Annelies полностью

Her pulse is mounting. She begins counting backward from a hundred in her head, trying to calm herself, but it surprises her when Dassah places a hand on Anne’s forehead and tells her to breathe. Just breathe. In. And out.

For once she follows Dassah’s advice without resistance. Breathing in, then out, until the panic in her heart settles.

“What do you think will happen to Mr. Nussbaum?” Anne asks. “Really.”

“You mean what do I think free of your father’s optimism? I would like to believe that it’s all a mistake. That Rosenzweig can intercede with the right people and set things straight. But I don’t know.”

“What do you think he’s saying to Pim in private?”

“I don’t know that either. But if I were to make a guess, I would say that they’re probably talking about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he thinks that Otto should send you to America. An opinion that he’s voiced over and over again until he’s worn out your father’s ear. You have quite a stalwart ally in Werner Nussbaum, Anne.”

Anne swallows. “He told me that he would send some of my writing to Cissy van Marxveldt. The writer. She’s very famous. He says he thinks she’ll like what I’ve done.”

When they return, Mr. Nussbaum is just taking his leave. Anne steps outside the door with him. A gull squawks overhead, circling in the high breeze above the canal. Mr. Nussbaum takes Anne’s hand and pats it with affection. He is smiling, but something slips in his expression. A bright star of pain lights his eyes. “Good-bye, my dear,” he tells her. “Wish me luck.”

“I do, Mr. Nussbaum.”

“Remember what I told you.” But when he bends forward to kiss the side of her cheek, he whispers a single sentence. “You are not alone.”

The day is ripped by a downpour out of the east, drumming on the domes of sprouted umbrellas, peppering the canals, beating wild rhythms against the good Dutch window glass. But by nightfall the windows are open, with only a tepid drizzle remaining. Anne is sitting on her bed, smoking a Canadian cigarette, staring at the sheet of paper cranked into Miep’s typewriter. She has been trying to rework parts of her diary, to put together pages for Mr. Nussbaum to send to Cissy, when the telephone rings. She hears Dassah pick it up and then hears her call Pim’s name with pointed alarm. Quickly, Anne is up from her chair, opening her door. The lamp near the door is lit, and she watches her father accept the telephone. She feels an itch of heat at the back of her neck. With the receiver pressed to his ear, his expression sags, the color draining from his face. “When?” is all he asks. A single word, burdened with the quiet necessity of loss.

Out of her room, Anne is insistent. “What is it? What’s happened?” she’s asking.

Pim only raises his palm for quiet. “Yes, yes, I see. I see. Yes, thank you, Mrs. Kaplan.” Only now does he lift his gaze to Anne, as if eyeing an animal caught in a snare. “I’ll take care of any necessary arrangements.”

“What, Pim? What arrangements?” Anne demands, feeling her voice thicken in her throat as her father rehooks the receiver.

Pim takes a half breath. “Annelein,” he says with a kind of sunken grief. “That was Mr. Nussbaum’s landlady. She was at home when she received a visit from the police.” A small fortifying breath. “I’m sorry,” he tells her, and then his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows the words. His gaze goes bleak. “But Werner Nussbaum is dead.”

A dull thump, like the blow of a mallet. “Dead.” She speaks the word aloud, her eyes going wet. “No . . .” She can’t comprehend this. “No. I just saw him. How? How can he be dead?”

“His body was found afloat in the Brouwersgracht,” Pim informs her. “He must have slipped. The heavy rain. He must have slipped and fallen into the canal.”

But the lie embedded in Pim’s explanation is fooling no one.

Anne feels the room tilt. And then she is falling, too.

31 THE QUESTION OF FORGIVENESS

We are not so arrogant as to say before you, “We are righteous and have not sinned.” Surely, we have sinned.

—Yom Kippur liturgy

1946

Joodse Begraafplaats Diemen

Ouddiemerlaan 146

Diemen

LIBERATED NETHERLANDS

The gravestones are spread across the dark green meadowland. Some are chipped and cracked with age or vandalism. Broken slabs of slate lie abandoned on the ground, lost in the untrimmed grass. There are no avelim attending Mr. Nussbaum’s burial. The rabbi has had to conscript men from his community just to assemble a full minyan of ten for prayers. Pim seems to know some of them. His comrades. He is not the only pallbearer whose tattoo is showing as they ferry the plain pine coffin over the cemetery’s terrain. Anne stands with Dassah behind her, watching the coffin as it’s lowered into the earth. The tears are hot on her skin as the kaddish is recited.