A heartrending tenderness stings her, causing her eyes to go damp. “I don’t understand, Mr. Nussbaum,” she whispers.
Mr. Nussbaum’s smile turns ghostly. “Why? Because, Anne, my dear, you are all the future I have left.”
• • •
On Friday night Dassah has prepared a Shabbat supper.
Wearing a shawl, she circles her hands above the lit candles and covers her eyes before reciting the blessing.
“Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.”
Anne has closed her eyes as well. Can she still pray?
Blessed are you, God, ruler of the universe, who sanctified us with the commandment of lighting Shabbat candles.
When she opens her eyes, she can see Margot in the flickering candle glow, wearing the pullover and the yellow star.
• • •
The next morning there’s a knock on the door early. Anne, still in her pajamas, hears it in her bedroom. She is lying on the bed and staring at the small crack in the ceiling plaster when Pim speaks Mr. Nussbaum’s name.
“I’m so sorry to intrude like this, without any notice,” Mr. Nussbaum is apologizing, his voice tightly stressed. “But when this summons arrived for me in the morning post, honestly, I didn’t know where else to go.”
The man blinks in her direction, but his eyes don’t seem to focus properly. Anyway, it’s Pim who answers the question, glaring at the paper in his hands. “Mr. Nussbaum is being deported, Anne,” he replies with muted shock. “Back to Germany.”
An hour passes, and after a few telephone calls, one of Pim’s kameraden is sitting on the chesterfield sofa that Pim had delivered from a furniture maker in Utrecht. It is the lawyer Rosenzweig. He’s a lanky sort of mensch in an ill-fitting suit. Bald head. A straight, narrow face and large, hooded eyes behind round spectacles. The tip of a purpled camp number peeks from the edge of his shirt cuff. He’s holding the coffee cup that Dassah has passed him on his bony knees. Anne has dressed and pinned back her hair with a barrette. She lights a cigarette and watches the smoke trail upward. Mr. Attorney Rosenzweig has come armed with details. According to his story, there is an internment camp in eastern Netherlands outside Nijmegen. A former army barracks now known as Kamp Mariënbosch. There the government has rounded up German refugees, newly branded as enemy nationals, including, as it happens, any number of German-born Jews. Rosenzweig says it’s part of a land grab that the Dutch Committee for Territorial Expansion is advancing under the slogan “Oostland—Ons Land.” East land—Our land. They want to annex their fair portion of German terrain and purge the ethnic Bosch.
“And this,” Pim starts to say, but he must pause to lick the dryness from his lips. “This,” he repeats, “is where Werner is going to be sent? To a
Mr. Rosenzweig can only nod. “That would be the current procedure.”
Anne feels a chill on her cheek. Cold tears. “How could this
But even now Mr. Nussbaum attempts to console her. “Anne. This place. Mariënbosch, if that’s the name. It’s just,” he says, “it’s just a detention camp. It is not a death sentence.”
“No,” Dassah agrees more sharply. “So there’s no need to be dramatic.”
Pim turns his head to Mr. Nussbaum, his expression heavy but direct. “When are you due to report, Werner?”
“Report? Uh. In two days.”
“Then, Hadas, you are correct. We still have time to work this matter through. I’m sure that Mr. Rosenzweig knows people he can contact,” Pim says.
A frown says maybe Mr. Rosenzweig is not so sure about that, but he goes along. “There may be,” he’s willing to venture. “I’ll see if there’s anything that can be done.”
“Good. Good.” Pim nods and gives Mr. Nussbaum a soldierly pat on the shoulder. “We’ll make a plan to meet again tomorrow. Until then we can always pray.”
Pray, Anne thinks. Pray. She doesn’t say it, but she thinks it: She prayed at Birkenau. She prayed at Belsen. For deliverance. For forgiveness. And she is still waiting for both.
“It’s all God’s comedy, isn’t it?” Mr. Nussbaum says. But after Mr. Attorney Rosenzweig has taken his leave, Mr. Nussbaum says to Pim, “Otto. May I speak with you briefly? In private?”
Pim looks uncertain but forces a smile. “Of course. Hadas?”
Dassah turns to Anne. “Anne. Come take a walk with me.”
• • •
They walk in silence. A lorry whooshes past, sending up a cloud of grit and exhaust. Anne coughs. Stops and leans against the concrete stairwell. The stink of the canal fills her nostrils.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Dassah is asking her. “Are you sick?”