Annelies полностью

Anne pedals through the damp afternoon to the Prinsengracht. At the Keizersgracht she climbs off her bicycle and walks in, just as she did the day the boy from the warehouse followed her, but there is no sign of him. Only people bustling to and fro, on foot, on bikes, as the seagulls mill above their heads. Does she really think he will still try to catch up to her? After she drew blood from his kiss? No, she doesn’t think that, but she also hopes she’s wrong. Maybe he’s just gone to work, and she can catch his glance as he’s lugging a barrel. When she reaches the warehouse, one of the workers holds the door for her, calling her “Little Princess.” It’s hard to know if he means it as a polite endearment or a casual jibe, but regardless, she nods courteously as she pushes her bicycle into the dusty storage room and leans it in the corner. No sign of a straw-headed boy, though. When she asks the foreman, Mr. Groot, about him, the man shrugs his heavy shoulders. “Didn’t show.”

At this point smelly old Mr. Lueders decides to chime in. “What you expect from his sort?”

Anne tilts her head. “What does that mean? His sort of what?”

“Fruit from a rotten tree,” Lueders is kind enough to elaborate.

“All right, enough of that,” Mr. Groot decides. “Sweep your own street, will you, Lueders?”

“What’s his name? Can you tell me that much?” Anne asks.

Mr. Groot frowns as he lugs a heavy carton and dumps it on a wooden pallet. “We called him Raaf. But his father’s name was Hoekstra. And Lueders is right. Not a good name around here.”

“Not a good name?” Anne repeats.

The man shrugs, but it’s obvious he’s had enough of this conversation with the boss’s daughter. “If you don’t mind, miss? An end to these questions, please. There’s work to be done.”

Anne feels a queasy kind of disappointment in her belly as she begins to climb the stairs up to the office, when abruptly there is a clatter of footsteps heading down from above. It’s Bep in her coat and hat, her handbag dangling from her arm. She’s in such a hurry that she’s rushing dangerously down the Dutch steps. Anne calls her name and starts to point this out when she realizes that Bep’s face is a flood of tears. And though Anne’s first instinct is to wedge herself against the wall, to clear the steps for trouble to pass, she resists the impulse and blocks the woman’s way, forcing Bep to brace herself against the stairwell wall to halt her momentum.

“Bep. You’re crying.”

“Anne.” Bep is shaking her head, blotting her face with a handkerchief.

“What’s happened?”

But Bep just keeps shaking her head. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t continue. I’m sorry,” she cries, and then forces her way past. “I’m so very sorry.”

“Sorry?” Anne freezes up for an instant. “Sorry for what? Bep? Bep, tell me what’s happened! Bep!” she calls out as she follows the woman’s path down the steps, but by the time she pushes past the door and bolts into the street, Bep is already hurrying along the pavement past the Westerkerk, and Anne is nearly run over by a cyclist who inquires if perhaps she’s gone blind.

Clambering back up the stairs herself, she rushes to the kantoor window and bolts into the office, where a wall of stares meets her. Miep’s eyes are red, and she frowns sadly back down at her typewriter. Kugler is seated at Kleiman’s desk and surveys Anne’s entry with a controlled melancholy, but her father is standing, with a sheet of paper hanging in his hand. His face silent.

“What’s happened to Bep?” Anne demands, though she’s really frightened to know the answer. “Why was she crying?”

Kugler draws a breath as if to choke up an answer, but her father hands him the paper and takes a small step forward.

“Anne, Bep has resigned,” Pim says quietly.

Anne glares back. “What?”

“She’s left the firm.”

“But . . .” Anne shakes her head, as if to clear away such an unacceptable idea. “But why? What happened to her?”

Kugler and Miep both look up at this, as if they might be called upon to provide an answer, but Pim simply says, “There was nothing to be done, Anne. Bep’s father is so very ill. The cancer has spread, and he needs care. We must accept that there are some circumstances that cannot be altered no matter how we might wish otherwise.”

Anne clamps her mouth shut. Once she never would have imagined that Bep could possibly have betrayed them. But now? Perhaps she needed money for her father’s treatment. Who knows what medicines cost on the black market while the mof still stood astride the world? Wouldn’t Anne herself have sacrificed the lives of others to save Pim’s life or even simply ease his pain?