“Really? If I remember correctly, Pim, you once called it the most astonishing city you’d ever seen.”
“Never mind,” Pim says, his tone turning parental. “Didn’t you agree to help your stepmother with the laundry?”
“I want to go there, Pim,” Anne announces suddenly, not realizing until she speaks the words how deeply true they are. “I want to go to America.”
What follows is a silence with many moving parts. She can see it rearranging Pim’s expression in minute calibrations. The tic of an eye, the laxity of his mouth as it droops into the ruts of a frown. The decline of his shoulders and the tilt of his head toward conflict. A measure of hard fortification barricading his eyes. “I beg your pardon?” is all he says.
“I want to go to America,” she repeats.
Pim releases a long breath and shakes his head. “These photographs. They may depict an exciting metropolis, but take my word for it, the place is so large it can easily swallow a person whole.”
“Maybe that’s precisely what I want, Pim,” Anne replies. “To be swallowed whole.”
“But how could that be so, Anne?” her father asks, obviously trying to calm his responses, obviously intent on maintaining the gentlest of possible tones. “You’re young. Of course you have an urge to see the world. Perhaps we can think about a visit. Next year, maybe. I do understand the wanderlust of youth.”
“No, I think you don’t, Pim. I don’t want to visit New York. I want to live there. I want to emigrate.”
Pim shakes his head, glaring at his shoes. “Anne.” He speaks her name sternly. “I’m sorry,” he says, abandoning any softer tone. “But that is not in any way, shape, or form a realistic possibility.”
“Not realistic? My English is good. I hear the Canadian soldiers talk, and I can understand almost everything they say. Why is it not realistic?”
“How could it be? So you can speak some English? Do you think that’s all there is to it? Do you imagine that a person simply packs a bag and boards a boat? Show me your passport, Anne. Where have you been hiding it?”
“Passports aren’t the end of the world, Pim,” she tells him.
“So says the world traveler. Emigration is an extremely difficult process, Anne. Immensely complicated,” he says, “and expensive. So what about money? Where does the money come from for such an adventure? You think it can be pulled from a hat, do you, daughter? Even if the legalities were possible to sort through, where would the money for passage come from? You think that’s cheap, Anne? It’s not. Where would the money to live on come from? Thin air?”
“People get work, Pim,” she answers. “People get jobs.”
“Not seventeen-year-old girls. And that’s another thing. Who would protect you? Who would keep you safe? No. My answer to this nonsense is no. I will not be drawn into further discussion,” her father insists.
“What if I agree, then? The difficulties are immense. If you say so, I won’t argue the points. But haven’t you always taught me that difficulties are to be overcome?”
“It’s out of the question.”
“Why? Mummy’s brothers are there,” Anne says. “And you still have your friend in New York. Mr. Straus.”
“It’s much more complicated than that.”
“Always your answer to everything.”
“Because the world is not a simple place,” Pim shoots back. “Your uncles entered the States fifteen years ago, long before the war. They were seeking asylum. The Gestapo had already imprisoned Walther once, and it was only a matter of time before both of them would land in a camp for good. So it was a completely different set of circumstances.”
“Who cares how they got there? The point is they’re still there. They could help us.”
“Again—not so simple. Your uncle Julius is in poor health. And I say this in confidence, Anne—they’re barely scraping by. They’re workmen in a box factory, for heaven’s sake. They couldn’t possibly support more mouths to feed.”
“But Mr. Straus isn’t scraping by. He’s rich. He must have connections.”
“Enough, Anne. I’m not going hat in hand, begging, to Charley Straus. Not again. You have no idea what you’re asking of me.”
“So it’s your pride that’s stopping you, Pim? Is that what you’re telling me? Your pride?”
Pim glares at her with red eyes. Then he turns his back and strides from the threshold, but Anne is still shouting after him. “You know what the proverb says, Pim! Pride is the mask of a man’s faults!”
“Pride has nothing to do with it!” Pim halts and turns back to her. “We owe a debt, Anne, to the Netherlands. Has that ever occurred to you? We owe a debt to the Netherlands and to its people. Oh, there may have been some bad apples in the barrel—of course there were—but the Dutch welcomed us when few others did. And it was good Dutch people who risked their own lives to protect us. That cannot be forgotten. The Netherlands has become our home.”
“You keep telling me that, Pim, but it’s a lie. I have nothing here. Nothing left.”
“We have people who care for us, Anne. That’s not nothing. We have people we can trust.”
“But that’s the point, don’t you see? I don’t know who to trust.”
“Then trust in me,” he says, both a command and a plea. “I’m your father. If no one else, trust in me.”
Anne goes silent, staring back. When she speaks, her voice is low, barely controlled. “Amsterdam is a haunted place. I don’t belong here anymore,” she insists.
“And you think you will belong in America? That’s absurd, Anne. And even if it weren’t, half of Europe wants to go to America. There are, however, quotas in place severely restricting immigration.”
“You mean for Jews?”
“I mean for everyone,” her father answers. “For anyone. And we are fine just where we are. I have responsibilities here, Anne. A life to lead.”
“You have a life!” Anne is suddenly incensed. “You! But what life do I have, Pim? What life do I have?”
“A life with the people who love you, Anne. Isn’t that enough? You belong where your family is.”
“My family is dead!” she hears herself shout.
“I am not dead!” Pim, angry now, ignites. “I am not dead, Annelies! I am your father, and I am still very much alive!”
“Are you sure of that, Pim? Everyone tells me that I have survived. What joy! Anne Frank has survived! Praise God in his heaven! But I don’t feel it, Pim. I feel like this is an illusion and that I really belong in the burial pit with Margot!”
His eyes panic. “Anne.”
“Then, at the same moment, I want everything,” she declares, her hands clenching into fists. “I want everything there is to have, and America has everything. That’s why I cannot stay here. That’s why I must go. With you or without.”