Annexed (2 page)

I can't believe I didn't see it before.

How did I miss it?

How did I ever think I could escape?

How did I ever think I could fight?

I should leave now. It's time. I find a satchel and a spare jacket with a star sewn onto it, but then at the last minute I decide not to wear it. If this is my last walk through the city I'm going to do it free—as me—and if anything happens, if they find me—then let them.

The walk to Prinsengracht is a long way, maybe an hour. At the end of it is a warehouse; at the top of the warehouse, hidden at the back, is an annex.

No one knows it's there, except the workers who'll help hide us. Father says we're lucky, lucky he happens to be in
business with Mr. Frank. Lucky Mr. Frank's asked us to join his family in hiding. I don't think so. I'd rather be in America.

I've got a diagram of the Annex. I know where to go in, which stairs I have to use, and how to find my way to the back of the house where the rooms are hidden. Where
I'll
be hidden.

I should go now.

If I'm going.

I'm on the street. The sun is on my face. There is no star on my chest. I'm free for another hour. One more hour. The whole world feels strange around me: pin-sharp and beautiful. Without my star I get no pitying looks. I've forgotten what it's like not to be noticed. I stop. I drink from a fountain. Mutti would be horrified. I could be arrested, killed, sent away if I was found out. A Jew, drinking from a fountain! I could infect all the non-Jews, but with what?

What is it we've got that's so evil?

"Beautiful morning!" a woman says, and smiles. I smile back, but inside I'm thinking,
I'm a Jew, you stupid woman, can't you see? Can't you even tell what I am without my star to guide you? Here,
I think of saying to her,
put it on. If you feel so sorry for us why don't you all wear them, and then who would know the difference between us?

But I don't say anything.

I just smile back.

And walk away.

The walk is over quickly—too quickly. The wide avenues turn into the small canals and streets around the center of Amsterdam. And then I'm there. I'm at the warehouse—263 Prinsengracht. I stare at the wide, wooden warehouse doors and at the narrow door up the steps that I'm meant to go through.

I'm scared.

I want to run. I want to run and run and never stop until I find Liese. I'll hold her hand, and we'll run together until we find some woods, some hills, some caves to hide in. But there aren't any—only flatlands. We've already fled from Germany to here. And now we're surrounded. The Nazis are everywhere: Luxembourg, Belgium, France. Holland is just a small pocket in a whole coat made of Nazis. There is nowhere else for us to run. I stare at the doors.

I feel sick.

I feel the sun hot on my back.

I turn and look down the street. I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't be doing anything that draws attention to me—but I can't help it. I turn and look down the long, narrow street. I look at the trees and the water of the canal. I look at the people walking past me, but it doesn't matter now how long I stand here, looking. Nothing will change.

Liese's not coming back.

I'm probably never going to see her again.

***

My name is Peter van Pels. I'm nearly sixteen years old. I walk up the stone steps and turn the handle of the narrow wooden door. I push it open and step forward. The door closes itself behind me.

I can still see the street and feel the soft, summer air. Fresh air. In the Annex I remembered air the way I now remember the taste of fresh vegetables and the sound of laughter.

As something already lost—and best forgotten.

It's dark and hot between the two doors. The air is stale. I push on through the second door and up the stairway. I picture the diagram of the house in my mind.

I must get it right. I must be quiet. I walk past a window with OFFICE written on it. There are voices behind it, shadows of people moving. I'm a ghost; they don't know I'm here. I move quietly along the dark, narrow corridor. The heat is stifling. Up some more stairs and the corridor widens. On my left is a window, covered in dark fabric. Below it another staircase going down. It's dark. I stand and wait for my eyes to adjust. In front of me is a wide door with a latch on it. I don't want to go through it. I want to turn back. I want to run. And then in my mind I see the van disappearing down the street. My heart's beating so fast I can't breathe. I lift the latch quickly, before I can think, and open the door.

I hear a voice high and clear:

"Well, we're lucky, aren't we? Imagine if we didn't have a father to find us an annex, or if we were all stuck in here hating each other!"

I feel a sharp stab of irritation. Anne Frank, as loud and sure of herself as ever!

Lucky?
How can we be lucky? She makes it sound as though we're playing a parlor game.

Straight in front of me is another staircase, steep and dangerous. To the left is where the voices are. Everything is small and cramped like the streets and canals outside. And dark.

I turn left and stand in the doorway. The Franks are sitting at a table. They all turn and stare at me.

"Oh!" says Mrs. Frank. For a moment there's a shocked silence. We all stare at each other. "Oh, Peter! It's you! For a moment I didn't recognize you."

I blink. It's hard to see their faces clearly in the half-light. Mr. Frank is standing up and walking toward me. He smiles. "Peter. You're here. Let me show you your room."

"Room!" says Anne. "That's not what I'd call it!"

"Anne!" says her mother. I don't look at her. Anne Frank thinks enough of herself already, without me joining in.

"Hello, Peter," says Margot, quietly.
Why are you here?
The thought flashes furiously across my mind
—Why are you here, and not Liese!
I nod at her.

Mr. Frank takes me back to the steep stairs. I follow him up, slowly. We go through a kitchen.

"This will be your parents' room and our communal kitchen. We all have to double up, I'm afraid."

I don't say anything. I can't. Next to the sink is a doorway. He steps through it.

"And this is
your
bedroom."

There is a window, covered with a dark blind. It's hard to believe the sun is still out there behind it—shining. We're pushed up close together by the lack of space. Beside us is another staircase going up.

"Above you are the attics, where we store everything, and hang washing—that means you'll have us all traipsing through here, I'm afraid."

At least there's light coming from somewhere.

"The attic windows are too high to be covered," says Mr. Frank, "and so at least this room has some light!" As though he can read my mind. I take a deep breath. Squashed up next to the staircase is a bed. At the bottom of the bed is a desk.

"Well," he says, "it's perhaps not what we'd normally call a room, but it's all yours."

I sit down on the bed.

"Thank you," I say. The words come out small.

"I'll leave you then..." But he stops at the door. "Would you like to see the bathroom?"

I shake my head.

"You know the names of all the office workers downstairs who'll be helping us, don't you?"

I shake my head, I can't remember. Mr. Frank smiles.

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to get to know them. There's Miep Gies—she's our main contact with the outside world—then there's Mr. Kugler, Mr. Kleiman, and Bep and her father, Mr. Voskuijl."

"Thank you," I say again.

"Well, come downstairs and have a drink when you're ready—and welcome, Peter!"

"Thank you," I say quickly. I want him to go away.

I lie down. I close my eyes. Behind them the heat throbs in my head. The room is airless. If I stretch out my arms ... if I stretch out my arms they'll crash into the walls on one side and the staircase on the other. If I stretch out my legs, my feet will hit the door. I lie on the bed and keep everything close to my sides. Somewhere outside, the church clock rings the quarter hour.

I close my eyes and begin to shake. I open them, but I can still see Liese's face at the window—and the van disappearing.

Where is she?

Where will they take her?

The sound of voices next door wakes me.

"Mrs. van Pels, have you really brought hats in your hatbox?" laughs Anne.

"No! No!" says Mother. "It's not a hat in there, it's a ... chamber pot!"

They all laugh, Mutti loudest of all. I pull the sheet up over me. I hide my head beneath its light cotton and curl up, trying to escape, but the picture keeps on coming ... Liese's face ... A bright hot pain sears through my head. White, like lightning.

Mutti steps through the doorway. "Peter?" she asks. "Peter!" She reaches for my hand but I put it quickly under the sheet. She bites her lip.

"You're here!" she says. "Thank God!"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

She stares at me. I look away.

So she knew.

She sensed that I wanted to run.

I don't say anything.

I want her to go away.

But she doesn't, she looks around instead.

"Oh, Petel!" she whispers. "It's so small." And then she takes a deep breath. "But at least we're all here. And we're all safe!"

Except Liese.

I don't say anything. I don't ever say anything much any
way, unlike the Franks—but I think a lot. I wonder how this can be called living. How can we be in a space this small? We're trapped in this building like rats in a sinking ship, waiting to be caught. The pain flashes through my head again, lightning striking a steeple.

Anne's voice floats up the stairs: "We've made tons and tons of jam already ... and doesn't the whole place smell wonderful—of cherries and sugar! Oh, and Daddy, I think this must be the best hiding place in the whole of Holland!"

I feel my body tighten. I can't help it, or do anything about it. It flinches at her words. It's taking on a life of its own. It's like it's trying to crawl away through the walls, back to the outside.

Back to wherever Liese is.

Why didn't I stay? Why didn't I fight? Why did I stand there with a stone in my hand doing nothing?

I groan out loud.

"She makes it sound like we're at a tea party!" I hiss.

"Peter!" says Mutti. "We must be—"

"Grateful," I say quickly, because if I hear
her
say it I think I might have to scream or slap her.

Mutti stares at me. "I'm sorry," she says. "I know it'll be hard for you, but we are lucky. Lucky to be alive and lucky to have someone prepared to help hide us!"

Lucky!
That word again. Lucky!

I don't feel lucky.

"Peter?" she asks, and I turn to look at her.

"What?"

"There wasn't only a chamber pot in that box, you know!"

She gestures to the door. Standing on the threshold, head cocked to one side and ears erect, is Mouschi. My cat.

"Oh!" I say. Mutti smiles.

Mouschi leaps up onto my bed and curls into my side.

"Thank you!" I say.

"Well, now that he's here, what can anyone say?" she whispers.

I don't answer; I just bury my head in his fur. When I look up, she's gone.

I didn't know.

I didn't know that a bed below an attic is a luxury. I didn't know that to grieve, as I was grieving for my freedom, is a blessing and a privilege, as well as a sorrow.

Here in the lager there are no feelings. Only the minutes passing, the one foot in front of the other, the mud, the staying upright, the hanging on to the spoon for your soup so that no one steals it. You cannot grieve for another. You are too busy making sure that it will not be you.

I wake up, my heart beating fast, clicking along like a train through a tunnel. Darkness.

Wetness in my hands.

Eyes wide open and searching through the dark.

I'm trying to hold on to something. My mind gropes for it, but it's gone. It's over. Limp and finished. I feel my face flush red in the night. I listen. Somewhere in the distance the church clock strikes three. Next door, Mutti groans and turns over.

Did I make a sound? Did anyone hear me?

I listen to the silence. It's so high up here. The whole night feels different.

The memory of the dream comes without warning. I dreamed of Liese. Liese in a crowd. She is carried along by a river of people. Her dark hair a dot among many.

"Liese!"

I scream her name.

I'm terrified that no one knows who she is. No one but me.

She turns. Her violet eyes are wide and frightened. Our
eyes catch before she's carried away by the stream of people. Forced along by the high banks of soldiers beside them.

Suddenly I'm right up next to her. Pressed against her by the thousands of bodies around us. They lift us up from the ground. I feel my face sink into her breasts, my arms lock around her body. I feel us carried along as her legs surround my waist ... I bury myself in her. I hold on tight until we explode together.

And then I'm far away above us both, watching the memories pour out of me. The taste of her lips, the feel of her skin beneath my fingers, the first time I saw her, her hands moving across the piano keys, the day I asked to carry her books ... the memories fall around us like rain as we cling together.

But the river of people keeps on moving—as though nothing is happening at all.

"Liese," I whisper.

She holds my face in her hands and we stare into each other's eyes.

"Peter!"

I reach out but she's already beyond me. I watch, helpless, as she disappears into the crowd. Calling my name. "Peter!"

I am Peter
—the thought wakes me.

This is who I am.

I am Peter.

I whisper the words into the night.

I try to hold on to the remembered warmth of Liese's body in the sheets.