Annexed (15 page)

"Anne?" She jumps and stares up at me, her eyes furious and lost. She stares, and then she says my name.

"Peter?"

"We, uh, we said we'd meet, in the attic."

"Oh!" she says. For a moment it's like she's not here. She looks frightening, angry.

"It's fine," I whisper. "Later."

"There might not be a later!" she hisses, and turns back to the desk. She doesn't notice me leave. I close the door and stand there for a while, stunned.

Margot looks up from her book. "Impressive, isn't it?" she says drily. I nod, and leave.

Later, when Anne and I meet in the attic, we don't mention it, either of us. It's a secret thing, like being hidden.

We meet at night now, because her days are so full—we meet in the attic. We can't have candles, so we sit in the dusk and the dark.

"I spied on you," she says, "the other day, when you were in the storeroom with Boche."

"Yes," I say. "You spy on us all the time, don't you?" But I don't know how to say that everything feels different—and I don't know how or why.

"You ... you have Boche and Mouschi, and I ... I..." she begins, but she doesn't finish. Suddenly her head is in her hands and her hair is covering her face and she is sobbing words through her tears.

"I miss him! I miss him so much!" she says.

"Who?" I ask.

"Moortje," she says.

It's the name of her cat.

"Your cat?" I ask. She nods. At first I want to laugh. Then I try to imagine life without Mouschi. I can't.

I suppose Anne has Margot, but it's not the same. People have thoughts and opinions. They question you. Mouschi just is. I touch Anne's face. I put my arms around her and feel her break like water through my hands. Her body shakes but she still tries to be quiet...

"I ... I ... wish..."

"What do you wish?"

"That..." She sobs and hiccups. "That I had something of my own."

I don't say anything. Maybe I hold her a little bit tighter. I don't know. I let her speak, but all the time I'm thinking,
Does she mean me? Can it be me that might be hers alone?

Slowly she calms down. She pushes her hair from her face. I help her. It's damp. Curly. She looks a mess. I've never seen a girl cry before. Not like that. Not like the whole world's ending. I don't know how long we've been up here, or what the others might be thinking. I don't know if she'll put it all in her diary. Is anything private for Anne? Some things should be kept just for yourself—shouldn't they?

"Sorry," she says, curtly. Abruptly. She's embarrassed.

"Don't be." So am I.

"Really, I'm just crying for everything we've lost."

"And doesn't writing and thinking about it just make it all worse?" I ask, but she only answers with another question.

"Do you miss things?" she says.

We're silent, again. She waits. I wait. Questions are dangerous, even if they're not going to be put in a diary and sent to the government.

"Of course!" I whisper.

"What things?" she says quietly. For a while I don't know what to say. Not because there aren't enough things, but because there are too many. So many things I miss. And if I let them all out, how will I ever get them all back in again? That's what I'm thinking in the darkness, as I feel her waiting for an answer.

"I miss the rain," I say after a while. "The rain on my face." And I can feel it as I say the words, rain falling fresh like pine needles on my face. I miss the rain with a physical ache, like a pain inside me.

"Outside!" breathes Anne. "I miss it more than I can say." She's still crying. I wish I could make it stop. I wish I could make everything all right. I wish I had words, like she has, that can explain things. But I don't. I don't tell her not to cry—that would be stupid. I hold her, although I don't know if I should. It feels odd. I don't know if I'm doing it right, or what she might say about it in her diary.

The tears go on until I forget everything except wanting to hold her tighter. I help her stand and we sit on the trunk and she puts her head on my shoulder, where I feel the tears slowly soak through my shirt. She is shaking.

I'm angry.

What chances do we have?

What choices?

None.

Outside the window the wind lifts the branches of the chestnut tree in the dark. A bird sings suddenly before remembering it's night, and Anne goes on crying. I never knew she was so sad. After a while I go and get her apron from where it's hanging to dry. She wipes her face.

"Better?" I ask, and then I blush. What a stupid thing to say. How can any of this be better? I wait for her to say so. She doesn't.

"Actually, yes," she says quietly.

"Oh, good," I say. "I'm glad."

She sniffs.

"Sometimes, I just ... just get the feeling it's all too much, everything we've missed out on," she whispers. I nod.

"Mutti's chicken stock, with peas!"

"What?" she asks.

"Something else I miss," I say, and she smiles.

"Idiot! Can anything put the van Pelses off their food?"

"Could anything stop you writing your diary?"

"No," she laughs, and even though I knew that's what she'd say, it still hurts, knowing I come second to a notebook and pen!

I grab a huge pair of Pfeffer's pants off the line and offer them to her to blow her nose on. She giggles. "Put them back. I can't bear to even touch them."

"Anne?" I say, and she nods. "You do have something of your own."

She doesn't answer, just shakes her head.

"You do," I say. "You have your diary."

She looks up at me. Sudden. Sharp. And that's the way I'd draw her, if I could.

Just like that.

And that's the way I see her in my dreams. Am I awake or asleep? Alive or dead? I don't know. I only know that she's here with me all the time.

Her eyes are wide and her hands are busy writing, writing—recording each memory.

She hears everything.

Seesev erything.

Just as she always has.

I'm almost asleep when Anne appears in the doorway with a cushion in her hands. We take it upstairs and make our own sofa. I put the cushion on a trunk and push it against two packing cases.

"There," I say.

"How much for the whole set?" she asks.

"It's not for sale, but to you it's free. Take a seat."

"Ah!" She sighs as she sits down. "There's nothing like a brandy and a cigarette after an evening spent listening to Mozart."

"I couldn't agree more!" I say. I'm learning how to play her games. I'm getting better. But so is she—at being quiet. We sit and stare out the window. The night takes longer to come now it's nearly summer. The sky's all shades of blue before turning black. The tree isn't just a silhouette of branches. It has fat, fat buds and curled leaves just waiting to burst. Buds that stand out against the dark. We sit down. Slowly I put my arm around her. Slowly she leans against me. Mouschi lies across our laps and keeps us warm. It is very cold. It's always cold. We wear so many clothes. "At least no one can see how thin we are," says Papi.

But we weren't thin, were we? Not really, not yet.

It's peaceful, for a while, being in the attic, with Anne.

"It's bad, isn't it?" she says.

I nod against her hair.

"Everything's running out," she says. "The food, the coal." She stops for a moment.

"Even the Jews!" I whisper. We start to laugh. We know we shouldn't. We know it isn't funny, and soon we stop. We stop abruptly.

"Miep says that even the children steal."

"They're desperate!" I say.

"I know!" she says quickly. She knows how much I hate it when she calls them slum children. We would do the same if we were them, wouldn't we?

"I keep thinking of all those people in Hungary. How can they kill so many, Peter? Do you think it's..."

"Shh," I say. Because there are no answers and there's no point in the question. "We can't do anything—not yet." She sits up and Mouschi curls away from her and onto my lap.

"But we can," she says. "We can tell!"

"You can," I say.

"Anyone can," she says back.

"Maybe."

"Miep says it's terrible outside. The Dutch are turning on each other, stealing from each other."

"We're lucky," I say. "Lucky we're warm and fed and might last it out."

"I know. Well, reasonably warm," she whispers and snuggles in closer. "The thing about writing," she says suddenly, "is that it lasts forever."

I smile. "That's wonderful," I say, and I think that it must be. It must be wonderful to be Anne Frank and to never be alone because you always have something inside you. A story to tell. People to describe. Another idea to explore.

She leans against me, contented. These are the best moments. Not the moments where she longs for something I don't know if I can give her, but these moments. The easy moments, when I can tell her "Yes."

"Peter, I've been thinking, about what you said, about the things you want ... and I—"

There's a low, urgent whistle and we leap up, guiltily, even though we've barely touched. Papi is on the stairs.

"Dr. Pfeffer says you've stolen his cushion." We grin at each other and rush downstairs.

"Oh, Anne!" Pfeffer grumbles, beating the cushion against his thighs. "I'll be jumping with fleas all night."

"No, no, it was only me who sat on it, and I don't have fleas." Anne smiles.

"Did you know fleas can jump several times their own height?" says Margot, and we all smile and try not to laugh at the thought of Pfeffer leaping anywhere at all.

"Good Lord," says Papi, "you could put us on your back, Pfeff, and leap us all the way to freedom."

"It's not funny!" Pfeffer says, and he storms off to his room.

I lie in my room and wonder what Anne was going to say next.

I was so busy thinking about Anne that I missed it. Because the footsteps were coming closer—and we weren't listening. Even when the break-in happened, we didn't really notice—we got too comfortable. We forgot how dangerous it was.

Outside.

We thought we would make it.

As soon as I step out from behind the bookcase I hear it. Two loud bangs, and my heart jumps. I wait for the sound of them again, but they don't come. I take off my shoes and run down the secret stairway. All the way down. Silently. The warehouse door is closed but a huge panel is broken off, the air's rushing through.

I run back up and ask Mr. Frank to help me with my homework. I can see Anne knows I'm lying, but I hope she won't say anything to Mutti. We pick up tools (well Father and I do, but Mr. Frank refuses again) and run down to the warehouse.

"Police!" shouts Papi and we hear footsteps running away down the street. In the dark we pick up the board and begin to replace it. It's impossible to do without making a noise. We try not to think of the centimeters between us and the outside, or about the sound of hammering so loud in the night.

"That'll do!" whispers Mr. Frank. We all take a deep breath and listen; unable to believe it's over. I breathe out, turn away. There's a loud, tearing noise and the board comes flying off the door. I turn back, a boot is sticking through the door, a big black boot, pushing itself into the warehouse, into the quiet and dark and safety. Threatening us. I swing my hammer at it and try to drive it straight back to the outside.

The hammer smashes against the splintered board. Father drives his ax against the floor in a fury. Sparks fly up. The footsteps run. Silence. Father and I lean against each other, breathing hard.

"Well, that seems to have done the trick," whispers Mr. Frank drily. "Let's put the board back up again."

We have only just lifted it when we hear more footsteps. We stop. Torchlight comes through the splintered door. Behind it are the shadows of a man and a woman.

"What the..." says Papi, and we all take off. Now we're the burglars. Papi and Mr. Frank rush to their wives. I run into the office and make a mess, as though there's been a burglary. I open windows. Papi remembers Dr. Pfeffer's in the toilet and helps him up the stairs. I close the bookcase carefully and stand behind it for a moment, listening. Nothing. I let the hammer hang in my hands, and wait.

There's no sound.

Mr. Frank gets the women upstairs. We open my window and listen. No sound.

And then we hear them. Footsteps in the office—on the staircase, and finally right at the bookcase.

The door rattles.

No one speaks.

No one moves.

I don't think any of us even breathes, but we all have the same thought. This is it. Now. But still none of us moves. Whoever is out there rattles the bookcase again. And again.

A tin falls off the shelves.

They know!
I think.
Why else would they do this?

We hear footsteps walking back through the office, closing windows and going down the stairs. But the light still shines beneath the door. Why have they left the light on? Will they come back to investigate? Have they gone to get tools? All these thoughts flash silently through my mind. We gather in the kitchen.

"All this excitement, I need the pot!" says Papi. And we realize the night buckets are in the attic and so we have nothing to piss in. In the end we use my bin—all of us. It reeks. It really does. It smells of all the piss and fear and shit in the room. Because that's what we are—afraid—scared for our lives.

I want to lie down with Anne under the table. I want to hold her in my arms. I want to have
something
to hold,
anything
—but all that's available is a cigarette. So I smoke. I don't inhale in case it makes me cough. I sit near the sink and wonder who they are, the couple with the torch. I hope they are a nice young Dutch couple out walking. I hope the fear in our faces made them pity us, not hate us.