Annelies полностью

When Mr. Nussbaum appears in the Jekerstraat flat, he begins to whistle Beethoven at the sight of Pim. Pim stands to his full soldier’s height, his eyes flooding, and joins in whistling as well. This is how their reunion begins. All in all a teary welter, neither man able to control his emotions, and, watching them, neither is Anne. Pain strikes her, as if her heart has been thumped by a hammer, and she is forced to retreat to her room. Margot attempts to console her, or rather interrogate her, in her Lager rags. Anne, why are you crying? Why are you crying? But Anne has no answer for her. She cannot contain her own tears; she cannot control her own grief, though both seem to exercise perfect control over her. She is curled up in a ball on her bed when her father knocks.

“Anne?”

“Yes?” she calls, sniffing, staring at the wall beside her bed.

“May I come in?”

“I’m not feeling well,” she answers, but Pim cracks open the door anyway.

“I’ll only need a moment.”

She rolls over and sits quickly, her eyes reddened. “Is Mr. Nussbaum still here?”

“No. He’s gone for now,” Pim tells her. “I’m sorry if our reunion was such a strain on you. Old men can get emotional.”

“How did you meet?”

“How?” A small exhale. “At Auschwitz—we were billeted in the same barracks block. But I’m ashamed to say that the first time we met, I punched him in the face.”

Anne blinks. “You punched him?”

“In the face, yes.” Her father nods. “I don’t even remember why now. Some measly dispute. But we were not the masters of our temper there.”

“So you became friends because you struck him in the face?”

“No. We became friends because I heard him whistling ‘Clair de Lune.’ Terribly so, but with passion, as if every note he whistled were an affirmation that he was still alive. I knew immediately that I must ask him for his forgiveness. So I began to whistle it, too. After that”—Pim shrugs—“we became close comrades. We talked of music or art and literature. He had run a publishing company in Berlin before the Nazis stole it from him. He could recite Schiller, Heine, Goethe—especially Goethe—all from memory. It was quite inspiring. To keep using our minds, that was the thing. In the end, when I was truly on the edge of oblivion, it was he who brought one of the prisoner physicians to me. It’s how I was admitted to the convalescent block of the infirmary, which probably saved my life. So I owe him a great deal. I tried to locate him through the Red Cross after liberation, but all I could determine was that he had been marched out of Auschwitz when the Germans were evacuating the camp. Honestly? Until today I assumed that he hadn’t survived. So I must thank you, Anne, for returning him to me.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she says.

“Perhaps you don’t think so, but Werner tells me you made an impression on him.”

“Did he tell you what happened? Did he tell you what they did to the door of his bookshop?”

“Yes,” her father answers carefully. “He did. He also told me that he was struck by your spirit. And thought you were quite self-possessed.” Pim says this, and then he adds, “In fact, he wondered if you might be interested in spending some time working in his shop.”

Anne stares. “His shop?”

“Yes. I told him of your love of books,” her father says. “He seemed eager to have you aboard. I’d still expect you to help out at the office, of course. But a few afternoons a week, shelving books after school . . . It’s just him otherwise, so I think he could use another pair of hands. Does that sound like something that might interest you, meisje?”

Nussbaum

Tweedehands-Boekverkoper

The Rozengracht