Hope: A Tragedy (14 page)

No, said Kugel, taken aback at her ferocity. But I . . .

Of course I didn’t, shouted Anne Frank, because I don’t even know what it is. But I know what it isn’t, Mr. Kugel. It isn’t matzoh!

With that she reared back and threw the bread down the stairs. Kugel had to duck to avoid being struck by it, and it landed heavily on the floor behind him.

You wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in Auschwitz! Anne Frank berated him. Not five minutes!

Kugel straightened up and watched the bread skittering down the hallway behind him. He turned to look up at Anne Frank.

Bergen-Belsen, said Kugel.

I was in Auschwitz first, you idiot, Anne Frank said. Did you even read my diary, did you?

Mother looked at him reproachfully and sighed.

I read
Night,
offered Kugel. When Oprah had it. You know, in her book club.

At this Anne Frank shrieked and picked up the heavy glass bottle of seniors’ multivitamins from beside her and threw it, too, at Kugel; this projectile, unfortunately, hit its intended target right between his eyes, and Kugel felt the sharp pain stab through his skull. At first he wasn’t sure if it had been the bottle or his bones that had shattered; it turned out to be both. He fell to his knees, covered his face with both hands for a moment, and then held them before his eyes, as if in prayer or supplication, stunned at the blood he found covering his palms.

When I ask for matzoh, Anne Frank said, I want matzoh. I’m trying to write, Mr. Kugel. To compose prose, to limn the . . . Do you think it’s easy? Thirty-two million copies, Mr. Kugel. And what do I get from you for it? Elie Wiesel. Oprah Winfrey! No matzoh! No herring! No borscht! Vitamins! Vitamins!

She picked up a rope Kugel hadn’t noticed before, which she had tied to the stairs in such a way that by pulling on it, which she now did, the attic stairs lifted and folded onto themselves and then the attic door was pulled shut with a slam.

They could hear her, overhead, shuffling back behind her boxes.

Still on his knees, Kugel could feel that his eyebrow was already beginning to swell; blood from the gash made by the shattering glass bottle trickled down the side of his nose, and his head was throbbing with pain.

He looked up to Mother, who was looking up at the closed attic door, eyes wide, mouth open, her hands pressed together on her chest.

She’s a little high maintenance, mumbled Kugel.

Mother shook her head.

She’s wonderful, she gasped.

Goddamn it, thought Kugel.

16.

IT WAS ALREADY WELL past noon when Wilbur Messerschmidt Sr. answered the front door in his bathrobe and slippers.

Kugel, he said.

Senior, said Kugel. Senior was what all the locals called him, and Kugel, preparing for a fight, for denials, thought that it might be helpful to establish some intimacy first.

Senior leaned over to get a better look at the golf-ball-size bump on Kugel’s brow and the purple, half-swollen eye below it. The gash was nearly an inch long. He had iced it for a while that morning, while Mother busily phoned every grocery in town looking for matzoh; he even considered going to the hospital for stitches, but thought that
Anne Frank threw vitamins at me
wasn’t going to go over that well in the ER. Also, he thought this:

They didn’t have stitches in Auschwitz.

They didn’t have Tylenol.

They had roll call at four in the morning that lasted for hours.

I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.

Senior tutted and shook his head.

Looks like you picked a fight with the wrong person, he said.

The past is the present, said Kugel.

Not sure I follow, said Senior.

Kugel could smell the whiskey on his breath.

It’s about the house, Kugel said.

What about the house?

Kugel sighed.

About the old bag I found in it, said Kugel.

He waited for a response, a tell, a flicker of recognition. None came.

The old bag? said Kugel. In the attic?

Senior shook his head.

Nerves of steel, thought Kugel. If you had to hide in someone’s attic, Senior wasn’t a bad choice.

Did your son mention anything to you, Kugel asked, about the old bag I found in the attic?

Oh, he’s in and out, that one, said Senior with an angry wave of his hand. All hours, coming and going. Takes care of everyone but his own damn family.

Did you leave something behind? asked Kugel, trying not to get sidetracked. In the attic, Senior, did you forget something there?

Like an old bag?

Exactly.

Nope. Don’t recall leaving any old bags behind. What was in it?

I’m referring, said Kugel, to a certain well-known Holocaust victim.

Senior cocked his head.

In the attic, added Kugel.

Senior scratched his chin.

Elie Wiesel? asked Senior.

Kugel crossed his arms over his chest.

You sold me a house with Anne Frank in it, said Kugel.

Senior looked to the ground and sighed heavily. Then, slowly, he began to nod his head, and, turning and heading back into his house, he motioned with his hand for Kugel to follow.

The Messerschmidts were one of the founding families of Stockton, having originally come to the States during the great wave of German immigration in the mid-1800s. They had arrived by ship in New York City, but the Messerschmidts were farmers and builders, as were many of the German immigrants. Those early years were difficult, and so the next generation moved out to the countryside, where they could find more suitable work. They took what money they had and purchased a rocky, dry patch of land, which they wrestled into producing some meager but desirable crops. In a short time, their small patch of land grew into an impressive farm. As their family and business grew, the Messerschmidts bought more land, upon which they built more farmhouses, and many of the houses they built then still stand today. The original Messerschmidt farm—a photo of it hung over Senior’s living room couch, and a framed reproduction of it still hangs in the Stockton Town Hall—and a second, larger farm built by their son Angus, were two of the homes struck by the arsonist. These burnings were particularly painful to the people of Stockton, and they had begun a small drive to raise funds in order to rebuild exact reproductions of them in the very places where the originals had once stood.

Anyway, said Senior—they were in the living room of his small ranch house, and Senior was at the table behind the couch, pouring himself another drink—the Messerschmidts came here wanting pretty much nothing more than to be left alone. That was the real promise of America back then. They weren’t pursuing much of anything but a bit of space and solitude.

Carrying the whiskey bottle with him in one hand and his glass in the other, Senior sat down heavily in the wingback chair beside the fireplace.

My ancestors weren’t proud Americans, he continued, I’ll admit that, but they weren’t proud Germans either. Nothing more dangerous than to be proud of soil, that’s what I say. Dirt’s dirt, all pretty much the same. Well, things were pretty good for them back then, building and growing and whatnot. Then WW One came around. Teddy Roosevelt, that fat son of a bitch, starting raising hell about what he called
hyphenated Americans
. Well, soon enough the libraries removed all their German books, German-named streets were renamed. Hell, us hyphenated Americans were running around buying war bonds just to prove our loyalty, changing our names, pretending we were something we weren’t, when we weren’t really either of the two things to begin with, just like all them Islams, sticking flags and whatnot on their cars after nine-eleven. Nothing changes. My great-grandparents changed Messerschmidt to Messersmith, which my grandparents, a few years later, chopped all the way down to Smith. Went from Messerschmidt to Smith in about five American years’ time, so you can God bless my ass. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’s what they say, but I’ll tell you what I say: I say most of the time you can’t beat ’em, and the rest of the time they won’t let you join ’em anyway, so where’s that leave you? Whiskey?

No, thank you, said Kugel. About Anne Frank, though.

Well, Senior continued, the war ended, and my father and his wife decided to change their name back to Messerschmidt, just in time for WW Two, and then here we go again. Germans were interned in camps, but lucky for us, Americans hated them Japs more than they hated us, or maybe we just looked more like them, so we got off a bit easier. My parents were third- or fourth-generation Americans by then—my father’s the one who built that house you’re living in now—and a whole hell of a lot more Yankee than Nazi, but I’ll tell you what—when the stories came out about what them Nazis did to the Jews and whatnot, well, they felt just as if they had gone and done it themselves. Terrible thing that, I’ll never forget it. I was a small boy at the time, but they showed me all them pictures of the camps and the bodies. Said I needed to see them, said I needed to see what my people had done. Terrible thing. I’d bet money I ain’t got and never had that there wasn’t a soul within a thousand miles of our house that hated Germans more than my parents did. Didn’t want a speck of that German blood in them any longer. Anyway, I met my beloved Esther, rest in peace, when I was in my early twenties, we married some time after that. Wasn’t long then that my father died, my mother joined him pretty soon after. Well, that about left the house in our name; me and the wife, we set about gathering up their belongings, cleaning up and whatnot, and, well, that’s when we first discovered her in the attic.

The old lady.

Senior nodded and threw back his drink.

Anne Frank, he said.

She’s not Anne Frank.

Oh, yes, yes, sir, I know that she is. That’s her, all right, said Senior. Crazy bitch, too. Can’t blame her, though, I suppose, after what she been through and all. Terrible thing, just terrible. You can imagine Esther wanted me to throw her out, of course, toot sweet, but then Esther wasn’t German. I begged her not to make me do it. How could a German throw Anne Frank out of his attic? I asked her. Can you imagine the headlines?
Nazis Strike Again
?
Local Man Makes It Six Million and One
? No, no, thank you; I’m kind of a private man. Well, I gave Esther the diary to read, and it got to her in a big way, and she agreed to let Anne Frank stay on a bit, until she finished the book she was working on at the time.

She’s still working on it, said Kugel.

Senior shrugged.

Can’t be easy, I suppose, he said. Thirty-two million copies, that ain’t chicken feed. Anyway, those first few years weren’t so bad. She slept during the day and worked at night. I brought her food every so often, but that was it. When Wilbur Junior came along, well, things got a bit rocky then. Junior cried a lot when he was a baby, and played a lot when he was a little boy, and he just about drove poor Anne Frank crazy with all that noise. He got to calling her his Aunt Frank, though, and once he got a bit older, they actually became quite close. Esther passed on when Junior was only fifteen or so—bad ticker—and well, I guess I took it pretty hard. Pretty hard. I’m not a perfect man, Mr. Kugel, or even a very good one, I figure. Too much drinkin’, not enough thinkin’, what can I say? Didn’t do right by that boy, I’m afraid, don’t think he’ll ever forgive me, neither. Can’t say that I blame him. Terrible things I done to him, terrible things.

You lied to me, said Kugel, getting to his feet. You said there was nothing wrong with the house.

You want to sue me? said Senior. You’re looking at all I got. I didn’t mean to saddle you with her, Mr. Kugel; when that lady from the real estate office told me you were a Jew, I thought the Lord Himself had sent you, like He had his Jew son, Jesus. A German can’t throw Anne Frank out of his house, but a Jew sure as hell can.

A Jew can’t throw Anne Frank out of his house, said Kugel.

Quicker’n a German can, that’s for sure, said Senior. Look, Mr. Kugel, I’m sorry, I am. But, hell, I’ve done my share. I spent the best years of my life atoning for something I didn’t do, something my parents didn’t do, something done just about before I was ever even born. I got no complaints with that, but I’m about all atoned out, and I ain’t yet gotten round to atoning for the things I did do. You’ll forget she’s there. It might take a while, but soon you’ll forget. Sure, you’ll have to spend a little bit more on food, maybe you hear a thing or two at night, but that’s about it. She keeps to herself pretty much, doesn’t do much up there but sleep and write.

Unbelievable, muttered Kugel.

Senior poured himself another whiskey.

We all got our crosses to bear, Mr. Kugel. Didn’t you ever want to hide somewhere? Didn’t you ever think the world was just too damn ugly to face for one more day? Didn’t you ever ask yourself what kind of a world you’d been dragged into, what kind of world you’d dragged your kid into? Can’t protect them, not from anyone, not even from yourself. Nah, I don’t blame her, not a bit. Not for hiding and sure as shit not for writing. We all make mistakes, Mr. Kugel. God knows I have. You’ll get there. There comes a point where you realize that this is it; more of your life has been written than there is left to write, and you’re not all that enthused about the pages you’ve got so far. Maybe it’s too sad and you wish it were happier, maybe it’s too happy and you feel bad, wishing it were sadder. So you start to rewrite. We all do it. Add a little here, take away something there. Maybe you’re not old enough yet, God bless you, but I’m coming on seventy-two this January. Everyone I knew my age is dead, and everyone I know younger than me is waiting for me to go. I double-lock my doors, make sure I’m home before dark. I don’t carry a wallet anymore. My wallet days are over. Did you know there is an end to the days when you can carry a wallet? You never think of it. Your whole life, you worry about how much is in your wallet, where you left it, where’d I put that receipt, where’s my credit card, why can’t I ever find my license in this goddamned thing, and you never think, there will come a day I am so weak and vulnerable that I can’t carry this goddamned thing outside anymore. I carry some cash, a few bills—gotta keep some cash with you to give to the kid who holds you up. They’ll beat you worse if you don’t have anything, that’s the theory anyway; I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m not too keen on finding out. Now, I never went through what Anne Frank went through; I never seen a death camp or a gas chamber in the flesh, but fear’s fear. Don’t you ever wish you could take your lovely wife and that innocent little boy and lock yourselves up in an attic somewhere? Don’t you sometimes wish you never had to come out again at all, that you found the one person kind enough—one kind person would be enough, too—who would bring you some food now and then? Well, I know I do. Take it from someone who knows, Mr. Kugel, the only thing golden about the golden years is that it’s almost over, the whole shebang. If I could find someone who’d let me hide away in their attic, rewriting my life story and waiting for the end, I’d do it in a minute.

Hearing a car door slam, Kugel went to the window. Outside, Will had pulled up in his truck, and was now heading up the front walk.

I’ve been thinking about getting a dog, said Kugel.

I’ve been thinking about getting a gun, said Senior.

Something big, said Kugel.

Something small, said Senior.

Will walked in, glumly at first, but smiled to see Kugel there, and said, Hey, Mr. K, how are you?

Good, said Kugel.

Senior slid the whiskey and glass on the floor beside his chair, where Will couldn’t see them.

Glad to hear it, said Will, glad to hear it. Looks like you took a fastball to the noggin there, Mr. K.

Something like that, said Kugel.