“Does Margot know?”
“Yes. But outside the family you must keep this secret,” her father tells her. “Not a word to a soul. Not even your closest friend. You must promise me, Anneke.”
“I promise, Pim. I promise. But will it happen soon?”
“Soon enough. You let your papa fret over the details.”
Suddenly she seizes Pim in an embrace. It makes her feel secretly proud to have such information in her possession. And she loves Pim all the more for trusting her with it. Pim, the man who has everything under control.
“For now stay cheerful,” he instructs her, stroking the back of her head, “and try not to worry. Treasure these carefree days for as long as you may.”
• • •
That night at bedtime, Anne sits at the narrow vanity table to perform her nightly routine. Before the curlers are fastened into place, she dons her combing shawl. A fringed cape of pale beige satin decorated with roses over her shoulders. But instead of picking up her hairbrush, she stares at her face in the mirror. Is this the soon-to-be face of an onderduiker? She’s trying to be brave. All through supper she smiled and courteously passed dishes. And maybe she can be brave. So they are going into hiding? So what? Other Jews have it much worse. Herded into a ghetto in the Jodenbuurt and cut off from the rest of the town by barbed wire. Transported into Germany like slaves or arrested and shipped to some terrible camp. She should be grateful and courageous. And anyway, isn’t there an element of adventure to consider? It will be an exploit of sorts. She can write about it, put it all down in her diary. Quietly, picking up the brush, she begins the ritual of nightly brushing, but when Margot appears in her nightgown, she slips the brush from Anne’s hand. “Let me do this for you,” she says.
Anne does not resist. “Pim told me,” she whispers.
“Yes,” is all Margot says. Stroke after stroke after stroke, Anne gazes at herself in the oval mirror. It’s so soothing. She feels that Margot can brush away her fears, her anxieties, all the problems of the world hammering at their door. Her sister’s hand stroking the length of her hair with the soft bristles. Suddenly she loves Margot. Not just abstractly but fiercely, with a full and merciful heart. “I adore you, you know, Margot,” she whispers.
“Of course you do,” Margot replies. “I’m adorable.”
“No. I mean . . . I mean I love you. Whatever happens to us, I want you to know that.”
Margot continues with her brushstrokes but then bends over and kisses her little sister on the head. “I love you, too, silly.”
Anne closes her eyes. When they were little, Pim used to tell them the story of the Two Paulas. A pair of invisible twins who lived secretly in their home. Good Paula was always courteous, thoughtful, and obedient, and she never complained. But Bad Paula was full of mischief, often selfish, and easily angered. When Anne opens her eyes, she is caught by her own gaze. Sometimes she dreams that she is the flimsy mirror image and that the face reflected in the glass is the real Anne. The real Anne, who only she knows to be the true Anne. Not the difficult Anne. Not the fearful Anne. Not the know-it-all Anne. Not the Bad Paula, but the good Anne. The brave Anne. The Anne Favored by God.
At first Mummy tells her that it was Pim who has received the call-up notice, but her sister confesses the truth. An order from Die Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung, under the stamp of the mof security police, arrived in the morning post. A form letter from an SS-Hauptsturmführer, bearing the official rubber stamp, demanding that the Jewess Margot Betti Frank report for labor deployment inside the German Reich. By the time Pim comes home, he has already decided that they must move into their hiding place weeks earlier than planned. It’s hard to resist the urge to panic as the process accelerates into a fluster of preparation. Anne packs her curlers, her favorite books, her tortoiseshell comb, clean handkerchiefs, and a few crazy things, too. Old tickets from a skating party at the Apollohal in the Stadionweg, a painted dreidel her omi Alice had sent her for Hanukkah, her poetry album from school with all her friends’ handwritten poems, her film-star photos and collection of postcards, her set of table-tennis paddles. Memories are more important to her than dresses, she insists. Of course, she also carefully packs her diary. The tartan plaid album that, as she hoped, has indeed become her favorite and most intimate confidante, to which she has confessed all the turmoil of the last few days. The letter they leave on the dining-room table is for their upstairs tenant to find. It implies that they have fled Holland to join Pim’s family in Switzerland. By the next afternoon, the entire family has slipped off the map of Amsterdam and into the hiding place: the rear annex of Pim’s office building in the Prinsengracht. “Het Achterhuis” is what Anne will call it in her diary. The House Behind.
4 THE HOUSE BEHIND
The Annex is an ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there’s probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland.
. . . Up to now our bedroom, with its blank walls, was very bare. Thanks to Father—who brought my entire postcard and movie-star collection here beforehand—and to a brush and a pot of glue, I was able to plaster the walls with pictures. It looks much more cheerful.
—Anne Frank, from her diary, 11 July 1942
1944
The Achterhuis
Prinsengracht 263
Rear Annex
OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS
No one would ever suspect there were so many rooms behind that plain gray door. There’s just one small step in front of the door, and then you’re inside. Straight ahead of you is a steep flight of stairs. To the left is a narrow hallway opening onto a room that serves as the Frank family’s living room and bedroom.
She is sitting on the steps, alone. Thankful to be alone to write. Knees together with her diary on her lap. Her eyes lift from the page in thought. She gazes at the door that separates her from the remainder of the world.
If you go up the stairs and open the door at the top, you’re surprised to see such a large, light and spacious room in an old canalside house like this. It contains a stove (thanks to the fact that it used to be Mr. Kugler’s laboratory) and a sink. This will be the kitchen and bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. van Pels, as well as the general living room, dining room and study for us all. A tiny side room is to be Peter van Pels’s bedroom. Then, just as in the front part of the building, there’s an attic and a loft. So there you are. Now I’ve introduced you to the whole of our lovely Annex!
Yours, Anne
There are eight of them in hiding now, fifteen months after the Frank family slipped off the map. Anne and her family have been joined by the spice expert Hermann van Pels, also known as Putti; his wife, Kerli; and their son, Peter; plus Miep’s dentist, the lofty Mr. Pfeffer, who makes it a crowd in more ways than one. In Anne’s opinion. In fact, most everybody is driving her crazy in one manner or another. She scribbles in her diary when she manages a few moments to herself.