Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex (16 page)

Cady promptly held out her hand, and so they sat, hand in hand, for a long time, while a delightful calm came over both of them.

Ever since their conversation about God, both Hans and Cady felt that they had struck up a friendship that went much deeper than any outsider would have guessed.

In the meantime, Cady was so used to writing down in her diary everything that went on around her that this gradually became the best way, aside from talking to Hans, to express her thoughts and feelings.

One day she wrote: ‘Even though I now have a “real” friend, I'm not always happy and cheerful. Does
everybody
have such mood swings? Still, if I were always cheerful, I might not spend enough time thinking about all the things that are worth thinking about.

‘Our conversation about God keeps running through my head. Often I'll be reading in bed or in the wood, and I'll think, “What do you mean, God speaks through me?” and I'll end up having an entire discussion with myself.

‘I believe that God speaks “through me” because He gives each person a little bit of Himself before sending them into the world. It's this part of us that distinguishes between good and evil and answers our questions. This little bit of God is just as much a part of nature as the blossoming of flowers and the singing of birds.

‘But God has also given people passions and desires,
and these desires are in conflict with goodness and justice. As Hans said, “Our sense of what's good and right also comes from God.”

‘Does everyone really have this? What about criminals? I'm pretty sure they do too, except that little by little their desires have won out over goodness and justice and their passions have therefore become stronger than their sense of what's right. So can people destroy all the goodness God gave them? Can there be none of that goodness left? Or do even the worst criminals, the ones the world looks upon as wicked to the core, still have a bit of goodness deep down inside that might shine through some day?

‘And yet not every sense of what's good and right can be trusted, for what else is war but two sides going to battle over what each thinks is right?

‘War…how on earth did the subject of war come up? For weeks everybody has been saying that we're on the brink of war.

‘But I'm not through yet.

‘So far, all those who have tried to impose their version of what's right on others have failed. After a few years, or even longer, people always want their freedom and their own rights back. This is because having to obey one concept of right is inherently unjust. God has given each of us a unique sense of right, so when we are forced to live under someone else's for years and years, we run the risk of losing our own. But not everyone can be crushed. Sooner or later the longing for freedom is bound to assert itself.

‘Without realizing it, I've gone from justice to freedom,
but I believe that it is only when these two are combined that something great will happen.

‘Who knows, perhaps one day people will listen more to that “little bit of God” – known as a conscience – than to their own desires!'

T
HE NEXT MORNING
was a typical, grey April day. It hadn’t started to rain yet, but the barometer was as low as it could go. Cady didn’t wake up until ten o’clock, and she listened as Nurse Ank described the circumstances of her fall in more detail. She was washed and given a little porridge, then she fell asleep again. And so it went for four whole days: Cady woke up from time to time, ate a bit and went back to sleep. She wasn’t in a lot of pain, and except for having to lie still, she didn’t feel uncomfortable.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Cady was wide awake for the first time when her mother came to see her. Up till now Mrs van Altenhoven had always found her daughter asleep, and had sat at her bedside for a quarter of an hour before going away again. Now she was surprised to be greeted cheerfully with: ‘So, Mum, you finally decided to visit?’

‘I’ve been coming here every day, you sleepyhead. You were never awake.’

‘I know. Nurse Ank said hello for you.’

Mother and daughter had little to say to each other.

Cady asked about all her friends and neighbours, then the conversation began to flag. After half an hour, Mrs van Altenhoven leaned over and gave Cady a kiss. ‘Bye-bye, I’ll see you tomorrow!’ And she sailed out of the door. Cady’s mother was not beautiful, though she did have an intelligent and determined face. Her long pointed nose and penetrating brown eyes gave her face a certain coldness, and when she fixed her gaze on someone, there was an unpleasant expression in them. But when she smiled, you could see a row of fine teeth, and then it no longer occurred to anyone to think of her face as cold. Cady had never given much thought to what her mother looked like, but she now noticed that her mother tended to waggle like a goose when she walked. Never in a thousand years would she have made the comparison with her mother’s face, but she couldn’t help chuckling and chiding herself for calling her mother a goose.

On the other hand, in the evenings, when it was visiting time, Cady was never sleepy. She waited impatiently in her bed for her father, who never neglected to bring her something – a bunch of tulips or a bit of fruit – even if it was just something small. Cady adored these little gifts. The moment the door opened and Mr van Altenhoven came in, Cady’s eyes lit up, and he was always allowed to stay longer than her mother.

Cady’s father was a calm, good-looking man with a thick head of grey hair and blue eyes, which made everyone who looked at him feel happy and warm. His gaze also worked like a magic potion on Cady. She and
her father could sit quietly for hours, not saying a word, simply happy to be together.

Nurse Ank, the nurse who took care of Cady, always wore a look of gratitude when she saw this kindly man, who came every day, without fail, to cheer up his daughter.

She didn’t have the slightest bit of trouble with her little patient. Cady, who must have been in a great deal of pain, especially when she was being examined by the doctor, never complained. On the contrary, she was happy with everything.

I
T HAPPENED JUST
as Nurse Ank said it would. On Sunday afternoon at three o’clock, Cady’s first youthful visitor arrived. A tall girl, not at all pretty, but with a pleasant, cheerful face, asked at the desk for Caroline Dorothea van Altenhoven.

‘Oh, you must mean that nice girl they call Cady. She’s in Room 4, third door on the right.’

Cady had won the heart of the receptionist when she gave orders for a box of chocolates, which someone had given her, to be distributed throughout the hospital, so that the nurses and any of the patients allowed to eat them were given two chocolates each. As a result, even people Cady had never met referred to her as ‘that nice girl, Cady’.

Meanwhile, the visitor walked down to Room 4 and knocked. Nurse Ank opened the door and said, ‘You must be Greet. Come in.’

‘Hello, Greet. Don’t look so scared, I’m still in one
piece!’ Cady was overjoyed to see someone besides those grave-faced nurses for a change.

‘Well, Cady, how do you feel?’ Greet was noticeably embarrassed, so Nurse Ank, who was hoping she’d be a little more lively, left the room.

Later, on her way back, she heard peals of laughter from down the hall. She quickly opened the door and said, ‘Shh, keep it down a bit, girls.’

‘Oh, Nurse, I practically split my sides. You should hear what they’ve been up to at school. Such a shame I had to miss it.’ And she told the story, down to the last juicy detail, to Nurse Ank.

When Greet left at three-thirty, Cady was exhausted but happy to have had a visitor, and that was the main thing, since there was plenty of time to sleep.

In general, however, the weeks went by fairly monotonously.

O
N
3 S
EPTEMBER
the peace and quiet in the sanatorium was disrupted for the first time since Cady’s arrival.

At one in the afternoon, when she happened to be listening to the news on her earphones, she was horrified to hear the ANP
*
begin its broadcast by reading Chamberlain’s declaration of war on Germany. Cady had never been interested in politics, which is not surprising for a fourteen-year-old girl, and she wasn’t the least bit moved by events taking place in faraway places. But she vaguely suspected that this declaration of war was somehow going to affect her too. When the rest hour was over, the nurse handed out the tea and told the other patients the news.

In Cady’s ward, there were only patients who were well on the way to recovery. The day before the war broke out, a new woman had arrived and had been assigned the bed next to Cady’s. Except for ‘good morning’ and ‘good
night’, Cady hadn’t yet exchanged a word with this woman, but now they naturally began to talk. After the nurse’s announcement, there had been exclamations of shock all over the room. Only the woman next to Cady had remained silent.

Cady couldn’t help but notice. Nor could she ignore the tears that were soon streaming down the rather young-looking face and making it appear thoroughly sad and miserable. She didn’t dare ask anything, for fear of disturbing her neighbour, who was wrapped up in her own thoughts. A little later in the day, Cady was reading when she heard sobs coming from the next bed. She quickly laid her book on her bedside table and gently inquired, ‘Shall I call the nurse? Aren’t you feeling well?’

The woman looked up. Her face was streaked with tears. She observed Cady for a moment, then said, ‘No, my dear. Don’t bother. No nurse and no medicine can ease my pain.’

This made Cady feel even sorrier for her. The poor woman looked so gloomy and dejected that she couldn’t leave it at that. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

The woman, who had slumped back into her pillows, sat up again, dried her eyes with her handkerchief and this time gave Cady a friendly look. ‘I can see you’re not asking out of mere curiosity. Even though you’re very young, I’ll tell you what’s making me so sad.’ Her voice broke, she glanced around with unseeing eyes, then continued. ‘My son… I’m worried about my son. He’s at a boarding school in England and was due home next month. But now…’

She was so overcome with sobs that she couldn’t finish her sentence, so Cady filled in the rest: ‘Now he won’t be able to come home?’

She received a faint nod in reply. ‘Who knows how long the war will last or what will happen over there. I don’t believe all that talk about it being over in a couple of months. Wars always last longer than people think.’

‘But at the moment they’re only fighting in Poland, aren’t they? You mustn’t be so afraid. After all, your son is being taken care of.’ Cady knew nothing about the boy, she had just wanted to respond in some way to the disheartened reply from the next bed.

But the woman apparently wasn’t listening, for she said, ‘After every war, people always say, “Never again, this was so terrible that we must do whatever it takes to avoid a repetition.” But they always end up fighting again. People will never change. As long as they live and breathe, they’ll always quarrel, and when there’s peace, they’ll go looking for something to quarrel about.’

‘I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been through a war, but… we’re not at war yet. So far we haven’t got involved. Of course what you just told me about your son is unfortunate, though I’m sure you’ll be reunited with him after the war. But wait a moment… Why can’t your son come here? They haven’t stopped all the boats between Holland and England, have they? Why don’t you ask the doctor? He’s sure to know. If your son leaves right away, he can still come home.’

Never before had Cady seen a face change so dramatically from one minute to the next. ‘Do you really
think so? That hadn’t occurred to me. Oh, here comes the nurse, I’ll ask her.’

Cady and her neighbour beckoned the approaching nurse and she came over.

‘Nurse,’ the woman asked, ‘do you know if they’ve stopped the boats between Holland and England?’

‘They certainly haven’t. Are you thinking about going to England?’

‘Oh, no. That’s not why I asked. Thank you very much, Nurse.’

After casting another grateful glance at Cady, the woman turned away and began making plans to write to her son.

M
EANWHILE, FOR THE
Jewish population life was rapidly going downhill. In 1942 the fate of many Jews hung in the balance. In July the Germans started sending call-up notices to sixteen-year-old girls and boys and taking them away. Luckily, they seemed to have overlooked Cady’s friend Mary. Later, it wasn’t just young people who had to go, but everyone. Throughout the autumn and winter, Cady saw the most terrible things. Night after night the streets were filled with the sound of roaring lorries, screaming children and banging doors. Beneath the lamp, Mr and Mrs van Altenhoven and Cady looked at each other, and in their eyes was the question, ‘Who will be gone in the morning?’

One evening in December, Cady decided to visit Mary, in the hope of taking her friend’s mind off things for a while. That evening, the streets were in a worse turmoil than ever. Cady had to ring the bell to the Hopkenses’ three times and assure Mary, who peeked cautiously out of the window, that it was safe to open the door. Mary
led her in to where the whole family was sitting around, metaphorically kitted out in sports togs with rucksacks on their backs, simply waiting. They were pale, and didn’t say a word when Cady entered the room. Had they been sitting like this every night for months? Seeing all those pale and frightened faces was awful. With each bang of an outside door, a shock went through everyone in the room, as if the door to life itself were symbolically being slammed shut.

Cady left at ten o’clock. There was no point in staying, since she could neither help these people, who already seemed to be in another world, nor take their minds off their troubles. The only one who was functioning at all was Mary. She nodded at Cady from time to time and tried with all her might to get her parents and sisters to eat something.

Mary walked her to the door and bolted it behind her. Cady set off towards home with her torch in her hand. Before she’d even gone five steps, she stopped and listened. From around the corner she could hear the thud of boots, as if an entire regiment of soldiers was coming her way. It was impossible to make out anything in the darkness, but Cady knew all too well who belonged to the boots and what it meant. She flattened herself against a wall, switched off her torch and hoped the men wouldn’t see her. Suddenly, however, a man holding a revolver came to a halt in front of her. He stared at her with steely eyes and a grim expression on his face. ‘
Mitgeben
,’
*
was all he said,
and immediately someone grabbed her and started to lead her away.

‘I’m a Christian girl from a decent family!’ she dared to say. She was trembling from head to foot and wondering what this sinister man was planning to do with her. Despite the risk, she had to get him to look at her identity card.

‘
Was ehrbar, zeig dein Beweis
.’
*

Cady took it out of her pocket.

‘
Warum hast du das nicht gleich gesagt
,’
†
said the man as he inspected it. ‘
So ein Lumpenpack
,’
‡
he added.

And before she knew it, she was lying sprawled out on the street. The German, angry at his mistake, had given the ‘decent Christian girl’ a vicious kick. Ignoring her pain and everything else, Cady picked herself up and hurried home.

After that night, a week went by before Cady had a chance to visit Mary again. But one afternoon she made the time, deciding not to worry about her homework or other engagements. Even before she arrived at the Hopkenses’, she had a feeling she wouldn’t find Mary at home, and sure enough, when she got there, the door was sealed.

A terrible feeling of despair came over Cady. ‘Who knows where Mary is now?’ she thought. She turned on
her heel and went home. Once there, she ran to her room, slammed the door, threw herself on the divan with her coat still on and thought about Mary, only Mary.

Why did Mary have to go while she was allowed to stay? Why did Mary have to suffer this awful fate while she was free to enjoy herself? What was the difference between them? Was she any better than Mary? Weren’t the two of them just the same? What crime had Mary ever committed? Oh, this had to be the most terrible injustice. Suddenly she saw Mary’s frail figure before her, locked up in a cell, dressed in rags, with a sunken, emaciated face. Her eyes had become huge, and she was looking at Cady with such sorrow and reproach. Cady could stand it no longer. She fell to her knees and cried, cried so hard that her body shook with sobs. Mary’s eyes kept staring at her, begging her for help, help that Cady knew she couldn’t give.

‘Forgive me, Mary. Come back…’

Cady no longer knew what to say or think. There were no words to describe the suffering she could so clearly see before her. Doors kept slamming over and over again in her ears, she could hear the crying children, she could see a squad of crude, armed men, like the one who had tossed her into the mud, and in their midst, helpless and alone, was Mary, Mary who was just the same as she was.