Annelies полностью

“So I tried to keep her focused on what was good and hopeful for the future,” Miep says, and she must dig her handkerchief from her purse to dab at the tears she is obviously trying to resist. “But. To no avail,” she can only conclude. “To no avail at all.”

Anne recognizes the black onyx ring Miep has on her finger. A jet-black stone with a tiny gleam of white diamond. “You’re wearing the ring from Mrs. van Pels.”

“I am.” Miep nods. “I thought I should begin to. It’s such a lovely thing, you know. I can’t help but think of what it would have been worth to the van Pelses on the black market. Yet they chose to give it to me as a birthday gift. It was really quite a beautiful gesture,” she says, looking out at the rain. Then she turns her face back to Anne. Her mouth straightens. “If I may tell you something honestly, Anne, it was so hard for me sometimes. When you were all in the hiding place, it was so hard to climb the stairs and find everyone lined up, waiting for me. So desperate. So confined and so needy. There were days I wanted to scream. But then I knew I could always count on you to break the tension. Do you remember what you’d say to me every time I arrived?”

Anne reclaims a hollow brightness in her voice. “Say, Miep—what’s the news?”

“That’s it.” Miep grins through her tears. “That’s it exactly. It was always such a tremendous relief.” Then the grin fades. She purses her lips and examines the frittering rain. “Impossible to believe that they’re all gone. That only you and your father . . .” she says, but doesn’t finish her sentence. “Impossible to believe that there could be such evil in people’s hearts.”

“People do wicked things,” Anne replies. “Commit terrible crimes.” In the reflection of the tram’s rain-splattered window glass, she meets Margot’s desolate gaze, glazed over by death. She stares at Anne with sad accusation. The conductor calls out the coming stop, and the tram hums to a halt. Passengers climb down; new passengers climb aboard with a routine jostling of shoulders. The bell rings, and the conductor sings out the name of the next stop.

“That’s us,” Miep says, obviously still disturbed.

“I killed Margot, Miep,” Anne hears herself whisper.

But Miep is busy returning her handkerchief to her purse, sniffing back her sadness. Reassembling herself. “I’m sorry, Anne, but I didn’t hear what you said.”

Anne is glaring hard at the dirty floor of the tram. Staring at her scuffed saddle shoes. “Nothing,” she says. “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

De Uitkijk Bioscoop

Prinsengracht 452

The Canal Ring West

By the time they’ve exited the tram, the rain is coming heavily, settling into a solid drubbing of a downpour, so they must dash across the slippery cobbles from the tram to the cinema. Inside, some of the last remaining Canadians, still waiting to be shipped back to their homeland, lounge at the bar, off duty, bored with the Netherlands by now since nobody’s shooting at them any longer. Their empty expressions say it. Bored of wooden shoes and windmills, of delft-blue chinaware and smelly summer canals. One of them is searching through the pages of a booklet entitled All About Amsterdam. He glances up and offers Anne a routine wink. She stares back at him without response. But in the auditorium a darkness is sweeping over her. The room is clammy with a sickly aroma of smoke and damp clothing. She feels all expression fall away from her face. An ugliness grips her belly. An oily guilt slithering through her.