ago has been replaced by an expression of manic disbelief that hangs loosely from his face.

“Miep,” says Jan as he pours.

“Only a taste,” his wife instructs softly.

“And now Miss Frank,” Jan announces with a flourish that makes Anne uncomfortable. She is the guest of honor here simply for surviving the KZs. That has been her only accomplishment: to continue breathing despite what that cost her. She watches the honey-gold of the brandy pour from the bottle. To accommodate the electricity shortages in Amsterdam, Miep has lit a paraffin candle at the center of the table. Jan allows himself a moderate splash before sitting. And then a silence takes hold. The last of the sunlight has fled, and a purpled dark spreads. Pim lingers over the silence, then hoists his tumbler, managing to speak the only word left to him. “L’chaim,” he toasts.

To life.

A few minutes later, he is on his way to the toilet when he collapses. A dull thud in the corridor, and Miep is calling, “Anne! Anne, your father!”

The doctor who arrives an hour later is a Dutchman known to Miep for his reputation as one who had provided medicine for onderduikers who’d fallen ill during the occupation. He has the troubled face of a ragged old lion. Miep and Jan have managed to haul Pim up from the floor and have carried him to the long velveteen sofa. “Help me with his shirt, please,” the doctor instructs Miep. And Anne sees how thin, how transparently birdlike Pim’s chest has become. She thinks she might see his beating heart, a bluish tint beneath his ribs. Her father’s eyes are open, but he is staring blindly up at the ceiling as the doctor jumps the bell of his stethoscope about as if playing a game of checkers.

Suddenly Anne can’t breathe. A ferocious terror is burning the oxygen from the room, and she must get out. She must flee to the street, where a greasy white light glows from a lone streetlamp. Her hands are clenched, her body is clenched, she is breathing in and out, fighting the urge to run until she drops. So she squats against the wall of the building, closing herself up in a ball.

“You must understand that I can’t tell him,” she says.

Can’t you? Margot is beside her in her dirty Lager rags, wearing the pair of wooden clogs she was issued.

“Don’t you see? He’s so fragile. If I tell him,” Anne says, “if I tell him what I did, it could kill him. His heart might give out.”

But Margot vanishes when the door to the flat opens. The doctor trudges out onto the sidewalk, and Anne hurries to her feet.

“How is he?”

In reply the doctor proffers a thick frown. Is this the same face he wears whether the news is good or bad? “Your father should be fine,” he informs her grimly.

“But. What happened?”

“What happened?” A shrug as the man mounts his rickety Locomotief bicycle.

“Was it his heart?”

“His heart? No.” The doctor considers. “I wouldn’t say it was his heart. I would say it was nerves. An attack of angst, it might be called. I’ve given him a sedative so he’ll sleep. Is your name Margot or Anne?”

Anne tenses. “Why?”

Because those were the names he was calling for. I just assumed,” says the doctor.

She swallows. “My name is Anne.”

A nod. “You should go in and see him, then. The sedative will not take long to do its work.”

She finds that her father has been transferred to the tiny room off the parlor and is tucked under a blanket, his stocking feet sticking out at the end of the bed.

“Anne,” he says drowsily, his mouth forming a smile but his eyes drooping. He raises his hand to her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, kneeling beside him and taking his bony hand.

“Sorry? For what? It is I who should be sorry for spoiling your welcome.”

“You didn’t, Pim.”

“Tumbling over like an old tree . . .”

“The doctor said you’re going to be fine.”

But Pim doesn’t seem to be listening to this. Instead he is gazing at her face with a kind of broken gratitude. “What a miracle you are to me. The Red Cross . . .” he says, and he must pause and swallow painfully before he can finish his sentence, “the Red Cross listed you and Margot as among the dead. The both of you—” He stops, and his mouth flattens. “Carried off with thousands of others to mass graves.” His face crumples as if he can see it all happening. The bodies of his daughters hauled away from him forever. He hisses air from between his teeth. “I lived with that as a fact for months, and I was only half a human being.” But then, he tells her, came her postcard to Miep. To find that her Anneke was alive? He shakes his head. “I was so shocked and yet transported by joy. To have you back. Dare I believe in such a miracle after death had claimed you? I’ve never been a particularly religious person, Annelein, you know this. But to me it seemed that this was nothing short of the hand of God at work.”

Something angry nips at Anne’s heart. God’s hand? But before she speaks another word, she sees that the doctor’s sedative is at work here, and that Pim is softening into sleep. She watches as his breathing lengthens.

The electricity signals its return to the district as a floor lamp blinks to life. In the dining room, Miep has a plate with some rye bread and komijnekaas. Anne devours it all, stuffing it thoughtlessly into her mouth, until she spots the mix of sympathy and horror on Miep’s face.

“That’s the end of the cheese, I’m sorry to say,” Miep apologizes. “There are many things that are still scarce even after the Germans have gone. But I have some soup I could warm up. I could give you a bowl.”

Anne chews a mouthful of cheese and bread self-consciously, nodding, averting her eyes to the plate. When she’s sure Miep is busy in the kitchen, she crams a bite of bread into her mouth and then stuffs the final crust into the pocket of her sweater.

“No meat,” Miep informs her as she returns with a steaming soup bowl. “But. We maintain.” Her version of the Dutch national motto: Je maintiendrai.

Anne picks up the spoon and starts to eat, trying to slow herself, but it’s hard. She can hear how loudly she’s slurping, but she can’t help it. It’s a lesson of the camps. When you have food, wolf it down. When the bowl is empty, she gathers in a breath and stares blankly. By the window is her mother’s French secretaire that once stood in the corner of the bedroom Anne shared with Margot in the Merry. It presents itself just as it was. Its mahogany finish glows with urbane charm in a crease of lamplight, untouched by war and occupation, snatched out of time and placed here on Miep’s carpet. It breaks her heart.

“Do you have a cigarette, Miep?” she asks.

Miep obviously must absorb this for a moment. Anne Frank smoking? But then she says, “I think Jan keeps some in a drawer, hold on.” In a moment she returns with a box of sulfur-tipped matches, a black enamel ashtray, and a packet of Queen’s Day cigarettes.

“Do you remember these?” she asks.

“The English dropped them,” says Anne.

“So maybe they’re a little stale.”

No matter. Anne lights up, inhaling quickly. She feels a chomp of bitterness at the rear of her throat and sighs. “Thank you, Miep. I know cigarettes are valuable.”

Miep shrugs. Valuable compared to what?

“Everyone else is dead,” Anne says. “Everyone in hiding, except for Pim and myself. That’s the story, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Miep replies quietly, but without varnish. “That is the story.”

Anne nods. She asks about Bep. About Mr. Kugler and Mr. Kleiman.

Miep lifts her eyebrows. “We all made it through, one way or another,” she answers, as if advising Anne about the survivors of a shipwreck. “Bep and I did our best to maintain the office. There were still contracts to fulfill, and we felt we should do what we could to keep the wheels turning. But Mr. Kugler and Mr. Kleiman had the hardest time. After that awful day when the Grüne Polizei arrived, they were sent to the labor camps. Terrible places, yet they both managed to return in one piece. So now we’re all back at the office along with your father. Amazing, really,” Miep can only admit.

“He still goes to the office?” Anne’s brow knits. She hears a certain petulance enter her voice, unbidden.

Miep either doesn’t notice or pretends not to. “Every morning,” she answers. “Though it hasn’t been easy. Business is not so good, and there are certain problems that require sorting. It was quite difficult to keep fooling the Germans during the occupation, to convince them that the businesses were no longer Jewish owned. Things became knotty, and now they must be unknotted.”

“So Pim sits at his desk shuffling papers?” says Anne. “He sits there using the telephone and giving dictation, just as if nothing has happened?” Why does she sound so incensed by this?

Miep only shrugs again. “What else would you have him do, Anne?”

“What would I have him do?” Anne frowns, her eyes rounding. “I would have him shout, I would have him pound his fist, I would have him rattle the windows till they shatter. I would have him, Miep, demonstrate his outrage.”

Miep exhales a breath. “Well,” she says, “outrage. You know, Anne, that has never been your father’s way.”

• • •

Anne’s eyes fly open. “Margot!” she calls aloud, her heart thumping against her ribs and her flesh chilled. Blinking at the silver of morning, she shakes her head back into the present. She must have fallen asleep on Miep’s sofa. Her clothes feel rough against her skin. A blanket, which has been draped over her, sags onto the floor. Pim is slumped in a chair a few steps away, dozing, his head lolling with a rhythmic snore. For an instant he stirs, and his expression contracts as if he’s been pinched. His face is paled by the daylight glazing the windows. Only the ruddy patches under his eyes retain color. He is dressed in overlaundered pajamas with faded blue and white stripes and a too-large flannel robe, his feet hooked into a pair of worn leather slippers. She blinks again. Around her the flat is as hushed as an empty room. “Pim,” she says with more intention, and watches him shudder into consciousness, blinking back at her with a hint of the same brand of empty panic she feels in her chest.

“Ah.” He whisks a breath into his lungs. “So you’re awake.”

Anne sits up further, plants her feet on the floor, and sifts her fingers through her hair. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? The doctor,” she says.

“The doctor said rest, so I’m resting. But really there’s no need to worry. I’m fine. Just a bit of excess excitement, that’s all.”

Anne looks at him, and he takes this opportunity to beam back at her in a fractured sort of way. “Ah, my Annelein. How wonderful it is simply to gaze upon your face. Thank God that you have been returned.”

But Anne shakes her head. Lets her hair fall back across her face. “Miep said you just showed up at her door one day after the liberation.”

Pim nods at this as if it is only too true. “I did. It was a long journey back from Poland. The Russians liberated Auschwitz in winter, but it wasn’t till May that I could begin the journey home. I had to travel to Odessa and then board a boat for Marseille. And there was the matter of the French documents required. A Repatriation Card and other such nonsense,” he says, and bats away the memory with his hand. “All in all, I didn’t return to Amsterdam till June. Of course, others had long since occupied our flat in the Merwedeplein, and even if they hadn’t, I could never have gone back there. Not to live. So what choice did I have but to show up like a beggar at Miep’s door? She and Jan have been very kind to take me in. We owe them quite a lot, Anne.”

“How did you do it, Pim?” she asks. “How did you manage to . . .” But the words won’t form. Her father, however, can sense the question.

“How did I manage to stay alive in Auschwitz?” His expression drifts into a hollow spot. “How? It’s a question I’ve asked myself again and again. And again and again, I come to the same answer,” he says, and his eyebrows lift. “It was love.”

Anne glares.

“Love and hope. Love of my family and hope that I would see them all again. That’s what kept me alive, I believe.” A shrug. “That is my only explanation.”

“I was told,” Anne says, and though speaking the next words is worse than dragging thorns through her throat, she forces out a clenched, almost shameful whisper. “I was told. I was told in Bergen-Belsen, by a woman who knew her, that Mummy died in the Birkenau infirmary. Of starvation.”

A bleak nod of her father’s head. “Yes. That is what I was told also.”

“She was hoarding her bread for Margot and me.”

“She was devoted to her girls,” Pim concludes. But something in his voice betrays a reluctance to continue down this road. A small fidget runs through his body, and his hands tap restlessly against his knees. “Now come,” he says, pushing up from the chair. “Let’s have a cup of tea, the both of us.” And as he advances on the kitchen, he tells her, “Tonight you will move into the sewing room. A young lady, I think, needs her privacy.”

“But I’ll be taking your bed, Pim. Where will you sleep?”

“Me? Oh, don’t worry about the old man. There’s a closet bed in the wall, which will be quite adequate for this old sack of bones.”

And so it goes. That night Anne moves her suitcase into the sewing room. It’s small, really just a closet with barely enough space to yawn between the four walls, yet to her it seems quite cavernous. Anne has never in her life had a room to herself. When the door is shut, the privacy feels soothing in a way, a spot where she can breathe. But also it’s deep water. When she is alone, who knows where her displaced heart will lead her? She opens her suitcase and removes her contraband. A cardboard notebook of the world’s cheapest and flimsiest paper and a fountain pen that has learned how to cooperate.

She wonders if she might not drown in her own privacy. In hiding she would run to Pim’s bed when the English bombers came or when she was terrorized by her own dreams. But that’s impossible now. Now when she feels the loneliness overcome her, she can only sink into it.

That’s when I think of my diary, she writes on the page of her journal.

It is lost, of course. She remembers the pages scattered on the floor on the day of their arrest, but at the time she could not make sense of what she was seeing. Nothing seemed to matter in that instant. The Gestapo had breached their hiding place, and they were doomed. The shock was so horrific that even Anne’s precious diary meant nothing to her. All her years of work were no more than scratches on paper, and she barely gave it a look. It wasn’t until they reached Kamp Westerbork in Drenthe that she began to feel its loss. She remembers it now, she writes, as she might remember the closest of friends whom she has lost for good. But isn’t it folly for her to mourn the loss of a possession? She should be spending her tears on the memory of her mother, of Margot. She should be weeping over the loss of Peter, and of his parents, and even that stuffy old mug Mr. Pfeffer.

But her eyes remain dry at the thought of them. What does that say about her, this Anne Frank, whose tears are for herself and no one else?

On the page she writes, Please do not answer that question.