Anne stares. “He never liked to sit still for too long in one place,” she says.
Pim nods. “I’m sorry, Anneke.”
“Sorry?”
“I know that you had feelings for the boy in a special way,” he says.
But Anne only shakes her head dully. “I thought for a while that I loved him,” she says. “But that’s a feeling that’s hard for me to imagine now, Pim.”
Her father leans against a wooden post, tall and lanky. The daylight is as soft as ashes, a spongy light that absorbs all brightness. Vast, full-bellied clouds scud across the sky. “Your mother was so worried,” he says, “that something improper would happen between you and Peter up here. Unsupervised.”
Anne narrows her eyes. “Nothing did happen. Not really.” She wipes tears from her cheek thoughtlessly. “It’s so strange, Pim. I think that’s why I—” she starts to say but then shakes her head. “It’s hard to explain. I think that’s why I feel such grief over the loss of my diary.”
“Grief?” Pim’s posture stiffens at the shoulders, and his eyes narrow with a quizzical distress. “You feel grief?”
Anne shrugs, embarrassed. “It may sound ridiculous. It was scribbling on paper. I know that, and I know it sounds terribly absurd, and perhaps even terribly selfish. But ‘grief’ is still the word for what I feel. Maybe it’s because if my diary had not been destroyed, they would all still be alive to me in some way. Not just in my memory but on the page.”
Pim does not interrupt his gaze but expels a heavy breath. “Anne. There’s something I must tell you,” he says. “But I don’t know how to begin. So I suppose the only way forward is to simply say it.”
But before he can speak another word, there are footsteps below. Mr. Kugler calling Pim’s name with an urgent tone. Pim crosses over and peers down the attic’s ladder. “Mr. Kugler?”
“My apologies for interrupting, but . . . but there’s a gentleman for you on the telephone.”
“A gentleman?” Pim sounds puzzled and a bit irritated.
“Concerning the issue we were just discussing. I’m afraid it’s rather essential that you speak with him.”
Pim’s sigh ends with a frown. “Ah. Yes. Yes, you’re correct. Thank you, Mr. Kugler.” Returning to Anne, he says, “I’m sorry. I must take this call.”
“But what were you about to say, Pim? What were you about to tell me?”
Pim’s expression turns circumspect. “We’ll talk about it later, Anne,” he assures her, his voice now gaining a velvety disinclination to say more. “I’m sorry, but I must go.” He pauses. “Please, don’t stay up here too long. The dust,” he insists. “It’s not healthy.”
Jan is working late again, past supper. The demands of the Social Service Bureau in a chaotic time, Miep explains, so it’s just them—Miep, Pim, and Anne—as Miep serves a tureen of thick beet soup. Pim is holding forth on an article he’s run across in newspapers. As the First Canadian Army liberated the western Netherlands, young women would try to communicate with friends and relatives in towns still under occupation by chalking messages on the sides of Canadian tanks. Pim finds this not only ingenious but very heartening, apparently. “That these girls should have such faith in the future,” he says with satisfaction. Anne doesn’t seem to notice the bowl of beet soup in front of her; instead she stares at Pim. Her father’s desire to leave behind the horrors they suffered is overwhelming. He is bent on returning to what he likes to call “ordinary life” and has no time to “belabor” the past. Anne finds this maddening.
“Anne, you’re not eating,” Miep observes.
Anne blinks. Stares down at the soup and then finishes it with steady strokes of her spoon. When she has sopped up the last traces of it with her bit of bread, she expels a breath. “So, Pim, who do you think betrayed us?” she asks, finally giving voice to the question that has been sparking about in her brain. Her tone is pointedly casual, but it’s a question designed to force the past into the present. Pim’s face goes blank. He rests his spoon on the edge of the bowl and enters a deep, momentary silence.
“I have no idea, Anne,” he says finally, and gives his head a single shake. “I really have no idea.” Only now does he meet her eyes, now that he has erected the wall of his response.
“You don’t think it was one of our warehousemen?”
“Possibly,” her father replies, now starting to stir his soup again with his spoon, signaling that he is finished with this topic.
“Mr. Kugler thinks it was the man who replaced Bep’s father as foreman.”
“He was troublesome, yes.” Pim nods without commitment. “Especially after he’d found the wallet Mr. van Pels had dropped in the storeroom. But we have no proof that he is the culprit.” He returns to his soup.
“Then what about the cleaning woman?”
Tapping the excess from his spoon against the rim of the bowl. “Who?”
“The cleaning woman told Bep that she knew there were Jews hiding in the building.”
“Anne,” says Miep.
“And how do you know about that?” her father inquires dubiously. “Did Bep tell you?”
“She told Miep,” Anne answers. “I overheard them in the kitchen.”
Miep frowns. “Anne, that was a private conversation.”
“A private conversation,” Anne repeats. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think there should be anything private about this, Miep. Not about this particular subject. Do you think that Bep was telling the truth?”
“Of course,” Miep replies, her voice stiffening. “You know that Bep would never fabricate. Not about something so serious. How could you even consider?”
“How should I know what to consider? She’s stopped talking to me.”
“Yes, well, she’s having a very difficult time,” Miep says in Bep’s defense. “Please, you shouldn’t take it personally.”
“No? Hmm,” Anne says. “That’s an interesting point of view. I live through three concentration camps, but I shouldn’t take anything personally.”
“Anne,” Pim jumps in, but Miep stops him.
“It’s fine, Otto,” Miep assures him.
Pim disagrees. “No, it’s not, Miep.”
“Thank you,” Miep says, “but honestly, you needn’t trouble yourself. It’s true that I have no idea how Anne feels. I have no idea how either of you feel. After what you’ve suffered, I can only imagine.”
“Only you can’t imagine,” Anne points out. “So what do you believe happened, Miep? Do you believe it was the cleaning woman who telephoned the Gestapo?”
“Enough,” Pim finally decides. “Enough, Anne. Just because a charwoman who occasionally ran a vacuum over the office carpet had suspicions that she voiced to Bep, that doesn’t mean she was guilty of a crime. People gossip. Unfortunate things happened. The building was burglarized, for heaven’s sake—how many times?”
“Three,” Miep reports.
“Three times. Also, we made mistakes. Plenty of them, I’m sure. Windows were left open when they should have been closed. The front door was left bolted when it should have been unbolted. Curtains were peeked through in the middle of the day,” he reminds her adamantly. “After two years I have no doubt that there were many people who harbored suspicions. But we don’t have a shred of proof to indict any single one of them.” Her father raises his spoon to his lips and slurps efficiently. Anne knows he is trying to close the discussion. In one way this doesn’t surprise her. Pim is an expert at closing down conflict. But in another way it shocks her. How can he be so complacent? His wife died. His daughter died. His friends died. How can he simply sit there and slurp his soup?