Annelies полностью

Mother is seldom happy, it seems, unless she’s unhappy. Anne suspects that when Oma Rose died, she took something of Mummy with her. A piece of her heart that connected her to the world of her childhood, a comfortable world of affection, warmth, and safety. But after Oma passed, Mummy seemed to lose all resilience. Perhaps the loss of a mother can do that to some people. At least Anne can pity Mummy for this. Anne, too, still mourns the loss of her sweet grandma, so she can try to imagine her mother’s pain. But she doesn’t dare imagine what it would feel like if she were to ever lose her papa. Her one and only Pim.

“Aren’t we going to the shop?” Anne inserts this question with a quick, prodding tone.

“Please, Anne,” her mother huffs. “Put down the cat. How many times must I remind you that animals do not belong at the table?”

Anne rubs her tabby’s fur against her cheek. “But he’s not an animal. He’s the one and only Monsieur Moortje. Aren’t you, Moortje?” she asks the little gray tiger, who mews in confirmation.

“Anne, do as your mother asks,” Pim instructs quietly, and Anne obeys with a half sigh.

“I just wanted to know how much longer I have to sit here being bored.”

“Bored?” her mother squawks. “Your father and I are discussing important matters.”

“Important to adults,” Anne replies thickly. “But children have a different view of the world, Mother. Based on having fun.”

“Oh, fun, is it? Well, isn’t that important news,” her mother mocks her sternly, the line of her mouth going flat. “It’s too bad that children like you don’t run the world.”

“I’ll agree with that,” Anne says. “Don’t you agree, Margot?”

“There are other things more important than fun,” her sister informs her.” Now, that’s Mummy.

“Your sister is sixteen,” their mother explains approvingly. “She’s not a child any longer.”

Margot gives her sister a quietly dismissive shrug. “You just don’t understand, Anne.”

“I understand plenty, thank you very much. What I don’t understand is why grown-ups take such pleasure in chewing over the worst of the world like gristle.”

“Finish your brussels sprouts,” her mother says, frowning.

Anne frowns back, her voice fizzling with dejection as she says, “I don’t like them.”

“Finish them anyway.”

Pim breaks in gently. “Edith. Perhaps she can have more carrots.”

Mummy quite definitely disapproves, but she shrugs. “Of course. By all means. Let her do as she pleases. It appears that children rule the world after all, Anne.” To her husband she says, “It’s only that one must wonder, Otto. It may all just be ‘propaganda,’ as you like to suggest, but one must wonder how many hungry Jewish girls there are right now in terrible circumstances who would give quite a lot for a plate of healthy food.”

No answer to this. How could there be? Mummy takes a grim sip from her coffee cup as Anne quietly scoops a small helping of carrots onto her plate, isolating them from the abominable choux de Bruxelles. Pim exhales, releasing a breath of smoke from his cigarette. Again he suggests a change of subject.