Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex (3 page)

M
RS
VAN
D
AAN
, D
USSEL
and I were doing the
washing-up
, and I was extremely quiet. This is very unusual for me, and they were sure to notice. So, in order to avoid any questions, I quickly racked my brains for a neutral topic. I thought the book
Henry from Across the Street
might fit the bill, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. If Mrs van D. doesn’t jump down my throat, Mr Dussel does. It all boiled down to this: Mr Dussel had recommended the book to Margot and me as an example of excellent writing. We thought it was anything but that. The little boy had been portrayed well, but as for the rest…the less said the better. I mentioned something to that effect while we were washing-up, but my goodness…Dussel launched into a tirade.

‘How can you possibly understand the inner life of a man? Of course you can follow that of a child [!]. But you’re far too young to read a book like that. Even a twenty-year-old man would be unable to comprehend it.’ (So why did he go out of his way to recommend it to Margot and me?)

Mrs van D. and Dussel continued their harangue: ‘You know far too much about things you’re not supposed to. You’ve been brought up all wrong. Later on, when you’re older, you won’t be able to enjoy anything any more. You’ll say, “Oh, I read that twenty years ago in some book.” You’d better hurry if you want to catch a husband or fall in love, since everything is bound to be a disappointment to you. [Get ready – here comes the best part.] You already know all there is to know in theory. But in practice? That’s another story!’

Can you imagine how I felt? I astonished myself by calmly replying, ‘You may think I haven’t been raised properly, but many people would disagree!’

They apparently believe that good child-rearing includes trying to pit me against my parents, since that’s all they ever do. And not telling a girl my age about grown-up subjects is fine. We can all see what happens when people are raised that way.

At that moment I could have killed them both for poking fun at me. I was beside myself with rage, and counting the days until we no longer have to put up with each other’s company.

Mrs van D.’s a fine one to talk! She sets an example all right – a bad one. She’s known to be exceedingly pushy, empty-headed and perpetually dissatisfied. Add to that vanity and coquettishness and there’s no question about it: she has a thoroughly despicable character. I could write an entire book about Madame van Daan, and who knows, maybe some time I will. Deep down inside, she doesn’t seem to have even one good trait. Anyone can put on a
charming exterior when they want to. Mrs van D. is friendly to men, so it’s easy to make a mistake until you get to know her true nature. A good person can’t imagine at first that she could be so cunning, so calculating and so selfish. It’s impossible, you think, for anyone who looks reasonably well-bred on the outside to be so empty and bare on the inside.

Mother thinks that Mrs van D. is too stupid for words, Margot that she’s too unimportant, Pim that she’s too ugly (literally and figuratively!), and after long observation (I’m not so distrustful at the beginning), I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s all three of the above, and lots more besides. She has so many bad traits that I can’t single out just one of them.

Will the reader please take into consideration that this story was written before the writer’s fury had cooled?

Monday, 2 August 1943

A
FTER NEARLY THREE
months of peace and quiet, interrupted by only a few quibbles, a fierce discussion broke out again today. It happened early in the morning, when we were peeling potatoes, and caught everyone off guard. I’ll give a rundown of the conversation, though it was impossible to follow it all since everyone was talking at once.

Mrs van D. started it off (naturally!) by remarking that anyone who doesn’t help peel potatoes in the morning should be required to do so in the evening. There was no reply, which apparently didn’t suit the van Daans, since shortly after that Mr van D. suggested that we all peel our own potatoes, with the exception of Peter, since peeling potatoes isn’t a suitable job for a boy. (Note the
crystal-clear
logic!)

Mr van D. went on: ‘What I can’t understand is why the men always have to help with the peeling. It means that the work isn’t divided equally. Why should one person have to do more communal chores than another?’

Mother interrupted at this point, since she could see where the conversation was heading. ‘Aha, Mr van Daan, I know what comes next. You’re going to tell us for the umpteenth time that the children aren’t doing enough. But you know perfectly well that when Margot doesn’t help out, Anne does, and vice versa. Peter never helps out as it is. You don’t think it’s necessary. Well, then, I don’t think it’s necessary for the girls to help either!’

Mr van D. yelped, Mrs van D. yipped, Dussel shushed and Mother shouted. It was a hellish scene, and there was poor little me watching as our supposedly wise ‘elders and betters’ literally fought it out.

The words flew thick and fast. Mrs van D. accused Dussel of playing one off against the other (I quite agree), Mr van D. spouted off at Mother, about the communal chores, about how much work he did and how we should actually feel sorry for him. Then he suddenly yelled, ‘It’d be better for the children if they helped out here a little more, instead of sitting around all day with their noses in a book. Girls don’t need that much education anyway!’ (Enlightened, eh?) Mother, having calmed down a little, declared that she didn’t feel sorry for Mr van Daan in the slightest.

Then he started in again. ‘Why don’t the girls ever carry potatoes upstairs, why don’t they ever haul hot water? They aren’t that weak, are they?’

‘You’re crazy!’ Mother suddenly exclaimed. I was actually pretty startled. I didn’t think she’d dare.

The rest is relatively unimportant. It all boiled down to the same thing: Margot and I were supposed to
become housemaids in Villa Annexe. In this case we might as well use the not-so-polite expression ‘stuff it’, since it’s never going to happen anyway.

Mr van Daan also had the nerve to say that the washing up, which Margot’s done every morning and every evening for the last year, doesn’t count.

When Father heard what had happened, he wanted to rush upstairs and give Mr van D. a piece of his mind, but Mother thought it better to inform Mr van D. that if everyone had to fend for themselves, they’d also have to live on their own money.

My conclusion is this: The whole business is typical of the van Daans. Always rubbing salt into old wounds. If Father weren’t much too nice to people like them, he could remind them in no uncertain terms that without us and the others they’d literally be facing death. In a labour camp you have to do a whole lot more than peel potatoes…or look for cat fleas!

Wednesday, 4 August 1943

J
UST BEFORE NINE
in the evening
: Bedtime always begins in the Annexe with an
enormous
hustle and bustle. Chairs are shifted, beds pulled out, blankets unfolded – nothing stays where it is during the daytime. I sleep on a small divan, which is only five feet long, so we have to add a few chairs to make it longer. Eiderdown, sheets, pillow, blankets: everything has to be removed from Dussel’s bed, where it’s kept during the day.

In the next room there’s a terrible creaking: that’s Margot’s folding bed being set up. More blankets and pillows, anything to make the wooden slats a bit more comfortable. Upstairs it sounds like bombs are falling, but it’s only Mrs van D.’s bed being shoved against the window so that Her Majesty, arrayed in her pink bed jacket, can sniff the night air through her delicate little nostrils.

Nine o’clock
: After Peter’s finished, it’s my turn for the bathroom. I wash myself from head to toe, and more often than not I find a tiny flea floating in the sink (only during
the hot months, weeks or days). I brush my teeth, curl my hair, manicure my nails and dab peroxide on my upper lip – all this in less than half an hour.

Nine-thirty
: I throw on my dressing-gown. With soap in one hand, and potty, hairpins, knickers, curlers and cotton wool in the other, I hurry out of the bathroom. The next in line invariably calls me back to remove the gracefully curved but unsightly hairs that I’ve left in the sink.

Ten o’clock
: Time to put up the black-out screen and say good-night. For the next fifteen minutes, at least, the house is filled with the creaking of beds and the sigh of broken springs, and then, provided our upstairs neighbours aren’t having a marital tiff in bed, all is quiet.

Eleven-thirty
: The bathroom door creaks. A narrow strip of light falls into the room. Squeaking shoes, a large coat, even larger than the man inside it… Dussel is returning from his nightly work in Kugler’s office.
*
I hear him shuffling back and forth for ten whole minutes, the rustle of paper (from the food he’s tucking away in his cupboard) and the bed being made up. Then the figure disappears again, and the only sound is the occasional suspicious noise from the lavatory.

Approximately three o’clock
: I have to get up to use the tin under my bed, which, to be on the safe side, has a rubber mat underneath in case of leaks. I always hold my breath while I go, since it clatters into the tin like a brook down a mountainside. The potty is returned to its place,
and the figure in the white nightdress (the one that causes Margot to exclaim every evening, ‘Oh, that indecent nightie!’) climbs back into bed. A certain somebody lies awake for about fifteen minutes, listening to the sounds of the night: in the first place (when it’s about three-thirty or four o’clock) to hear whether there are any burglars downstairs, and then to the various beds – upstairs, next door and in my room – to tell whether the others are asleep or half alert. This is no fun, especially when it concerns a room-mate named Dr Dussel. First, I hear the sound of a fish gasping for air, and this is repeated nine or ten times. Then, the lips are moistened profusely. This is alternated with little smacking sounds, followed by a long period of tossing and turning and rearranging the pillows. After five minutes of perfect quiet, the same sequence repeats itself three more times, after which he’s presumably lulled himself back to sleep for a while.

Sometimes the guns go off during the night, between one and four. I’m never aware of it before it happens, but all of a sudden I find myself standing beside my bed, out of sheer habit. Occasionally I’m dreaming so deeply (of irregular French verbs or a quarrel upstairs) that I realize only when my dream is over that the shooting has stopped and that I’ve remained quietly in my bed. But usually I wake up. Then I grab a pillow and a
handkerchief
, throw on my dressing-gown and slippers and dash next door to Father, just the way Margot described in this birthday poem:

Once I’ve reached the big bed, the worst is over, except when the shooting is extra loud.

Six forty-five
: Brring…the alarm clock, which raises its shrill voice at any hour of the day or night, whether you want it to or not. Creak…wham…Mrs van D. turns it off. Screak…Mr van D. gets up, puts on the water and races to the bathroom.

Seven-fifteen
: The door creaks again. Dussel can go to the bathroom. Alone at last, I remove the black-out screen…and a new day begins in the Annexe.

Wednesday, 4 August 1943

I
T’S TWELVE-THIRTY
: The whole gang breathes a sigh of relief:

Mr van Maaren, the man with the shady past, and Mr de Kok have gone home for lunch.
*

Upstairs you can hear the thud of the vacuum cleaner on Mrs van D.’s beautiful and only rug. Margot tucks a few books under her arm and heads for the class for ‘slow learners’, which is what Dussel seems to be. Pim goes and sits in a corner with his constant companion, Dickens, in the hope of finding a bit of peace and quiet. Mother hastens upstairs to help the busy little housewife, and I tidy up both the bathroom and myself at the same time.

Twelve forty-five
: One by one they trickle in: first Mr Gies and then either Mr Kleiman or Mr Kugler, followed by Bep and sometimes even Miep.

One
: Clustered round the radio, they all listen raptly to
the BBC. This is the only time the members of the Annexe family don’t interrupt each other, since even Mr van Daan can’t argue with the speaker.

One-fifteen
: Food distribution. Everyone from downstairs gets a cup of soup, plus pudding, if there happens to be any. A contented Mr Gies sits on the divan or leans against the desk with his newspaper, cup and usually the cat at his side. If one of the three is missing, he doesn’t hesitate to let his protest be heard. Mr Kleiman relates the latest news from town, and he’s an excellent source. Mr Kugler hurries up the stairs, gives a short but solid knock on the door and comes in either wringing his hands or rubbing them in glee, depending on whether he’s quiet and in a bad mood or talkative and in a good mood.

One forty-five
: Everyone rises from the table and goes about their business. Margot and Mother do the
washing-up
, Mr and Mrs van D. head for the divan, Peter for the attic, Father for his divan, Dussel too, and Anne does her homework.

What comes next is the quietest hour of the day; when they’re all asleep, there are no disturbances. To judge by his face, Dussel is dreaming of food. But I don’t look at him long, because the time whizzes by and before you know it, it’ll be four o’clock and the pedantic Dr Dussel will be standing with the clock in his hand because I’m one minute late.

Thursday, 5 August 1943