Annelies полностью

Anne, though, catches the tart scent of the river breezing through the open windows. It’s not that she doesn’t want to pay attention to the teacher, but she can be so easily distracted—by a breeze, by a scent, by a slant of light—and her mind veers off into another direction. Outside, the beauty of nature beckons her. If she had her way, she would be sitting in the grass watching the river flow by. It’s a secret she keeps to herself, but being with nature allows her to sink into herself, not in a lonely way, mostly, but in a private way that permits her to ponder the Anne on the inside, who is not always so bold or confident. Not always so wonderfully cheerful or impervious. She thinks about what a good time she had with Mummy and Margot last Saturday, baking macaroons. They were laughing and joking with one another, and when Anne used too much coconut, Mummy wasn’t critical at all but instead started singing a ditty about the little monkey who steals too many coconuts from the coconut palm.

“Miss Frank?”

It’s in those moments that Anne wonders if she is completely wrong about her mother. If Mummy is not a faultfinder at heart but is generous and loving and appreciates Anne for who she is. For who God made her to be.

“Miss Frank?”

She looks over at the sound of her name, only to find the Goose glaring at her under his bushy eyebrows, a wry expression on his face. “Are you in dreamland again, Miss Frank?”

The class titters.

“No, sir,” she replies, doing her best to gather her dignity, though she can feel her face flush.

“Then please,” the Goose says, “solve the equation for x.”

“Oh, Mr. Gander,” Anne replies, “I’m sure we both know that’s not very likely to happen.”

And this time when the class titters, she feels a lift. Victory.

•   •   •

On the playground she shows off with her favorite trick, displacing her shoulder from its socket and then, like magic, popping it back into place. A performance guaranteed to draw a crowd of admirers. Even the boys leave their football to come watch. She likes the attention. Especially from the boys. Her many beaux, as her mother would call them, with her favorite overtone of criticism. Mummy always warns her about flirting. The dangers of it. “Look at Margot,” she insists. “Do you see her behaving in such a way?”

There’s a boy whom everyone calls Hello, who’s much closer to Margot’s age. A Good Jewish Boy, excruciatingly polite, with only a hint of playful devilishness. He once took Anne for a gelato at Oase on the Geleenstraat, one of the last ice-cream parlors to serve Jews, and it made her feel grown-up. She liked his attention. She likes the attention of boys in general, it’s true. It makes her feel bright and adored.

•   •   •

The name of her friend, her very best friend, is Hanneli, but Anne often calls her by her nickname, Lies. She lives in the Amsterdam South, too, with her parents and baby sister. Her father was once an underminister and a press secretary in the Prussian government, but the Nazis took care of that, purging Jews from the civil service, so now the family has made their adopted home here in Amsterdam, just like the Frank family. Anne finds Lies to be sweet and thoughtful, and shy enough to make for a good counterpoint to Anne’s bravado.

“But wouldn’t you rather have a surprise?” Hanneli wants to know. They are soldiering on with their book satchels after leaving school. They walk now because no Jews are permitted the use of bicycles. Or streetcars. Or public parks. No more swimming in the Amstelparkbad pool for Jews, or ice-skating, or tennis at the Apollohal, because that’s all for gentiles only now. But today who cares? These are the final days of school before the summer holiday. And on a fresh, cloudless afternoon like this one, Anne can inhale the briny-sweet drift of the Amstel and listen to the chatter of the gulls. She feels light in her body, as if she could easily fly away on a breeze, and she might just do so.

“I’m mad about surprises,” Lies declares wistfully. “I mean, for me, half the fun of birthdays is the surprises.”

Her chestnut hair is woven into braids, which swing lightly as she walks. They make Anne jealous sometimes, those braids, but in a delicious way. Sometimes she’d just love to give them a good yank. Instead, Anne delivers her opinion. “For me surprises are overrated. I’d rather get what I know I want,” she says with conviction, and then her heart tightens in her chest. An angry gust of thunder invades the street as a German motorcycle squadron blasts past with their steel helmets and goggles, polluting the air with their fumes. Anne grimaces, clutching her school satchel against her breast, concealing her yellow Judenstern, though she knows it’s illegal. But Lies just stares at them with a blank kind of terror, her hands clapped over her ears and her star on perfect display as the squadron roars down the street, uninterested in two scrawny Jewish schoolgirls on the sidewalk. “They’re such beasts,” Anne breathes.