Annelies полностью

Lies has lowered her hands from her ears, but her expression is racked by anxiety. “I asked Papa if we were going to go into hiding.”

“Really?” This interests Anne. “And what did he say?”

“He said, ‘Hiding from what?’” she answers vacantly.

Anne shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she suddenly decides. Instead she has a swift desire to misbehave. She tastes it like spice on the back of her tongue.

Up ahead there’s a clot of older boys loitering on the sidewalk. They are congregated in a slump at the corner of the Uiterwaardenstraat by a tobacconist shop that has a reputation as a black-market hangout, run by a Galician Jew who trades in Jewish valuables. At least that’s the story from Mr. van Pels, Pim’s business partner.

“These sorts of operations are a growing concern,” Mr. van P. had insisted while visiting their flat for coffee. “So you’ve been hiding the jewelry under a floorboard to keep it from the Germans? Your heirloom set of silver is under the bed? Your great-great-granny’s gold-plated menorah’s at the bottom of the laundry hamper, and in the meantime you’re wondering how to feed your family? Why not resign yourself to the inevitable and sell off the lot to the Galician? It’s better than handing it over to the robbery bank. You’ll only get a pittance, but at least it’s a pittance from another Jew.”

“The robbery bank? What is that?” Anne had wanted to know, because she likes to know everything. No harm in that. Mummy had shushed her, but Pim had explained it in his quiet way. Along with all the other indignities, Jews have been ordered to deposit any assets of worth with the Sarphatistraat branch of the Lippmann, Rosenthal & Company. Now run by the Nazis, of course.

At this point Mrs. van Pels, who’s anything but retiring, puffed herself up to declare, “I don’t care how hungry I get, Putti. I’m never going to let you sell off my furs. I’ll be buried in them first,” causing her husband to hoot out a laugh.

“And she’s not joking!” he assured all assembled with a fat grin.

One of the boys up ahead is kicking at a crack in the sidewalk, sending pebbles flying. Another laughs suddenly, sounding like a mule braying. Who knows what boys think is funny? Yellow stars are stitched onto their pullovers and jackets. Maybe Mummy likes to believe that if they must wear the Magen David in public, then they should do so with pride, but these boys wear their stars like what they are: badges of exclusion. Of rejection. Badges that assert their status as outsiders, as rough cuts on the edge. Their clothes ragged at the seams, their hair poorly groomed, the boys examine the two approaching girls with the kind of sullen interest common to street-corner troublemakers.

“Don’t look at them,” Lies warns. She has already cast her eyes downward to the uneven pavement of the sidewalk, tracking the progress of her feet. But Anne cannot quite follow Hanneli’s example. She knows that Hanneli thinks she’s overly obsessed with boys, but this isn’t about silly flirting with their well-mannered schoolmates. Anne cannot help glancing at the wild challenge of their eyes.

“Wanna smoke?” one of them inquires, offering his cigarette butt. His clothes are unkempt, and he looks poorly cared for.

“No,” Lies replies firmly.

But Anne has stopped.

“Anne,” her friend prods with a scandalized whisper.

“It’s just a cigarette,” Anne insists. “I’ve never tried one.”

Only for an instant does she catch the curious smirk on the boy’s face when she plucks the cigarette from his fingers. The butt is damp from his saliva as it touches her lips, and she inhales with what she believes is a certain aplomb. But her body quickly convulses and her breath contracts as she chokes on the gritty smoke. Garbo she is not. The boys laugh as she coughs it out, her face flushing, her eyes tearing up. She drops the cigarette without thought as Lies seizes her by the arm, dragging her away. “Anne,” she says with both reproach and sympathy.

“Don’t tell your mother,” Anne manages to beg as they leave the sniggering boys.

“What? My mother?”

“Don’t tell her, please,” Anne begs, smearing tears from her eyes. “I don’t want her to think I’ve gone boy-crazy. She already thinks I’m a know-it-all.”

“She does not think you’re a know-it-all, Anne,” Lies replies in a tone that suggests she is defending her mother as much as defending Anne.

“She does,” Anne insists. “You heard her: God knows everything, but Anne knows everything else.”

“That was a joke.”

“No it wasn’t. It was true. I am a know-it-all.”

“All right,” Hanneli concedes. “And you’re boy-crazy, too. But we still love you.”

And now Anne laughs. She sniffs back her tears, flinging her arm around Lies’s shoulder. Darling Lies. But then she says, “Oh, no.”

“Oh, no?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Lipschitz,” Anne sings, properly polite, at the approach of a matronly mitteleuropäische specimen with the star on her coat.