Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex (4 page)

W
HAT IS THE SCENE
round the table? How do the various table companions amuse themselves? One is noisy, the other quiet; one eats too much, the other too little, depending on their appetite.

Mr van Daan
: Is served first, and takes a generous portion of whatever he likes. Usually joins in the conversation, never fails to give his opinion. Once he’s spoken, his word is final. If anyone dares to suggest otherwise, Mr van D. can put up a good fight. Oh, he can hiss like a cat…but I’d rather he didn’t. Once you’ve seen it, you never want to see it again. His opinion is the best, he knows the most about everything. Granted, the man has a good head on his shoulders, but it’s swelled to no small degree.

Madame
: Actually, the best thing would be to say nothing. Some days, especially when a foul mood is on the way, her face is hard to read. If you analyse the discussions, you realize she’s not the subject, but the guilty party! A fact everyone prefers to ignore. Even so, you
could call her the instigator. Stirring up trouble, now
that’s
what Mrs van Daan calls fun. Stirring up trouble between Mrs Frank and Anne. Margot and Mr Frank aren’t quite as easy.

But let’s return to the table. Mrs van D. may think she doesn’t always get enough, but that’s not the case. The choicest potatoes, the tastiest morsel, the nicest bit of whatever there is, that’s Madame’s motto. The others can all have their turn, as long as I get the best. (Exactly what she accuses Anne Frank of doing.) Her second watchword is: keep talking. As long as somebody’s listening, it doesn’t seem to occur to her to wonder whether they’re interested. She must think that whatever Mrs van Daan does will interest everyone. Sometimes I think she’s just like I used to be, though luckily I’ve changed and haven’t stayed the same for forty-three years.

Smile coquettishly, pretend you know everything, offer everyone a piece of advice and mother them a bit – that’s
sure
to make a good impression. But if you take a better look, the good impression fades. One, she’s hardworking; two, cheerful; three, coquettish – and sometimes a pretty face. That’s Petronella van Daan.

The third diner
: Says very little. Young Mr van Daan is usually quiet and hardly makes his presence known. As far as his appetite is concerned, he’s a Danaïdean vessel that never gets full. Even after the most substantial meal, he can look you calmly in the eye and claim he could have eaten twice as much.

Number four
– Margot
: Eats like a bird and doesn’t talk at all. She eats only vegetables and fruit. ‘Spoiled’, in the
opinion of the van Daans. ‘Too little exercise and fresh air’ in ours.

Beside her – Mummy
: Has a hearty appetite, but doesn’t live up to her potential. I always have the idea that people forget she’s there, since she’s off in the corner. Whenever the conversation turns to literature, you can learn a lot. She has a vast knowledge and is well read. No one has the impression, as they do with Mrs van Daan, that she’s a housewife. What’s the difference between the two? Well, Mrs van D. does the cooking and Mother washes up and polishes the furniture. Not that anyone takes much notice, but the rooms next door are as clean as can be.

Numbers six and seven
: I won’t say much about Father and me. The former is the most modest person at the table. He always looks to see whether the others have been served first. He needs nothing; the best things are for the children. He’s the model. Seated next to him is the canvas, which will hopefully turn out to be a good reproduction of the original.

Dussel
: Help yourself, keep your eyes on the food, eat and don’t talk. And if you have to say something, then for goodness’ sake talk about good food. That doesn’t lead to quarrels, just to bragging. He consumes enormous portions, and ‘no’ is not part of his vocabulary, whether the food is good or bad.

Trousers that come up to his chest, a red jacket, black patent-leather slippers and horn-rimmed glasses – that’s how he looks when he’s at work at the little table, always studying and never progressing. This is interrupted only by his afternoon nap, food and – his favourite spot – the
lavatory. Three, four or five times a day there’s bound to be someone waiting outside the lavatory door, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other, trying to hold it in and barely managing. Does Dussel care? Not a whit. From seven-fifteen to seven-thirty, from twelve-thirty to one, from two to two-fifteen, from four to four-fifteen, from six to six-fifteen, from eleven-thirty to twelve. You can set your watch by them; these are the times for his ‘regular sessions’. He never deviates or lets himself be swayed by the voices outside the door, begging him to open up before a disaster occurs.

Number nine
: Is not part of our Annexe family, although she does share our house and table. Bep has a healthy appetite. She cleans her plate and isn’t choosy. Bep’s easy to please and that pleases us. She can be characterized as follows: cheerful, good-humoured, kind and willing.

Thursday, 5 August 1943

M
ARGOT AND
M
OTHER
are nervous. ‘Shh… Father. Be quiet, Otto. Shh… Pim! It's eight-thirty. Come here, you can't run the water any more. Walk softly!' A sample of what's said to Father in the bathroom. At the stroke of half past eight, he has to be in the living room. No running water, no flushing toilet, no walking around, no noise whatsoever. As long as the office staff hasn't arrived, sounds travel more easily to the warehouse.

The door opens upstairs at eight-twenty, and this is followed by three gentle taps on the floor… Anne's porridge. I clamber up the stairs to get my dog-bowl.

Back downstairs, everything has to be done quickly, quickly: I comb my hair, put away the potty, shove the bed back in place. Quiet! The clock is striking
eight-thirty
! Mrs van D. changes shoes and shuffles through the room in her slippers; Mr van D. too – a veritable Charlie Chaplin. All is quiet.

The ideal family scene has now reached its high point. I want to read or study and Margot does too. Father and Mother ditto. Father is sitting (with Dickens and the dictionary, of course) on the edge of the sagging, squeaky bed, which doesn't even have a decent mattress. Two bolsters can be piled on top of each other. ‘I don't need these,' he thinks. ‘I can manage without them!'

Once he starts reading, he doesn't look up. He laughs now and then and tries to get Mother to read a passage.

‘I don't have the time right now!'

He looks disappointed, but then continues to read. A little while later, when he comes across another interesting bit, he tries again. ‘You
have
to read this, Mother!'

Mother sits on the folding bed, either reading, sewing, knitting or studying, whichever is next on her list. An idea suddenly occurs to her, and she quickly says, so as not to forget: ‘Anne, remember to… Margot, jot this down…'

After a while it's quiet again. Margot slams her book shut; Father knits his forehead, his eyebrows forming a funny curve and his wrinkle of concentration reappearing at the back of his head, and he buries himself in his book again; Mother starts chatting with Margot; and I get curious and listen too. Pim is drawn into the conversation…

Nine o'clock. Breakfast!

Friday, 6 August 1943

W
HO ARE THE VILLAINS
in this house? Real villains!

The van Daans!

What is it this time? Let me tell you.

The truth of the matter is that thanks to the indifference of the van Daans this house is crawling with fleas. For months we’ve been warning them, ‘Send your cat out to be sprayed!’ Their answer was always, ‘Our cat doesn’t have fleas!’

When the fleas had all too clearly been shown to exist and we all itched so much we couldn’t sleep, Peter – who simply felt sorry for the cat – went and had a look, and the fleas actually leapt up on to his face. He went to work, combing the cat with Mrs van D.’s fine-toothed comb, and brushing it with our one and only scrubbing brush. What was the result?

No fewer than a hundred fleas!

Mr Kleiman was consulted, and the next day the downstairs rooms of the Annexe were covered with a disgusting green powder. It didn’t do a whit of good. So
then we tried a spray gun with a kind of flea Flit. Father, Dussel, Margot and I spent ages cleaning, mopping, scrubbing and spraying. The fleas had got into everything. We flitted everything in sight: clothes, blankets, floors, divans, every last nook and cranny.

Except upstairs and in Peter’s room. The van Daans didn’t think it was necessary. We insisted that they at least spray the clothing, bedding and chairs. They said they would. Everything was taken up to the attic and sprayed, or so they said. In reality, they did nothing of the kind! They apparently think it’s easy to fool the Franks. Not one bit of spray; not one cloud of Flit.

Their latest excuse: The Flit would get into the food supplies!

Conclusion: It’s their fault we have fleas. We’re the ones that have to put up with the smell, the itch, the discomfort.

Mrs van D. can’t bear the stench at night. Mr van D. pretends to Flit, but brings the chairs, blankets, etc., back un-Flit. Let the Franks be bitten to death!

Friday, 6 August 1943

O
NE PERSON GOES
to get some newspapers; another, the knives (keeping the best for himself, of course); the third, the potatoes; and the fourth, the water.

Mr Dussel begins. He may not always peel them very well, but he does peel non-stop, glancing left and right to see if everyone is doing it the way he does. No, they’re not.

‘Look, Anne, I am taking peeler in my hand like so and going from top to bottom!
Nein
, not so…but so!’

‘I think my way is easier, Mr Dussel,’ I say tentatively.

‘But this is best way, Anne. This you can take from me. Of course, it is no matter, you do the way you want.’

We go on peeling. I glance at Dussel out of the corner of my eye. Lost in thought, he shakes his head (over me, no doubt), but says no more.

I keep on peeling. Then I look at Father, on the other side of me. To Father, peeling potatoes is not a chore, but precision work. When he reads, he has a deep wrinkle in
the back of his head. But when he’s preparing potatoes, beans or vegetables, he seems to be totally absorbed in his task. He puts on his potato-peeling face, and when it’s set in that particular way, it would be impossible for him to turn out anything less than a perfectly peeled potato.

I keep on working. I glance up for a second, but that’s all the time I need. Mrs van D. is trying to attract Dussel’s attention. She starts by looking in his direction, but Dussel pretends not to notice. She winks, but Dussel goes on peeling. She laughs, but Dussel still doesn’t look up. Then Mother laughs too, but Dussel pays them no notice. Having failed to achieve her goal, Mrs van D. is obliged to change tactics. There’s a brief silence. Then she says, ‘Putti,
*
why don’t you put on an apron? Otherwise, I’ll have to spend all day tomorrow trying to get the spots out of your suit.’

‘I’m not getting it dirty.’

Another brief silence. ‘Putti, why don’t you sit down?’

‘I’m fine this way. I like standing up!’

Silence.

‘Putti, look out,
du spritzt schon
!’
†

‘I know, Mummy, but I’m being careful.’

Mrs van D. casts about for another topic. ‘Tell me, Putti, why aren’t the British carrying out any bombing raids today?’

‘Because the weather’s bad, Kerli!’
‡

‘But yesterday it was such nice weather and they weren’t flying then either.’

‘Let’s drop the subject.’

‘Why? Can’t a person talk about that or offer an opinion?’

‘No!’

‘Well, why in the world not?’

‘Oh, be quiet,
Mammichen
!’
*

‘Mr Frank always answers
his
wife.’ Mr van D. is trying to control himself. This remark always rubs him up the wrong way, but Mrs van D.’s not one to quit.

‘Oh, there’s never going to be an invasion!’ Mr van D. goes white, and when she notices it, Mrs van D. turns red, but she’s not about to be deterred. ‘The British aren’t doing a thing!’ The bomb bursts.

‘And now shut up,
Donnerwetter noch mal
!’
†
Mother can barely stifle a laugh, and I stare straight ahead.

Scenes like these are repeated almost daily, unless they’ve just had a terrible row. In that case, neither Mr nor Mrs van D. says a word.

It’s time for me to get some more potatoes. I go up to the attic, where Peter is busy picking fleas from the cat. He looks up, the cat notices it, and whoosh…he’s gone. Out of the window and into the rain gutter.

Peter swears; I laugh and slip out of the room.

Friday, 6 August 1943

F
IVE-THIRTY
: Bep’s arrival signals the beginning of our nightly freedom. Things get going right away. I go upstairs with Bep, who usually has her pudding before the rest of us. The moment she sits down, Mrs van D. begins stating her wishes. Her list usually starts with ‘Oh, by the way, Bep, something else I’d like…’ Bep winks at me. Mrs van D. doesn’t miss a chance to make her wishes known to whoever comes upstairs. It must be one of the reasons none of them likes to go up there.

Five forty-five
: Bep leaves. I go down two floors to have a look around: first to the kitchen, then to the private office and then to the coal store to open the cat door for Mouschi.

After a long tour of inspection, I land up in Mr Kugler’s office.

Mr van Daan is combing all the drawers and files for today’s mail; Peter picks up Boche
*
and the warehouse
key; Pim lugs the typewriters upstairs; Margot looks around for a quiet place to do her office work; Mrs van D. puts a kettle of water on the gas ring; Mother comes down the stairs with a pan of potatoes; we all know our jobs.

Soon Peter comes back from the warehouse. The first question they ask him is whether he’s remembered the bread. No, he hasn’t. He crouches before the door to the front office to make himself as small as possible and crawls on his hands and knees to the steel cabinet, takes out the bread and starts to leave. At any rate, that’s what he intends to do, but before he knows what’s happened, Mouschi has jumped over him and gone to sit under the desk.

Peter looks all around him. Aha, there’s the cat! He crawls back into the office and grabs the cat by the tail. Mouschi hisses, Peter sighs. What has he accomplished? Mouschi’s now sitting by the window licking herself, very pleased at having escaped Peter’s clutches. Peter has no choice but to lure her with the bread. Mouschi takes the bait, follows him out, and the door closes.

I watch the entire scene through a crack in the door.

Mr van Daan is angry and slams the door. Margot and I exchange looks and think the same thing: he must have worked himself into a rage again because of some blunder on Mr Kugler’s part, and he’s forgotten all about the Keg Company next door.

Another step is heard in the passage. Dussel comes in, goes towards the window with an air of propriety, sniffs… coughs, sneezes and clears his throat. He’s out of luck – it was pepper. He continues on to the front office. The
curtains are open, which means he can’t get at his writing paper. He disappears with a scowl.

Margot and I exchange another glance. ‘One less page for his sweetheart tomorrow,’ I hear her say. I nod in agreement.

We resume our work. An elephant’s tread is heard on the stairway. It’s Dussel, seeking comfort in his favourite spot.

We go on working. Knock, knock, knock… Three taps means dinnertime!

Friday, 6 August 1943