Annelies полностью

Pim has begun a miniature lecture on the subject of food. How expensive it has become. “Miep and Jan have been very generous with us. But food is still quite overpriced. Just look at the cost of beans, simple beans. I will contribute, of course, when Mr. Kleiman agrees that the business is strong enough for me to take a salary again. But until that time we must be careful not to consume more than our fair share, Anne.”

Anne says nothing. She glares at the buildings as they pass in a flat conveyor belt of tall brick façades and ornate masonry. Terra-cotta red striped with ocher or white ermine like the sleeves of royalty.

Maybe it’s her body that remembers. The rumble under her feet of wheels on a track. The mob of humanity compressed. She is suddenly reliving the transport that carried Margot and her to the heathland of Bergen-Belsen without their mother. She can smell the septic odor of boxcar transport, feel the cold sickness in her belly. Margot’s face was sticky with tears as they clutched each other. They had been separated from the men on the ramp in Birkenau, and the women were on their own now, utterly. But instead of their mother collapsing in despair, all of her fragilities had simply fallen away. She became a lioness, protecting and caring for her girls, even as starvation and exhaustion racked her body. Anne was shocked at the pride she felt for her mother. And the love. But now Mummy had become so sick that she’d been taken to the Women’s Infirmary Barracks, so that when the selection was made by the SS doctors, Anne and Margot had been herded without her into the boxcars to be transported deep into Germany.

We’ll see her again, Anne kept repeating to her sister. After this is over, we’ll see her again.

But even as she spoke the words, she could not believe them. Somewhere in the car, a woman was chanting the kaddish in a croaking voice. A prayer of affirmation and a prayer for the dead. The cadence of the woman’s voice merged with the clunking rhythm of the train wheels, and Anne knew that they had seen their mother for the very last time.

Leaving the tramlijn, she trails her father’s pencil-thin shadow. They follow the path of the canal that flows between the tall, narrow brick faces of the old merchant houses. The street is lined with the skinny iron bollards bearing the trio of St. Andrew’s crosses. Little Ones from Amsterdam, they’re called. Amsterdammertje. When they were small, she and Margot would play a game, chasing each other through the rows, pretending that they were dodging a mouthful of teeth owned by some great dragon about to chew them up. She thinks of this as if she is remembering a fairy tale she once read, instead of a piece of her life.

Pim natters on about the length of the walk, tapping the dial of his wristwatch. She has noticed that on those occasions when they’re alone, her father drums up some sort of efficient chatter about the schedule of street trams, the scarcity of spices, or the price of substitute ingredients. Anne tastes something foul at the back of her mouth.

“I can’t do this, Pim,” she says.

“Anneke, please. It’s all right. It’s only a building. Just an old building. You’ll be fine once you get inside.”

But Anne is shaking her head. “No. No, I won’t be.”

“Anne.” Her father speaks to her softly. “Think of our friends. Our friends who cared for us so well while we were in hiding. Think of Bep and Mr. Kugler, not to mention Miep. They’re all there waiting for you, Anne. They’re all so excited to have you back with them. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”

Anne stares darkly, as if their disappointment might be something to see hanging in the air. The truth is, she fears that they will all smell death on her the moment she steps into the office.

“Shall we go on, then?” her father wonders.

Tightly, she nods her acquiescence.

“That’s my girl,” Pim tells her. “That’s my Annelies.”

It rained the night before. A drenching downpour, drumming against the window glass and the roof tiles. But the sky is clear this morning and crisp. Sunlight lifts the faces of the old Grachtengordel canal houses into sharp, clean relief against the blue, rain-scrubbed sky. Those neat façades of pastel brick take the sunlight like paint. Anne gazes at them as she walks. Their scrolls and flourishes still stolidly thrifty in their adornments after three hundred years.

Closer. They’re getting closer to the last home she’d known. Crossing the bridge arching the Leliegracht, Anne feels her stomach lurch, and a passing cyclist scolds her when she vomits greenish bile into the gutter. Pim hurries back with a handkerchief for her to wipe her mouth. “Only a little way farther. A few more minutes,” he tells her. “Breathe deeply,” he instructs, and she does. “Are you ready to keep going?”