Annelies полностью

“But it is also true, Annelies, that you have a talent for provoking your mother in unnecessary ways.”

A gleam of tears appears. “So it’s my fault as usual.”

“I’m saying it takes two to argue. Mummy lost her temper and said something she didn’t mean. But she was also looking out for you. Trying to teach you about certain behavior that, as a child—”

“Of course! I’m such a child.”

“That as a child,” her father repeats, “you are still quite uninformed about.”

“Don’t be so sure, Pim. I may be a child, Pim, but children are quite well informed these days.”

“In that case you should have known better.”

“I accepted a puff, Pim.” She frowns, pushing herself up on her elbow and glaring into her father’s face. “A single puff from a boy’s cigarette. That’s all. I didn’t even like it. And yet in her eyes that was enough to make her daughter a strumpet.”

Pim breathes in and exhales slowly. “You must understand that your mother’s nerves are stretched. You must remember what she was forced to leave behind when we came to Holland. She had a life in Frankfurt. A lovely house. Lovely things.”

“I know all about it, Pim. We’ve all heard it a hundred times. The big house, the maid, everything. But may I point out that you left a life behind in Germany as well, and yet you don’t hate me.”

“Your mother doesn’t hate you,” Pim corrects her firmly. “She loves you. She loves you and Margot more than anything.”

Anne drops back down onto her pillows, wiping her eyes on her pajama sleeve. “Well. Margot maybe.”

“Anneke.” Pim sighs forlornly, shaking his head. “You can be so hard on her. And she can be hard on you, too, I know this,” he concedes. “But she is sorry. Sincerely sorry. And when a person’s regret is sincere, then the only decent thing to do is to forgive them.”

Anne frowns at the air. “All right,” she agrees thinly. “All right. For your sake I’ll forgive her. I’ll pretend it never happened. But you’re wrong about one thing,” she tells him. “Mummy will never love me. Not like you do. You’re the one who truly loves me.” She pushes herself up and embraces him, arms around his neck and her ear pressed to his chest so she can hear the tick of his heart.

“Your mother loves you,” he insists quietly, patting her back. “We both love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it, young lady. Now, let’s forget all about tears and angry words. It’s your birthday coming. Sleep tight and dream about what a marvelous day it’s going to be.”

But as her father rises to leave, she calls out to him, “Pim, are we going into hiding?”

Her father stiffens as if he has just stepped on a tack but wants to keep it a secret. “Why do you ask such a thing?”

“Because I wonder where Oma Rose’s sterling-silver set has gone.” One hundred and thirteen pieces from Koch & Bergfeld of Bremen, and one of her mother’s prized possessions. “I was hoping that I would be allowed to use it for the party, but when I looked for it in the cabinet, it was missing. I even looked under the beds. The entire case has vanished.”

“And did you ask your mother about this?” Pim wonders.

“No. I’m asking you. Did you have to turn it over to the robbery bank?” Anne asks, worried to know the answer if it’s yes.

But Pim’s expression remains calm. Rational. “Your mother’s silverware is quite valuable to her,” he explains. “We thought it would be safer to ask some friends to hold on to it for the time being.”

“Friends who aren’t Jewish,” says Anne.

“That’s right,” her father admits without embarrassment.

“So the silverware has gone into hiding, but not us?”

“This is nothing you need to worry about tonight, my dear,” her father tells her. He returns to her bedside long enough to give her forehead a kiss. “Now sleep.”

“Pim, wait. My prayers.” Anne closes her eyes. Sometimes when she prays, she pictures God listening. A colossal, snowy-bearded bompa, the contented Master of the Universe, who gladly sets aside the governing of the cosmos long enough to listen to Anne Frank’s small recitation. Her prayers are in German still, just because they always have been so, and she ends them as she always has, with her closing message to the Father of Creation. Ich danke dir für all das Gute und Liebe und Schöne. Her thanks for all the goodness and love and beauty in the world. Amen.

“Very nice,” her father says with quiet satisfaction.

She gazes for a moment at the misty image of the divine in her head but then blinks it away. “Do you think that God can protect us, Pim?”

Pim appears surprised by this question. “Can he? Well. Of course he can, Anne.”

“Really? Even when the enemy is all around?”

“Especially then. The Lord has his plan, Anneke,” Pim assures her. “No need to worry yourself. You should simply have a good night’s sleep.”

Anne settles. He kisses her again on the forehead as Margot enters from her toilette.

“Good night, my dear Mutz,” he tells Margot.