Read Online Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander - Free Book Online
Authors: Shalom Auslander
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covers on all the sockets. Maybe he should relax a bit. Maybe he was sending Jonah the wrong message; he didn’t want him to grow into the fearful man his father was.
As soon as you’re done with what? he asked her.
With my book.
Naturally, said Kugel. Of course. Because you’re Anne Frank.
Because, she said, I am a writer.
Bree backed the car out, and Kugel watched her drive away, dust kicking up behind them.
We should get a bigger car. A truck, maybe. Everyone else has one. Yukons, Hummers, Tahoes. It was no longer a matter of keeping up with the Joneses; it was a matter of not getting crushed by them.
Been working on it long? Kugel asked.
Sixty years, she said. Give or take.
Well, lady, said Kugel, you really get into a role, I’ll give you that.
He walked across the attic and looked out the window to the backyard. Mother was inside her vegetable garden. He watched as she pulled on a section of the fence for a few moments, then stopped, moved to the next section, and began pulling on that one.
She was stuck again.
She could never seem to find the gate, and when she did, she pushed instead of pulled, and determined thus that the gate must be elsewhere. She would slowly work herself into a panic. Kugel was certain she performed the whole tragicomic burlesque on purpose; that she liked the feeling of being trapped; that she liked needing help; that she liked suffering; that she believed she deserved it. Agony was ecstasy, ecstasy was agony.
Hell of a show we’re putting on down here, thought Kugel. Don’t forget to tip your creator.
So,
Anne
, he said as he watched Mother down below. Why does everyone think you died in Auschwitz?
Bergen-Belsen.
Whatever.
It’s a lot easier to stay alive in this world, said the old woman, if everyone thinks you’re dead.
Mm-hmm, said Kugel.
Mother was at the gate now. If she pushed, she’d be out. She pulled, and pulled again, wiped her brow, and moved on, as ever, from salvation to bondage.
There were, of course, continued the old woman, a number of financial considerations as well.
Mother fanned herself with her hat.
Sol! she called out. Solly, I’m stuck!
Financial considerations, said Kugel.
I was alone, Mr. Kugel. I was eighteen, hiding in the attic of an old farmhouse somewhere between Belsen and Hannover. Man by the name of Franz Something, I can’t recall any longer, the self-loathing son of a former midlevel SS officer. Franz was hiding me, this sickly, terrified Jewish girl, from nothing, in his attic, even though the war had ended, hoping, I suppose, that the unimaginable sins of the father could be absolved by the second-rate good deeds of the son. Blew his head off ten years later, the poor bastard did.
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons.
What an abominable idea. Who said that?
God, said Kugel, looking down at Mother struggling in her garden. She called for him again—Sol!—and turned to look up at the house, shielding her eyes from the sun. Kugel instinctively ducked to the side of the window, though he knew she could never see him from that distance.
One day, she continued, Franz came up to the attic, carrying a newspaper in his hand. He held it out to me with tears in his eyes. Is this you? he asked. Thousands of people, it seemed, were reading my diary. I’d forgotten about it by then, to be honest; it was a couple of years later, and I was already at work on my first novel. Terrible thing, hideously conceived, something about a talking, shame-filled monkey or some such ludicrous conceit; I hope to Christ nobody finds that one like they did my diary. Anyway, I convinced Franz to take me to the publisher in Amsterdam. It was the first time I’d been out of the attic since the war ended, and the first time I’d been in Amsterdam since the war began. With my heart in my throat, I knocked on the publisher’s door. May I help you, he asked. I’m Anne Frank, I said.
Mother began pulling on the gate again.
And what did
As soon as you’re done with what? he asked her.
With my book.
Naturally, said Kugel. Of course. Because you’re Anne Frank.
Because, she said, I am a writer.
Bree backed the car out, and Kugel watched her drive away, dust kicking up behind them.
We should get a bigger car. A truck, maybe. Everyone else has one. Yukons, Hummers, Tahoes. It was no longer a matter of keeping up with the Joneses; it was a matter of not getting crushed by them.
Been working on it long? Kugel asked.
Sixty years, she said. Give or take.
Well, lady, said Kugel, you really get into a role, I’ll give you that.
He walked across the attic and looked out the window to the backyard. Mother was inside her vegetable garden. He watched as she pulled on a section of the fence for a few moments, then stopped, moved to the next section, and began pulling on that one.
She was stuck again.
She could never seem to find the gate, and when she did, she pushed instead of pulled, and determined thus that the gate must be elsewhere. She would slowly work herself into a panic. Kugel was certain she performed the whole tragicomic burlesque on purpose; that she liked the feeling of being trapped; that she liked needing help; that she liked suffering; that she believed she deserved it. Agony was ecstasy, ecstasy was agony.
Hell of a show we’re putting on down here, thought Kugel. Don’t forget to tip your creator.
So,
Anne
, he said as he watched Mother down below. Why does everyone think you died in Auschwitz?
Bergen-Belsen.
Whatever.
It’s a lot easier to stay alive in this world, said the old woman, if everyone thinks you’re dead.
Mm-hmm, said Kugel.
Mother was at the gate now. If she pushed, she’d be out. She pulled, and pulled again, wiped her brow, and moved on, as ever, from salvation to bondage.
There were, of course, continued the old woman, a number of financial considerations as well.
Mother fanned herself with her hat.
Sol! she called out. Solly, I’m stuck!
Financial considerations, said Kugel.
I was alone, Mr. Kugel. I was eighteen, hiding in the attic of an old farmhouse somewhere between Belsen and Hannover. Man by the name of Franz Something, I can’t recall any longer, the self-loathing son of a former midlevel SS officer. Franz was hiding me, this sickly, terrified Jewish girl, from nothing, in his attic, even though the war had ended, hoping, I suppose, that the unimaginable sins of the father could be absolved by the second-rate good deeds of the son. Blew his head off ten years later, the poor bastard did.
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons.
What an abominable idea. Who said that?
God, said Kugel, looking down at Mother struggling in her garden. She called for him again—Sol!—and turned to look up at the house, shielding her eyes from the sun. Kugel instinctively ducked to the side of the window, though he knew she could never see him from that distance.
One day, she continued, Franz came up to the attic, carrying a newspaper in his hand. He held it out to me with tears in his eyes. Is this you? he asked. Thousands of people, it seemed, were reading my diary. I’d forgotten about it by then, to be honest; it was a couple of years later, and I was already at work on my first novel. Terrible thing, hideously conceived, something about a talking, shame-filled monkey or some such ludicrous conceit; I hope to Christ nobody finds that one like they did my diary. Anyway, I convinced Franz to take me to the publisher in Amsterdam. It was the first time I’d been out of the attic since the war ended, and the first time I’d been in Amsterdam since the war began. With my heart in my throat, I knocked on the publisher’s door. May I help you, he asked. I’m Anne Frank, I said.
Mother began pulling on the gate again.
And what did
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