According to the story she’s so fond of repeating, their family once had a big house in the Marbachweg in Frankfurt and Mummy had a housemaid, though Anne remembers none of it. She was just a toddler when fear of Hitler caused them to flee Germany for Holland. To Anne their flat here in Amsterdam South is her home. Five rooms in this perfectly well-respected bourgeoisie housing estate in the River Quarter, occupied by perfectly well-respected bourgeoisie refugees of the deutschen jüdisches variety. The children have started gabbling away in Dutch, but for most of the adults settled here German is still the daily conversational vernacular. Even now the Frank household speaks it at the table, because heaven forbid Mummy be required to learn another word of Dutch, even though German has become the language of their persecutors.
Mother is seldom happy, it seems, unless she’s unhappy. Anne suspects that when Oma Rose died, she took something of Mummy with her. A piece of her heart that connected her to the world of her childhood, a comfortable world of affection, warmth, and safety. But after Oma passed, Mummy seemed to lose all resilience. Perhaps the loss of a mother can do that to some people. At least Anne can pity Mummy for this. Anne, too, still mourns the loss of her sweet grandma, so she can try to imagine her mother’s pain. But she doesn’t dare imagine what it would feel like if she were to ever lose her papa. Her one and only Pim.
“Aren’t we going to the shop?” Anne inserts this question with a quick, prodding tone.
“Please, Anne,” her mother huffs. “Put down the cat. How many times must I remind you that animals do not belong at the table?”
Anne rubs her tabby’s fur against her cheek. “But he’s not an animal. He’s the one and only Monsieur Moortje. Aren’t you, Moortje?” she asks the little gray tiger, who mews in confirmation.
“Anne, do as your mother asks,” Pim instructs quietly, and Anne obeys with a half sigh.
“I just wanted to know how much longer I have to sit here being bored.”
“Bored?” her mother squawks. “Your father and I are discussing important matters.”
“Important to adults,” Anne replies thickly. “But children have a different view of the world, Mother. Based on having fun.”
“Oh, fun, is it? Well, isn’t that important news,” her mother mocks her sternly, the line of her mouth going flat. “It’s too bad that children like you don’t run the world.”
“I’ll agree with that,” Anne says. “Don’t you agree, Margot?”
“There are other things more important than fun,” her sister informs her.” Now, that’s Mummy.
“Your sister is sixteen,” their mother explains approvingly. “She’s not a child any longer.”
Margot gives her sister a quietly dismissive shrug. “You just don’t understand, Anne.”
“I understand plenty, thank you very much. What I don’t understand is why grown-ups take such pleasure in chewing over the worst of the world like gristle.”
“Finish your brussels sprouts,” her mother says, frowning.
Anne frowns back, her voice fizzling with dejection as she says, “I don’t like them.”
“Finish them anyway.”
Pim breaks in gently. “Edith. Perhaps she can have more carrots.”
Mummy quite definitely disapproves, but she shrugs. “Of course. By all means. Let her do as she pleases. It appears that children rule the world after all, Anne.” To her husband she says, “It’s only that one must wonder, Otto. It may all just be ‘propaganda,’ as you like to suggest, but one must wonder how many hungry Jewish girls there are right now in terrible circumstances who would give quite a lot for a plate of healthy food.”
No answer to this. How could there be? Mummy takes a grim sip from her coffee cup as Anne quietly scoops a small helping of carrots onto her plate, isolating them from the abominable choux de Bruxelles. Pim exhales, releasing a breath of smoke from his cigarette. Again he suggests a change of subject.
Poor Pim thinks he can shield his daughters from the ugly realities. Impossible. It’s obvious that things are not good for the Jews since the Hun occupied the city. It’s even obvious to a child that terrible things are happening. Anne is not so oblivious as everyone believes. But why in the world should they dwell on it so? If Anne confined her thoughts each morning to the lurking menace of the German hordes billeted in her lovely Amsterdam, she would be paralyzed, hiding under her bed, refusing to budge. She must believe that tomorrow will come unimpeded. That the sun will rise at dawn in spite of the old Herr Six-and-a-Quarter Seyß-Inquart on his high Nazi perch. Margot calls her childish when she says this, but who cares what sisters think? And really, whether there are crimes against Jews in progress a thousand kilometers away or in the center of Amsterdam, what can she do about it? Crimes against Jews are as ancient as Scripture. And doesn’t she have a duty to God to enjoy the life he has given her? She is about to turn thirteen, and the entire German Wehrmacht has not been able to prevent that from happening. Besides, she has an ultimate, unshakable faith that Pim will figure things out for all of them, as he always has. Mummy isn’t completely wrong—there are plenty of Jews in much, much worse circumstances than the family Frank, and there is only one reason for that: Pim is too smart to allow them to be caught in the Hitlerite net. Surely even Mummy must recognize that fact. It’s only too bad she cannot see past her own fear and give her husband the credit he deserves, instead of always moaning about the past. One would think a wife would do as much for the man she’s wed. As for Anne, there is no one on earth who can make her feel as safe and loved as her papa. And though it may hurt Mummy when Anne chooses Pim to listen to her prayers at bedtime, she cannot help it. She knows that as long as God and Pim are on the job, she is protected.
• • •
After the dishes are cleared, her father bends down to her and whispers the good news. “Go get your coat. It’s time to put our troubles aside.”
Anne claps her hands together and hooks Pim with a hug, inhaling the zesty scent of his cologne. Her parents are allowing her to choose a present for herself in advance of her birthday party. There are still hours before the Jewish curfew begins, so they all visit the stationery shop a few blocks away. Blankevoorts Subscription Library at Zuider Amstellaan 62. One of Anne’s favorite spots. She loves the inky smell of the place. The neat boxes of thick writing paper tied with ribbons. The sleepy orange tom lounging on one of the shelves, purring when she strokes his fur. At least Jews are still allowed to pet cats!