Annelies полностью

“Where?” Anne practically gasps. “Where did you get this?”

“Where?” A half smile, mildly perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Who gave you these pages?”

“Well, they came in the post. From your stepmother. Hadassah is her name, isn’t it?”

Anne can barely speak. “Yes,” is all she can manage.

“She wrote me a note explaining that Werner had given her my postal address and asked her to forward a sample for me to read.”

Anne says nothing more, though she can feel her pulse in her throat.

Cissy leans over and brushes the envelope with her fingertips. “Now I must ask you. The events you describe in these pages, they are all perfectly true?”

Anne blinks. “Yes,” she answers.

“This is your diary of life, as you recorded it. Nothing imaginary added.”

“Nothing,” she answers.

“Good.” Cissy takes a breath of satisfaction. “Good, because it must remain what it is and nothing more. The diary of a girl trapped by the darkest of circumstances. But also the diary of a girl who rises above the danger,” she says, “even as it overcomes her.”

Anne can only stare. Her eyes have gone damp.

“Werner was right. Your work is a treasure, Anne.” Cissy smiles gently. “Now. Let’s discuss a plan. Shall we? As luck would have it, I’ve recently come in contact with a very eclectic publisher from overseas,” she says. “They specialize in youthful literature, and I think that they might be quite interested in you.”

“You said ‘overseas’?”

“Yes, an American firm.”

Anne feels her heart thump.

“One of the senior editors expressed an interest in having some of my books translated into English,” Cissy tells her. “But that can wait. Because with your permission, Anne, I’d like to send him this typescript of your diary. What do you think?”

Leased Flat

The Herengracht

Amsterdam-Centrum

The Canal Ring

She finds Pim napping over his newspaper in the Viennese wingback. His spectacles have slipped down onto the bridge of his nose, the hair at his temples has gone quite white, and his lips flutter mildly with a cooing snore. She forgets sometimes that he is aging.

In the kitchen she finds Dassah washing up after the midday meal, a large cast-iron soup pot clunking against the side of the sink. Dassah turns her head. “So. She has returned.”

“You sent Cissy my pages,” Anne says.

“You make that sound like a crime, Anne. Isn’t it what you wanted? Isn’t that what Werner promised he’d do?”

“How do you know what Mr. Nussbaum promised me about anything?”

“Because he told me, Anne. How else? He told me the day before he drowned himself in the canal.” A shrug as she scours the bottom of the soup pot. “It was simple enough. He gave me the woman’s address. I borrowed the pages from your room for an afternoon, retyped them at the office, and dropped them into the post.”

Anne swallows. “Why?”

“Ah. You don’t enjoy feeling indebted to me, I suppose.”

“All I asked you is why? You’ve always made it clear how much you despise me.”

“Actually, you have that the wrong way around. It’s Anne Frank who’s always made it clear that I am despised by her. But no matter. I do what I think is best. What I think is best for me, best for your father, and best for you.” She pulls the pot out of the sink and sets it down to dry it with a dish towel. “This diary of yours. I knew that Otto had it in his possession. I never read a word of it at the time, mind you, but I didn’t have to in order to see that it was an anchor chain around your father’s neck, pulling him down. I can recall him clutching the small plaid book as if he were clutching his own heart in his hands. He couldn’t accept that the girl in its pages was gone. Which is why he couldn’t give it up, even though it tortured him to keep it from you. He simply couldn’t relinquish that memory. But then came the day his daughter was fished from a canal,” she says. “And I thought enough is enough. He could not keep it from you any longer without his own guilt eating him alive.”

Anne frowns. “You’re saying it was you who convinced him to give it back to me?”

“Me? I don’t convince your father of anything, Anne. He agreed because he knew it was the right thing to do. And also . . . well, he might have hoped to distract you. To silence your constant pestering about America. At least for a while. At least so he could sleep a night or two in peace.” She says this before a heavy, apprehensive voice comes from behind them.

“What’s going on here?” Pim wants to know.

Dassah’s eyes flick from him to Anne. “All right. No more of this war between the two of you,” she says. “Sit down at the table, please, both of you. We are going to either untie this knot or cut it.”

•   •   •