Annelies полностью

Up in the attic, Anne has taken refuge, forcefully cradling Peter’s cat, Mouschi. Mouschi is not a perfect angel like Anne’s cat, Moortje, the poor abandoned thing, but he’s still a warm beating heart. Outside, the branches of a lofty horse chestnut tree with a majestic crown of leaves brush the window glass. She has learned to find comfort in this tree. A tree that has stood for decades or more, still patiently allowing the breeze to rustle its branches. It calms her.

She wipes her eyes quickly when she hears someone climb the ladder and recognizes the voice.

“Anne?” Peter approaches her with a careful demeanor, as if she might detonate unexpectedly. She turns to Peter’s cat for comfort, pressing her lips against Mouschi’s soft, furry head. “Adults are impossible,” she declares in a wounded tone. Wounded, but perhaps willing to be mended by a few kind words.

Peter stops and leans against one of the wooden posts. At first he sounds boyish and wounded, too. “My paapje is sure a pain in the rump. No doubt. He’s always there to criticize.”

“And what about your mother? She’s not exactly blameless either,” Anne feels compelled to point out. Maybe she should have been pleased that Peter had risen to her defense against his parents, but really she was slightly irked, because coming out of his mouth her dreams did ring a bit ridiculous. And now she’s irritated that he sounds more like he’s complaining rather than trying to actually comfort her. Can boys really be so dense?

“Mum’s not so bad,” he says with a shrug. “She’s doesn’t try to be mean. It just comes out that way sometimes.”

Anne is not at all sure she wants to agree with this. She finds his optimism painful but keeps her mouth buttoned. Finally Peter manages to find a spot on the floor beside her. The attic is lit by a heavy white moon that silvers the branches of the chestnut tree. She feels the presence of his body beside her like a magnet, but he’s gone silent, so maybe it’s up to her to break through. “You know, Peter,” she says, “I’m very happy that you’re here.”

He seems surprised to hear this, but happily so. “You are?”

“Yes, of course. I really have no one else to talk to.”

“What about your sister? You have her.”

“That’s different. Margot’s my sister, yes, and of course that means something. But we’re so often poles apart. I can’t truly confide in her. I can’t truly confide in anyone.”

“Well . . .” he says, but seems to fumble around in his head for a path to finish that sentence.

Anne looks up at him directly and takes in those big, deep eyes and that shock of curls. “Well what?”

He looks at her, too, and shrugs, rubbing the cat’s head with his knuckles. “You can always confide in me,” he tells her. “If you want to.”

•   •   •

Three weeks later, in the middle of April, Anne feels her heart purring as she scribbles desperately into her diary, her hand trying to keep up with her heartbeat.

I can’t tell you, Kitty, the feeling that ran through me. I was too happy for words, and I think he was, too. At nine-thirty we stood up. Peter put on his tennis shoes so he wouldn’t make much noise on his nightly round of the building, and I was standing next to him. How I suddenly made the right movement, I don’t know, but before we went downstairs, he gave me a kiss, through my hair, half on my left cheek and half on my ear. I tore downstairs without looking back, and I long so much for today.

5 RADIO ORANGE

Dearest Kitty,

Mr. Bolkestein, the Cabinet Minister, speaking on the Dutch broadcast from London, said that after the war a collection would be made of diaries and letters dealing with the war. Of course, everyone pounced on my diary.

—Anne Frank, from her diary, 29 March 1944

Jews are regularly killed by machine-gun fire, hand grenades—and even poison gas.

—BBC Home Service, 6:00 P.M. news, 9 July 1942

1944

The Achterhuis

Prinsengracht 263

Hidden Annex

OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS