Annexed (17 page)

"Ach!" says Father and I can hear him mutter.

"Do you know what that woman said to me? She said I was jealous, jealous of a fourteen-year-old girl—well, what do you think of that?"

Mutter, mutter is the only answer I can hear. "Peter's only human. He's a boy, isn't he? And she's a girl," says Mutti.

More muttering from Papi.

"But how can you
know
he'll be sensible, Hermann? Would we have been?"

More muttering, then Mutti laughs as loud as she dares. "If you think we would have waited in a situation like this, then you have no memory!"

There's a silence. I wait. The silence grows. The bed creaks. I move away from the door as fast as I can.

I'm never alone anymore. Even in the warehouse Anne's with me in my mind. I imagine us together in the secret dark and quiet. Think of how I might hold her as we breathe in the smell of spices—of what we might do together.

I walk past the table and feel something brush against my hip and fall. When I look down there's a pencil on the floor. I think nothing of it. I simply pick it up and balance it back on the table, wondering how it got there.

There were clues. Plenty of them. Someone was watching.

The time is coming closer. But I'm not listening, not watching.

I'm too full of longing
...

For Anne.

We spend all our spare time in the attic. Holding each other. Talking and talking and talking. I never knew I had so many words in me. So many thoughts. Anne is amazing.

"What is love anyway?" she says one day. "I mean, do you have to be married to feel it?"

"No," I say.

"Exactly! Look at our parents, are they shining examples of how to love each other?"

"Well," I say, hesitant, "I do think mine love each other, even if they argue." I think of Papi remembering Mutti in pink silk. I think of their bed creaking. I don't say anything, just in case she puts it into the diary.

"Well, Daddy doesn't love my mother."

"Don't you think so?" I ask. "But they never argue."

"Exactly! No passion!"

I think about that. I wonder why Anne and I never argue.

I'm lying on my bed with my arms around her. It feels as natural as Mouschi lying in my lap. Sometimes I slip my hand beneath the fabric of her dress and feel the curve of her shoulder.

Mouschi is always pushing and squeezing in between us. Jealous. I push him away.

I think Anne is crying again; silently beneath my shoulder. The tears are soaking into my overalls. How do so many feelings fit in someone so small? I hold her a little tighter. Say nothing. Does she know I can tell? Does she think I'm lying here with her in my arms imagining she's smiling? Why doesn't she say anything? Why does she never talk of her sadness? At eight-thirty we stand up. It's time to go. She stands by the window. It makes me smile, the way she always does the same thing. She stands by the window to say good-bye. She's shaking. I reach out. I think if I hold her I can stop her shaking. Not forever, but at least for now. I hold out my arms. She throws her arms around me and I'm pushed back against the wall. I feel the warm weight of her on my neck. The soft press of her lips on my cheek. It's too sudden, it takes me by surprise. And then my mouth finds hers.

And once it's there I can't stop.

It doesn't matter what I think, or how I try so hard to respect her father—to be a man and refuse to take what isn't mine.

Her body is against mine, clinging to me. Our mouths press. And I can't stop. I don't want to stop. Until Anne pulls away. We stare at each other. Her eyes still gleam with tears and something else. Something I don't know or recognize.

"Anne." But she doesn't stay. She doesn't give me time to say anything more. She turns and goes. And a thought comes.

She can't wait to get that in her diary.

Mouschi stalks around my ankles, his tail high and angry. I pick him up.

"What?" I say, sitting down. He holds his head up, pushes it into my hands, waiting for the feel of my fingers behind his ears. And then he flattens himself out along my lap. What if it were Anne? What if it were her lying across my lap with my hands running down her body?

"No," I whisper to myself, but what I really mean is yes.

We're scared.

Scared that this is our only chance.

Not tomorrow.

But here.

And now.

I can't wait to be alone with her again. I rinse my mouth out and wash my face. I'm sitting ready at my desk when she comes in.

"Peter?" she asks as soon as she sits down. "
Do
you think I should talk to my father about us?"

"Of course," I say quickly, "you must do what you think is right." But my heart sinks. Is she telling him so she'll have a good excuse for stopping us? She nods at me, distant, formal, like she was my secretary, like that kiss never happened. Has her body forgotten? Mine hasn't. Last night as I fell asleep I felt the push of her small breasts against my chest. Sharp and sudden, like lust. I realize she's still talking.

"You are worth my trust, aren't you, Peter?" I blush. Don't say anything. What does she mean? What does she want?
You started it,
I feel like saying,
and now I can't stop. Can't stop wanting you.

Anne talks and talks until dusk.

I'm silent.

"Are you all right?" she asks. I don't say anything for a while.

"I could watch you forever," I say in the end. "Listen to you forever."

"Wait a minute," she says.

When she comes back she has something in her hands. It's her diary. I stare at it. Anne's precious thing, so precious her father keeps it in a briefcase by his bed at night. (As though it wasn't hard enough already, hiding the eight of us, he has to hide her diary too!) She holds it out to me. I take it in my hands. I stare at it.

"Go on," she says. "I've marked the page. I've been thinking about it ever since the break-in, and trying to say it, Peter, but somehow it's always easier to write."

I open where it's marked. Her handwriting's neat and small. I read it quickly. The words jump out at me. She's asking about love, about what it might mean. She's saying it's physical, as well as everything else; some of the words leap at me. She's saying love can't be shared, that it's only ever between two people. I blush when I read that. I think about my Liese, and her Peter. I wonder if that's what she means.

I read the words twice over. I look up at her; she's watching me, waiting. I try to really think about what she's saying but all I can actually do is wonder if she means it. "Does virtue really matter?" she asks. "Do you have to be married, or is it acceptable to love another person, physically, as long as it is only them?"

"Do you really mean all that?" I ask. She nods at me. "I've thought about it a lot. I know it could all end tomorrow."

"Even the bit about losing your virtue?"

"If the person's worth it, and isn't in love with anyone else." She stares at me hard, with her all-seeing eyes. "That's what I really mean by can I trust you," she says. "I couldn't bear to be second to anyone." She laughs again.

"Really?" I ask. "Anne Frank," I say, "you're utterly unbelievable!"

"Thank you!" She smiles and pretends to curtsy.

I close the diary and hold it in my hands. I stare at her standing by the window. Anne Frank, small, determined, and thinking—always thinking. Always hoping. Always curious. Never able to be second to anyone, although we're all second to her writing.

This moment. I am full of it. Full of her. There is no Liese, just me—and Anne.

"Yes!" I say. "You can trust me. I'll never put you second!"

I hand the diary back.

"When we get out of here, you'll forget me, won't you?" she says suddenly. She tips her head sideways. Gives me her film-star smile—and now she's the other Anne Frank, a girl of a million disguises, and I never know which one is real. I'm furious. How can she treat me like this, playing games as though putting her over Liese was nothing at all?

"That's not true, Anne, you can't think that about me!"

Because I'll never forget Anne Frank—whatever happens.

"Why not?" she asks. She raises her eyebrows, pouts her mouth. I turn away. I want to smack her, hard. I want to wake her up. This is not a game. You're not a film star, Anne, and I'm just a boy with an ache in his groin! Shall we talk about that?

"I think you'd better go."

She picks up her diary and begins to leave.

"Peter?" she asks, her small face white now. "I..."

"Sorry, Anne, I'm sorry, but you change so quickly, and you play games, and sometimes it's just..."

"I know," she says. "But, Peter, I'm confused too."

"Are you?"

"Of course I am."

"It doesn't feel that way!"

She shakes her head at me—at herself.

"I know," she says again, "it's awful. Sometimes I think I'm only really me in my diary!"

"Sometimes I hate your diary!"

"Why?"

"Because it's always first and I'm always second, and sometimes it feels like you only spend any time with me so you've got something to put in it."

"Peter!"

"Well it does!"

She sits down again. We both take a deep breath.

"I ... I ... wouldn't write about it if you didn't want me to," she says after a while.

"Really?"

She blushes. "Well maybe I'd put some of it in a story, but that's not the same. Is it?"

She stares at me.

"Isn't it?" I ask. "How would you know, Anne? Has anyone ever put you in a story? Do you know how it feels to be Hans in your 'Cady's Life'?"

She blushes and clutches her diary to her chest.

"You noticed?"

"It was hard to miss."

"Well," she says defiantly, "it's not deliberate. I don't think about it, I just write and then ... well ... it's there."

"Yes, it's on a page where it looks like the truth—even if it isn't."

"Is that how it feels?" she asks.

"It feels like being stolen." The words are out before I know it. She stares at me.

"Sorry." She swallows, her eyes blinking with tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't know, but I can't stop. I mean writing's like..."

"Being in love with someone else?"

Again the words just come, but as soon as they're there I know it's true. Just as I love Liese, Anne loves writing. Both of us have someone else.

Anne doesn't answer, she just runs from the room.

***

I go all the way down to the warehouse. I sit with my back to the wall. I raise my head and stretch my neck. I take a deep breath and let my head fall forward.

Is it right for me to long for us to make love if it's only because we might die?

What if Liese survives?

What if I let Mr. Frank down?

What if Anne doesn't mean any of it?

I wait for Boche to appear, but he doesn't come.

Where are you, Boche? I don't know what I'll do if he doesn't come back. I can't imagine not having him here: the smell of the air in his fur, the touch of his paws as he walks up my body. Where are you, Boche?

"I don't know. I don't know," I whisper to myself.

I don't know anything.

I don't even know what's right or wrong anymore.

"Peter?" Mr. Frank is standing at the door. I stand up.

"I thought I could trust you," he says.

"You can, sir."

"I don't think you understand, Peter," he says gently. "This isn't just about house politics, this is about my daughter."

I nod.

"Are you in love with her?" he asks.

I shrug. "I don't know," I say. "We enjoy each other's company. I think ... we make each other happy, maybe."

"And desire?" he says. "I was a boy once too, Peter."

Not like this you weren't,
I think. But again I say nothing. Have I let him down?

"I can control myself," I say after a while.

He takes a deep breath. "You might and Anne might, but together it can be a different story," he says.

Is that how you ended up married to Mrs. Frank?
I put my head down quickly, hoping the thought doesn't show. But when I look up he's smiling. "You can't control love, Peter! The best you can do is stay out of its way. That's what I'm asking; that you don't put yourself in its path. That means not spending hours alone together. Do you understand?" I nod again, but I don't speak.

After a while he stands and leaves.

So she did decide to tell her father about us.

Why?

I go down to the warehouse, but I can't find Boche anywhere. I'm worried; would anyone eat a cat? The thought circles around my mind. I sit in the dark and wait. And wait. But Boche is gone, and however much I want to, I can't go and find him.

"We can do what we want!" Anne says. "They don't know what it's like to be us. To have missed out on so much! We have to trust our own judgment and do what
we
think is right, don't we, Peter?"

"As long as it's just between us," I say. She glances away; she can't meet my eyes. I wait, and when she does look back at me, suddenly, somehow, we're alone together with that silent question in our eyes, searching each other for an answer.

The air shivers under the eaves. Anne trembles in the heat. She blows a wisp of hair away from her face.

"It's so hot," she whispers. She lies down in the patch of sunlight and stretches, soaking up the heat. She closes her eyes. Slowly I stand up and move a sack of beans onto the trap door. The air's so still, I can hear our breathing. I lie down next to Anne, lean on my elbow and stare at her in the sunlight. She has the slightest smile on her face, but she doesn't open her eyes.

"Stop staring!" she says.

"You're beautiful," I say, and it's true. She is.