The Diary of a Young Girl (15 page)

We jumped for joy. After the awful events of yesterday, finally something good happens and brings us … hope! Hope for an end to the war, hope for peace.

Mr. Kugler dropped by and told us that the Fokker aircraft factory had been hit hard. Meanwhile, there was another air-raid alarm this morning, with planes flying over, and another warning siren. I’ve had it up to here with alarms. I’ve hardly slept, and the last thing I want to do is work. But now the suspense about Italy and the hope that the war will be over by the end of the year are keeping us awake …

Yours, Anne

T
HURSDAY
, J
ULY
29, 1943

Dearest Kitty
,

Mrs. van Daan, Dussel and I were doing the dishes, 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 Daan 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 doing the dishes, and Dussel launched into a veritable tirade.

“How can you possibly understand the psychology of a man? That of a child isn’t so difficult [!]. 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 way 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 anymore. 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. 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 slapped them both for poking fun at me. I was beside myself with rage, and if I only knew how much longer we had to put up with each other’s company, I’d start counting the days.

Mrs. van Daan’s a fine one to talk! She sets an example all right—a bad one! She’s known to be exceedingly pushy, egotistical, cunning, calculating and perpetually
dissatisfied. Add to that, vanity and coquettishness and there’s no question about it: she’s a thoroughly despicable person. I could write an entire book about Madame van Daan, and who knows, maybe someday I will. Anyone can put on a charming exterior when they want to. Mrs. van D. is friendly to strangers, especially men, so it’s easy to make a mistake when you first get to know her.

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 never prejudiced 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, why should I single out just one of them?

Yours, Anne

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

T
UESDAY
, A
UGUST
3, 1943

Dearest Kitty
,

Things are going well on the political front. Italy has banned the Fascist Party. The people are fighting the Fascists in many places—even the army has joined the fight. How can a country like that continue to wage war against England?

Our beautiful radio was taken away last week. Dussel was very angry at Mr. Kugler for turning it in on the appointed day. Dussel is slipping lower and lower in my estimation, and he’s already below zero. Whatever he says about politics, history, geography or anything else is so ridiculous that I hardly dare repeat it: Hitler will fade
from history; the harbor in Rotterdam is bigger than the one in Hamburg; the English are idiots for not taking the opportunity to bomb Italy to smithereens; etc., etc.

We just had a third air raid. I decided to grit my teeth and practice being courageous.

Mrs. van Daan, the one who always said “Let them fall” and “Better to end with a bang than not to end at all,” is the most cowardly one among us. She was shaking like a leaf this morning and even burst into tears. She was comforted by her husband, with whom she recently declared a truce after a week of squabbling; I nearly got sentimental at the sight.

Mouschi has now proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that having a cat has disadvantages as well as advantages. The whole house is crawling with fleas, and it’s getting worse each day. Mr. Kleiman sprinkled yellow powder in every nook and cranny, but the fleas haven’t taken the slightest notice. It’s making us all very jittery; we’re forever imagining a bite on our arms and legs or other parts of our bodies, so we leap up and do a few exercises, since it gives us an excuse to take a better look at our arms or necks. But now we’re paying the price for having had so little physical exercise; we’re so stiff we can hardly turn our heads. The real calisthenics fell by the wayside long ago.

Yours, Anne

W
EDNESDAY
, A
UGUST
4, 1943

Dearest Kitty
,

Now that we’ve been in hiding for a little over a year, you know a great deal about our lives. Still, I can’t possibly tell you everything, since it’s all so different compared to ordinary times and ordinary people. Nevertheless, to give you a closer look into our lives, from time to
time I’ll describe part of an ordinary day. I’ll start with the evening and night.

Nine in the evening
. Bedtime always begins in the Annex 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. Comforter, sheets, pillows, 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 thunder, 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 to bleach the black hairs—all this in less than half an hour.

Nine-thirty
. I throw on my bathrobe. With soap in one hand, and potty, hairpins, panties, curlers and a wad of cotton 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 blackout 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 neighbors aren’t having a marital spat 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 Mr. 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 bathroom.

Approximately three o’clock
. I have to get up to use the tin can 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 can like a brook down a mountainside. The potty is returned to its place, and the figure in the white nightgown (the one that causes Margot to exclaim every evening, “Oh, that indecent nighty!”) climbs back into bed. A certain somebody lies awake for about fifteen minutes, listening to the sounds of the night. In the first place, 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 awake. This is no fun, especially when it concerns a member of the family named Dr. Dussel. First, there’s 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 room. But usually I wake up. Then I grab a pillow and a handkerchief, throw on my robe 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
. Brrring … 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 blackout screen … and a new day begins in the Annex.

Yours, Anne

T
HURSDAY
, A
UGUST
5, 1943

Dearest Kitty
,

Today let’s talk about the lunch break.

It’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 hopes 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 around the radio, they all listen raptly to the BBC. This is the only time the members of the Annex 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 dessert, 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 dishes, 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 4
P.M
. and the pedantic Dr. Dussel
will be standing with the clock in his hand because I’m one minute late clearing off the table.

Yours, Anne

S
ATURDAY
, A
UGUST
7, 1943