When Mr. Nussbaum appears in the Jekerstraat flat, he begins to whistle Beethoven at the sight of Pim. Pim stands to his full soldier’s height, his eyes flooding, and joins in whistling as well. This is how their reunion begins. All in all a teary welter, neither man able to control his emotions, and, watching them, neither is Anne. Pain strikes her, as if her heart has been thumped by a hammer, and she is forced to retreat to her room. Margot attempts to console her, or rather interrogate her, in her Lager rags. Anne, why are you crying? Why are you crying? But Anne has no answer for her. She cannot contain her own tears; she cannot control her own grief, though both seem to exercise perfect control over her. She is curled up in a ball on her bed when her father knocks.
“Anne?”
“Yes?” she calls, sniffing, staring at the wall beside her bed.
“May I come in?”
“I’m not feeling well,” she answers, but Pim cracks open the door anyway.
“I’ll only need a moment.”
She rolls over and sits quickly, her eyes reddened. “Is Mr. Nussbaum still here?”
“No. He’s gone for now,” Pim tells her. “I’m sorry if our reunion was such a strain on you. Old men can get emotional.”
“How did you meet?”
“How?” A small exhale. “At Auschwitz—we were billeted in the same barracks block. But I’m ashamed to say that the first time we met, I punched him in the face.”
Anne blinks. “You punched him?”
“In the face, yes.” Her father nods. “I don’t even remember why now. Some measly dispute. But we were not the masters of our temper there.”
“So you became friends because you struck him in the face?”
“No. We became friends because I heard him whistling ‘Clair de Lune.’ Terribly so, but with passion, as if every note he whistled were an affirmation that he was still alive. I knew immediately that I must ask him for his forgiveness. So I began to whistle it, too. After that”—Pim shrugs—“we became close comrades. We talked of music or art and literature. He had run a publishing company in Berlin before the Nazis stole it from him. He could recite Schiller, Heine, Goethe—especially Goethe—all from memory. It was quite inspiring. To keep using our minds, that was the thing. In the end, when I was truly on the edge of oblivion, it was he who brought one of the prisoner physicians to me. It’s how I was admitted to the convalescent block of the infirmary, which probably saved my life. So I owe him a great deal. I tried to locate him through the Red Cross after liberation, but all I could determine was that he had been marched out of Auschwitz when the Germans were evacuating the camp. Honestly? Until today I assumed that he hadn’t survived. So I must thank you, Anne, for returning him to me.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she says.
“Perhaps you don’t think so, but Werner tells me you made an impression on him.”
“Did he tell you what happened? Did he tell you what they did to the door of his bookshop?”
“Yes,” her father answers carefully. “He did. He also told me that he was struck by your spirit. And thought you were quite self-possessed.” Pim says this, and then he adds, “In fact, he wondered if you might be interested in spending some time working in his shop.”
Anne stares. “His shop?”
“Yes. I told him of your love of books,” her father says. “He seemed eager to have you aboard. I’d still expect you to help out at the office, of course. But a few afternoons a week, shelving books after school . . . It’s just him otherwise, so I think he could use another pair of hands. Does that sound like something that might interest you, meisje?”
Nussbaum
Tweedehands-Boekverkoper
The Rozengracht
The shop is not so very far from where Pim used to lease an office on the Singel. Anne now bikes there twice a week for a few hours before supper. She likes the place. She likes the smells of old paper and aging binder’s glue and even the leathery stench of Mr. Nussbaum’s cigar smoke. And of course she likes the shelves bursting with tatty old books of every size, shape, and color. Even when it’s empty of customers, as it often is, there is still a comforting benefit from all those books, floor to ceiling, wall after wall. It’s really quite gezellig, Anne writes in her notebook—a favorite word of the Dutch. A cozy den of books, she calls it. Her job is to categorize new arrivals, compiling them into stacks according to their type and then stocking the shelves. She loves handling the books and often forgets herself, opening the covers for a peek, only to lose herself in the pages instead of finishing her work. But Mr. Nussbaum doesn’t seem to mind. He lends her this book and that and says, “Give this one a try,” or “I think this is a story you might find either scintillating or preposterous. Or maybe both.” And, of course, in addition to the books, books, and books, there is the cat. He’s a hulking tortoiseshell lapjeskat with a lazy gaze, and Anne has named him Lapjes for his calico patches. He tolerates Anne’s affection when he’s in the mood, but he’s a street cat by nature and only looks out for himself, lounging about in a spot of sun. Anne admires this ability of his but cannot seem to successfully imitate it.
“So tell me,” Mr. Nussbaum begins. He wears a double set of sweaters, because, he says, he can never get warm, not with a hundred sweaters. Still, two are better than none. “Tell me, is it true?” he inquires. “Your papa says you have a talent with words.”
Anne looks up from a heavy tome. Blinks. “Did he?”
“Oh, yes. He was adamant about it, actually. He said you were quite gifted.”
Anne swallows. Turns back to the box of mismatched books she is unpacking. “Once I thought so,” she answers.
“And what changed your mind?”
She looks up at Mr. Nussbaum’s face. Is he making a joke? The man has a sly affection for irony, no doubt about that. But there’s nothing ironic in his expression, only a humble curiosity.
“I was keeping a diary. When we were in hiding. I was going to write a book after the war. Maybe a novel or something. About our life. What it was like for us. For Jews,” she says. “But it was all lost when we were arrested.”
“And after that?” he asks.
“After?”
“After that you just quit writing altogether?”
Anne hesitates. “No,” she admits.
“No.”
“No, I still write. But it’s not the same.”
“Not the same, I see.” He nods. He draws a thoughtful puff from his cigar and balances it, ember outward, on the edge of the sales desk, where there is a spot scarred black by many small burns on the varnish. “And why’s that?”
“Because,” Anne says. “Because it doesn’t mean anything.”
“No? Well, it must mean something, Anne,” Mr. Nussbaum points out. “Else why would you be doing it?”
“I don’t know,” Anne confesses, turning away. “I suppose,” she begins, but then shakes her head as she is displeased with her thoughts. “I suppose I’m simply compelled,” she confesses, and picks up another book from the box.
“Hmm. That sounds like a writer talking to me.”
“Do we really have to discuss this, Mr. Nussbaum?”
“Oh, no. No, not if you’d rather not,” he says, opening up the thick sales ledger on the desk. “I only wonder . . .”
A beat. Anne looks back up. “Wonder what?”
“I only wonder,” he says, perusing the ledger’s contents, issuing her a brief but solid glance, “why you think your writing is worth less now than it was before? It’s still your story. Isn’t it?”
Anne stares.