Annelies полностью

The figure sits motionless, and then the head rises.

“Hello, Anne.” The voice is barely recognizable. It sounds dead somehow. Soulless.

“Dassah.” Anne speaks the name.

“Do you know?” Dassah asks her slowly. She is wrapped in a knitted throw. The light sketches across her face. “Do you have any idea, Anne, what time it is?”

Anne says nothing, glaring.

“When you didn’t show up at the appointed time, he became worried. When you didn’t show up an hour later, he was agitated. When you didn’t show up at the start of dusk, he began to go a bit mad. I couldn’t calm him,” Dassah tells her. “It was impossible. He insisted on telephoning everyone he knew. Anyone who might know where you’d disappeared to.”

“I’m sorry,” Anne says with a swallow. She edges a glance to the dining table, laid with a white linen cloth and a trio of silver-rimmed porcelain place settings. A hand-embroidered cover for the challah bread. A pair of silver candlesticks holding two tall white tapers. The smell of something slightly burned coming from the oven. “I was . . .” she says, “I was with a friend.”

“A friend,” Dassah repeats, a touch of wily bitterness in her voice. She raises a snifter and lets the brandy inside drift back. “Is that what you call him? A friend?”

“Where’s Pim?” Anne asks suddenly.

“Probably sitting in the local police precinct by now, describing his missing daughter to the constable. He ran off with his faithful Miep at his heels an hour ago. Good and faithful Miep.”

“Then I should go after them,” Anne breathes. But she doesn’t move. She feels stuck in place.

“I’ve never told you, Anne,” Dassah says, “I’ve never told you the story of my daughter? My Tova.”

A cold shock strikes Anne. A daughter? It’s as if a frigid gap has opened up in the air. The presence of another daughter. Another secret kept from her.

“She was not a very pretty child. She had her father’s looks, unfortunately. Smart enough, a good head for numbers like him, too, but a gullible nature. Sweet eyes, but a homely smile. Not like you, Annelies Marie. Not such a lovely princess. She never had beaux. She was shy and clumsy. Not like you. When there were parties, she was seldom invited. I told her that looks didn’t matter. Popularity didn’t matter. Only what is in your mind mattered. And she was a good daughter, so she didn’t argue. I told her if I had worried about being invited to parties, I would have worried myself to pieces. Of course, the truth is that I was always invited to parties. The truth is that I was never shy or clumsy. And if I wasn’t as pretty as some girls, I still had something special that boys liked to be around. You must be able to relate to that, Anne. Can’t you?”

Anne does not answer.

“In any case, I didn’t really understand my Tova’s suffering. I didn’t understand what it was like to be lonely, not yet. Not in the way Tova was lonely.”

Anne stays frozen as the woman gazes at her snifter of brandy, then takes another swallow. “When the Boche came rolling in with their tanks and troop lorries,” she says, “they were billeted in several of the houses up the street. All those strapping, fair-headed farm boys with their big black boots. They would jeer at my Tova on her way to school. A homely Jewish girl with the star pinned to her coat. They would jeer at me, too, of course, but not in the same way. It was harder for Tova. She took their insults inside her. That’s when she began to have nightmares. Terrible nightmares. I told her to keep her chin up. I told her that she had to be strong, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to be strong, not like you, Anne. In any case. One night she was late coming home. Very late. I was frantic. The razzias had started. Hundreds of Jews had already been rounded up in the public squares. I went to the police station, where they laughed at me. A missing Jewess? Who cared? There must be plenty by now. But when I came home, Tova was back.”