1946
Amsterdam
LIBERATED NETHERLANDS
She sits cross-legged on her bed with the stack of diary pages in her hand and can see the ugly reality of it by the candle’s glow. It’s juvenile. Poorly written. Nothing but adolescent rubbish. Or maybe it’s just that it’s so heartbreakingly personal. Humiliating, really. How stupid she was to be taken in by hopes and silly dreams of goodness.
In the office kitchen, Anne tells Miep the truth. “I wish you had never saved it, Miep,” she says. Miep has just put on the kettle to boil the water for tea, igniting the burner with a match. Anne inhales a whiff of gas. “You should have let it be carted away into oblivion with everything else.”
Miep gazes back at her. “I see,” she says. “Well, if you’re asking for my opinion on that, Anne, I can only say this: The ring that Mrs. van Pels gave me. You remember that I said how I couldn’t touch it for a long time? It was simply too painful. But then I decided,” she says with a breath, “I decided that I must wear it. Painful or not, I must honor the memory of her kindness. Of her gratitude.” She swallows. “Your father was wrong in keeping the diary from you. He was,” she tells Anne. “But it’s no longer missing. You have it. It is in your hands. Isn’t it your responsibility to honor the memory of those who have passed?”
Anne can only stare back at her, silent. Miep is silent, too. Then, suddenly, “Wait here,” she says, and bustles out, only to return a moment later toting her old black portable typewriter, which she places on the countertop.
“So, Anne, here is a late gift for your birthday.”
A blink. “My birthday?”
“This is mine, not the company’s, and we have the new machine now anyway,” Miep tells her. “So I want you to have it.” Slipping open the case, she explains, “I keep it well oiled. There’s a small toolbox attached.”
Anne looks at Miep, confused.
“Writers need to write, don’t they?” Miep asks. “And won’t you benefit from equipment a bit more modern than a pencil?”
Anne can still only stare.
“If not for yourself,” Miep says, “then do it for me. For me, Anne. For all of us who might want to remember those who never returned.”
Anne feels an odd force rising inside her. The kettle on the stove begins to whistle with steam.
She has dragged the old wire table from the garden into her room and organized a board covered with paint stains as a desktop from the warehouse. On it she sets Miep’s typewriter. Removes the case and gazes down at the button alphabet of keys. Pulling up her chair, she sits. Cranks a sheet of thin foolscap into the vulcanized-rubber roll. She’s not much of a typist, but she places her fingers here and there, holds her breath, and taps out a line at the center of the page:
“Stories from the House Behind”
30 GOD’S COMEDY
Sometimes I think that God is trying to test me, both now and in the future.
—Anne Frank, from her diary, 30 October 1943
1946
Leased Flat
The Herengracht
Amsterdam-Centrum
At breakfast Anne has announced that she will refuse to return to the school when the new term begins in September. Pim is flummoxed, as she expected. But Anne is surprised, not by Pim’s hangdog expression or his lecturing tone but by the new Mrs. Frank. Instead of raining down condemnation, she simply fixes her stepdaughter with a curious glare. “Well, Otto,” she says. “It’s not the end of the world. When I was sixteen, I already had a job as a stenographer with the Union Soap Company. So perhaps it’s for the best. God must have other plans for Anne’s future.”
Dassah picks up the plates and takes them into the kitchen to scrub before work. Anne does not offer to help. In fact, Anne is still in her pajamas, which she has not bothered to launder, and they’re starting to retain a hint of sweat and cigarette smoke.
Her father sips coffee from his cup and gives her a small look. “I thought you might come into the office today.”
“No, not today,” is all she says.
“And what about our friend Mr. Nussbaum? Doesn’t he need help at the shop?”
She ignites a Craven A and whistles smoke. “What are you getting at, Pim?”
“I’m not getting at anything. I’m simply wondering if you’re ever planning on leaving the house again.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Really.” He sounds skeptical. “Busy pecking at that typewriter Miep lent you?”
“She gave it to me. As a gift.”
“Very well. As a gift, if you say so. But my point is—” he starts to say until Anne cuts him off.
“Your point is what, Pim? What? Why are you still sitting here? What is it you want from me?”
“It’s nothing that I want, Anne,” he assures her. “Only I hear you up half the night banging away.”
“I’m working,” Anne says. “I’m sorry if I’m disturbing your sleep.”
“Not a question of that.” He frowns. “Nothing to do with me. But you need your rest. It’s not healthy. And now you come and declare that you’re done with school.”
“There are things more important than sleep, and there are things more important than school. I want to publish my diary, Pim,” she announces. “I’m typing up a draft, that’s what I’m doing. I want to turn my diary into a book.” Pim’s hands fall into his lap, and he drops a sigh like he’s dropping a stone. “Anne,” he says with a light shake of his head, then repeats her name as if it alone sums up the entirety of the problem. “Daughter, please,” he starts. “You must understand that what I’m about to say comes only from my desire for your welfare. You know,” he tells her, “that I deeply regret having kept your diary from you. It was unfair and thoughtless on my part, I don’t deny it. But,” he says. “But the very idea that you would think of publishing it? As a book?” He shrugs sharply at the incomprehensibility of such a notion. “It’s true, you have a gift for words. But really, Anne. I don’t want to insult you, but . . . a young girl’s diary? Who would publish such a thing? Who would want to?”
“There could be someone,” she answers defensively. “If I put it in order. Work it into a real story.”
“I’m just afraid that you’re going to be hurt. That you’re going to be dreadfully disappointed. Ask Werner Nussbaum, he was in publishing for decades. Ask him about how many would-be authors have their work rejected.”
“Many, I’m sure. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. There could be someone interested in publishing it. Life in hiding from the mof.”
“You believe that’s what people want to read about now?”
“Everything I wrote happened.”
“Yes, it happened. But consider what you’re suggesting. I’m the first to admit it wasn’t always a rosy picture during those twenty-five months. I don’t imagine any of us would come off too well. You have a capacity for deep insight, Anneke, but also for harsh judgment. Even cruel judgment at times.”