Annelies полностью

The street is narrow but thick with people trying to get a bit of shopping done on their midday breaks. In the doorway of an empty shop, Anne blocks the view of passersby while Griet strips off her socks and saddle shoes and slides on silk stockings. The stockings have seams that follow the calves of Griet’s legs up her lovely thighs to the soft nether region under her skirt. A gift from her new Canadian boyfriend. Across the street is the Liefje cinema. “Love” cinema. The Canadians who take their Dutch girlfriends there like the joke.

“So I suppose this means you’ve dropped your sweetheart Henk?” Anne asks her.

A shrug. “Henk was just a boy. And it was never anything serious between us.” Wriggling her feet into a pair of suede pumps, Griet says, “Albert is a man. And treats me like a woman.”

“Does that mean you’re doing it with him?” Anne asks bluntly, curious at what bonds men and women together.

Griet shrugs, bashful. “He says he wants to marry me.”

And now Anne’s brow creases sharply. Can the girl really be so foolish? “Marry you?”

“Yep.”

“And you believe him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not.”

“But you’re still doing it with him.”

“It’s fun, Anne. It feels good. Really good.”

Anne huffs dimly. “Isn’t that him?” she inquires. A solidly built Canadian soldier in the standard beret and khaki fatigues. He wears a thick reddish mustache and is lighting his pipe in front of the cinema doors.

Griet can’t help but grin. “That’s him, all right. He’s a lance sergeant, you know. In charge of a squad of riflemen.”

“He’s quite mature-looking,” Anne must admit.

Griet gives her a look of defensive scrutiny. “You think I’m a whore, don’t you?”

“No, and I would never use that word.” Which is true. She hates the judgment in that word. But this talk of marriage, of commitment, unnerves her. Doesn’t all commitment lead to eventual betrayal? “I’m only wondering,” she says, “what happens if you end up with a baby in your belly?”

Griet shrugs this off. “Then I guess he’ll have to marry me, like it or not. It wouldn’t be so bad, I think. Being a Canadian.”

“Unless he just leaves you in the lurch.”

Griet frowns darkly, shakes her head. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“No?” Anne wants to make it clear she is not so sure about that. “Is he even Jewish?”

“Jewish?” Griet repeats, as if perhaps she has to concentrate to remember what that means. “I never asked.”

“You never asked,” Anne repeats, and looks at her friend more closely. “And does he know that you’re Jewish?”

“He never asked me either.”

“Oké. So he thinks you’re a Good Christian Girl.”

“Well, what if he does? Who cares? The war’s over now, who cares?” It’s obvious that she’s sick of the conversation, and maybe a little sick of Anne, too. “Why are you always like this now?” she asks. “You didn’t used to be so depressing about everything.”

“I’m not. I’m sorry,” says Anne, and maybe she means it a little.

Griet caps the lipstick she was using and slaps it into Anne’s palm. “Here, take it. I’ve got plenty. Maybe you can paint a smile on that puss of yours.” She grins, wagging Anne’s chin playfully.

Anne only tugs away and puffs out a breath. “He looks impatient. You’d better go to him,” she says, mounting her bicycle, “before he decides to marry the next Good Christian Girl with big boobies who comes along.”

Griet blinks at her but then shrugs and follows her interest across the street. Anne watches for a moment as Griet approaches her Canadian, watches the smile pry open the young soldier’s face as he spots her. The kiss in public, the lance sergeant’s arm slung around her waist as they enter the cinema. It’s a scene that reeks of the future. A terrifying future based on touch and joy and desire, she thinks.

The next day Anne escapes from school alone. She has slipped a set of ersatz pearls made from glass over her collar and powdered away the number on her forearm, as she’s now in the habit of doing. Then, pedaling to the Lindengracht, she stops to apply Griet’s tube of lipstick in the reflection of a garment shop’s window so it will still be bright and fresh when he sees her. A passing lorryload of Canadian soldiers whistles and howls.

You don’t think that makes you look a bit cheap? Margot inquires. She has filled the window glass with her Kazetnik’s reflection, the Judenstern drooping from her pullover.

Anne glances at her as she puckers her lips. “Is it even?” she asks.

Margot squints without her glasses. I suppose. But you still haven’t answered my question.

Anne dabs at the lip rouge lightly with a fingertip. “Maybe I don’t mind looking a bit cheap. Did that ever occur to you?”

No, Margot must answer honestly. No, is my response to that. I just hope you’re not planning on throwing yourself at this boy.

“Throwing myself? Whatever do you mean?”