Annexed (12 page)

I stretch, get up, and start chopping wood for the stove. Anne follows. I think,
Oh no! She'll start talking again.
But she doesn't. She stays quiet and watches as I chop—so quiet that I forget she's there after a while.

I love chopping wood. I love the concentration. I like taking in the grain, working out where to strike, measuring it with my eyes and hitting it just right. Full on, or at an angle, whatever will break the log the right way. I like the swing of the ax. Sometimes, when I'm alone, I imagine I'm hacking our enemies into little tiny pieces. It feels good. I sigh. When I'm finished I look up and smile, remembering she's there.

"Sometimes," I say, "I imagine I'm in a forest, outside a hut, chopping."

She smiles and we both look out the window, all the way over the city to the sea. The air is clear and cold. I imagine it on my face. I sigh and close my eyes for just a moment.

"Wonderful!" I say quietly. Anne nods. I'm surprised. Surprised that she can speak without words.

And be content.

"Oh, but the weather's so beautiful. Please, Daddy!" says Anne.

"No, Anne." His voice is gentle, but if I were Anne I wouldn't bother to argue. He means it. She pouts and narrows her eyes.

"Please?" she asks again.

He smiles. "No," he says back.

"Why not?" she hisses.

"Because even though the sun shines, even though we don't feel like it, the work must be done."

"But I do it every day. Even here, even though there's probably no point!" she says.

"Anne!" hisses her mother, but Mr. Frank just carries on, quietly.

"Especially then. Especially when there is no point, because that is when we need something to hold on to," he says. "So go on now. Sit down and do your work."

Anne gives a big sigh, turns away, and stomps downstairs to her own room. She doesn't see her parents smile at each other.

"I must see if I can make our clothes hang together for just a little longer," says Mrs. Frank. Mr. Frank pats her on the shoulder. "What would we do without you, Edith?" he whispers. And she smiles. I can see how much his praise means to her. I think it must be nice to have someone feel like that about you. That your thoughts matter.

I go into my room. I want to draw Mr. Frank. I've wanted to for a long time, but somehow I don't have the courage. I'm not sure I can get him right. I think that maybe if I lie down on the bed for a while and picture him, then it might come to me—the right way to do his face.

"Peter?"

I open my eyes and he's there. I sit up quickly. I can see he doesn't think much of me dozing the day away.

"Yes," I say, "I was just..."

"I'm sorry to disturb you, do you mind if we talk?" I shake my head. I notice he has closed the door. I notice it's quiet outside. I notice that no one can hear us. I wonder what it is about.

No I don't.

I know what it is about.

"Anne," he says. I nod. His face is kind. His eyes are dark and curious like Anne's.

"We find ourselves in a difficult situation, wouldn't you
say, Peter?" he begins, and then he waits. I don't say anything. I don't know what to say.

"Anne's very young," he says after a while, "and very determined!" That makes me smile. He smiles back.

"I would never..." I begin, but he holds up his hand.

"I'm not here to accuse either of you," he says gently. "I'm here to talk, to think." I nod again. "I suppose," he goes on, "that the problem is that within these walls you young people have so few choices." I nod again. There's not much more I
can
do.

"But it's not only Anne that's here, Peter. You see there's Margot too, and she..." He sighs, "she would never, well, make quite as much of an effort to be noticed, shall we say, as Anne does."

I nod again.

"Two girls, but only one of you."

I smile and blush.

"So what will you do?"

I'm not sure if he's really asking me the question, or whether he's talking to himself.

"I don't know," I say.

"Well, perhaps we should think about it?"

"I ... sir ... Mr. Frank ... I think Margot thinks of me more as a brother."

"Mmm, if you know what Margot is thinking, Peter, then you know far more than any of the rest of us do."

We don't say anything for a while. I wonder whether I should mention how desperate Anne is to know more about men's bodies, or how wonderful it is to sit in the attic together in a patch of sunlight. I wonder if Mr. Frank ever felt worried that he might never make love to a girl. I wonder how they all find it so easy to put these things into words. Just the thought of trying makes me start to blush and stammer. So I don't say anything at all.

"And Anne?" he asks.

"Anne wants to be adored!" I blurt out. "And I'm the only one here."

He laughs.

"Oh, I know Anne wouldn't even notice me out of here," I say.

"Peter, you have no vanity at all; a wonderful trait in a person!"

"Thank you!" Now I really
am
blushing.

"Mr. Frank?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for hiding us." The words come out very formally. "I would never do anything to ... to make you sorry."

He pats my shoulder. "I know that you wouldn't
intend
to,
Peter, but I also know that our bodies can be stronger than our intentions at your age. Anne is only fourteen, even though she has always believed herself to be older than she is. And, Peter, she isn't always kind."

"I ... don't..."

"Well, I'm afraid she might be unable to resist crowing over her conquest, to Margot. And they have missed out on so much, both of them. For Margot to have to manage that too ... well..."

"It's complicated," I say, and it is; my head's spinning.

"Yes," he agrees.

"I think it's best if all three of you are friends," he says finally. I nod.

"I'm trying to think of you too, Peter."

I nod again. "Mr. Frank?"

"Yes?"

"Will you still be a Jew after the war?" He stops and looks at me.

"Well," he says after a while, "it would certainly be nice to think that we might have that choice!" And he disappears down the stairs.

It's a long time before I realize that he hasn't answered my question.

Mr. Frank is probably right. We should see less of each other, but it's not that easy. The problem is the words. They're addictive. Perhaps if Mutti knew how it feels she'd warn me like she warns Papi about his cigarettes. Speaking, gossiping, it's infectious. Last night we spent forever talking about Pfeffer—
again
—and why we hate him so much.

"He fiddles!"

"I know."

"The way he's always touching things before moving them. Ugh!"

"The way he's always right!"

"That dimple in his chin—I'd like to stick a pin in it."

"When he's talking it makes me want to scratch, like a flea. I have to get out!"

"Do you remember when Mouschi had fleas?"

"He spends fifteen whole minutes praying! Sometimes I even have to look at his naked back. Ugh!"

The thought makes me sick. Anne giggles and imitates the noises he makes in the night. Snuffles, like an animal, soft puffs of air. Intimate. I stand up.

"Peter?" she asks, tucking her head to one side.

"It's disgusting," I say, "that you have to share a room with him."

Her arms are wrapped around her legs and she shrugs her shoulders. "Why?" she asks. I smile at her. She's like Mouschi waiting to be stroked. Waiting for the right touch, the right words.

"You're not a child!" I say.

"Aren't I?" she asks back. She tosses her hair over her shoulder.
But she is a child,
I hear Mr. Frank say in my head. I realize she's done her hair again, pinned it up to look like the film stars on her wall. She's waiting. Looking up at me. Gleaming. I sit down beside her. I look at her and I say, "No. No, you aren't a child." She tips her head back and looks at me through lowered lashes.

I have to look away.

For a moment I can't meet her eyes.

Something inside me lurches.

When I look back again she's stopped posing, she's just Anne again.

"Peter?" she asks.

"It's nothing," I say, but that's not true. It's everything ... It's Liese. It's the sound of her voice saying my name, the memory of her dancing in my dreams. The weight of her
shaven head in my hands. The sound of clicking train wheels. It's all the things that can't be said, all the things that stop my eyes meeting Anne's.

She smiles. Perhaps she thinks that I'm overcome by her flirting. Her beauty. Her wit. Perhaps I am. I don't know. I only know that the sight of her hurts. And that I'd like to be alone. Or with Mouschi. Or anywhere except here and now—with Anne.

Anne and her eyes that are full of searching, full of longing, full of the hope that I can give them something back. That's what I can't bear. Her hope. It's like seeing someone naked. I don't think I can take the weight of it.

Her expectation.

"We should go down now." I try to say it gently, but her face falls. And then she finds the words to lift it.

"You're a very decent boy, Peter," she says. I hold out my hand and she stands. I open the trap door and shield her with my body as we go backwards down the steep steps. She turns to me at the bottom of the stairs. "Thank you," she says, as solemn as a lady. She turns to go. But then she stops at the door, makes a half-turn and smiles at me over her shoulder. A bright, studied smile. A smile that should be lit by a thousand cameras and broadcast across the world—a practiced smile.

It's a waste because there's only me here. And I don't know what to do with such a smile.

Am I good?

Am I decent?

I don't know.

I don't know anything anymore.

Memories are addictive too. They grow. Like frog spawn. They breed. Like rats. Like the Nazis imagined we bred. We stood before them, naked. Not naked like hope, but naked like loss. Its not only our clothes they took when they stripped us—it was our being. It must come, that bit of the story.

Tell me.

Please tell me.

Are you there?

Are you listening?

Will you turn away from me?

Or will you bear it—as I must?

Father's angry.

"Peter!"

"Yes?"

"What do you think you are doing, leaving a mess like that downstairs?"

"What?"

"Can't you even do the few things we ask of you properly?"

"I do!"

"You call leaving the office in that state reasonable? And with the doors open?"

"I didn't!"

"And now you lie! The front door is locked so who else could it be?"

"I don't know. All I know is that I helped Bep in the office and that we left it tidy!"

"Don't be sarcastic as well as idle!"

Mutti comes down from the attic with an armful of clean clothes.

"If Peter tells you he's done it, he's done it!" she says.

"And if logic tells you otherwise, you will still pretend to be blind!" he shouts back.

Quietly.

"In the case of my son I will be blind if I choose to. Couldn't you turn a blind eye too every now and then?"

"And open them to find what?" he hisses. "A room full of mess and maybe a girl full of mess too!"

"Hermann!"

"Father!"

"Well, I only say what everyone thinks. We aren't blind! That girl follows you around like a puppy. In my day the girls had some pride."

"What would you know about girls and pride?" Mutti hisses back as she folds the clothes, furiously. "Is there room for pride in love? Is there room for dreams within these walls? Do you have any feelings left at all except for cigarettes?"

"Ach! Would the world's problems be solved by a man giving up his last few smokes?"

"Maybe."

"Now you're being ridiculous!"

"And you? You aren't being ridiculous?"

I leave the room. They can go on like this for hours.

"See? One day you'll drive him away completely."

"Where to? Where will I drive him to, Auguste? There's nowhere to go to except next door, you silly woman!"

"Don't you call me silly! You with the sense of a ... a ... fly!"

I climb the steps to the attic and lean my head against the beams. The wood feels rough and comforting.

During supper Anne tries to catch my eye. Margot keeps her head down. Mr. Frank is watching all three of us. I leave as soon as I can. I pace in my room. Up and down. I stop at the window and breathe a little air. Finally I sit down and begin to draw. A picture of Mr. Frank. But no matter how hard I try, I can't get it right. His face slips away from me.

I try to sleep, but I'm too angry. I wake up early and wait for the dark to change to half-light. The thoughts go around in my head:
Why us, why do we have to be here? Why can't Papi just leave me alone? Why are they always arguing—and nearly always about me?

In the end I get up and decide to go and see if there really is a mess in the office. I creep down in the half-dark. There's no sound. At times like this it's hard to believe there's really a war happening at all.

I feel air on my face. At first I don't realize what it is. I stand on the stairway very still and feel it all over me. A breeze. Not just on my face. Not just the sound of a breeze in the leaves of the chestnut tree—but air all over me. And then I realize what it means—the front door at the bottom of the stairs isn't locked, it must be open. Someone's been in the
building. So that's what the mess in the office was—another burglary! I check the front office. Mr. Kugler's briefcase is gone, and a projector.

I run up the stairs and wake Mr. Frank. He sends me back down to lock the door. I'm scared now. What if someone is there? What if I can't resist the temptation raging inside me to look outside, or even stronger, the desire to stand in the street for a second—just one second? What difference could it make? I could see the whole street. All of it. Not just a sliver of it through the window. It's like longing for a decent meal, this longing for my eyes to see something whole.