Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel

by Shalom Auslander

  Hey, Mr. K, said Will. Boys here almost got him last night.

  Got who? asked Kugel.

  That son of a bitch who’s been burning down homes, said Will. Mr. Kugel here bought Pop’s place a couple months back.

  The officer in the passenger seat nodded.

  Tried to light another one up over on Tanglewood, the officer said.

  Farmhouse? asked Kugel.

  The officer nodded.

  Kugel shook his head.

  Didn’t get very far, said Will, thank the good Lord. Our boys here showed up and gave him a good chase through the woods. Maybe the chief will find a few more bucks for you two now, eh?

  Extra bucks? laughed the officer. Son of a bitch was madder than hell we didn’t catch him.

  Lucky he didn’t can us, added the officer in the driver’s seat. Good thing he had a beer in him.

  They all laughed. Will slapped the roof of the cruiser and he and Kugel waved as the officers drove off.

  Good guys, said Will, good guys. I know Kevin since grade school. Didn’t think he’d ever become a cop, though, truth be told—shit, the kid just about set his own house on fire trying to sneak a cigarette one night. How’s the family enjoying the new place?

  Well, said Kugel, now that you mention it.

  Kugel glanced around, and, seeing that they were alone, said in a low voice: I found something.

  Mm-hmm, said Will.

  Something your father might have left behind.

  Will nodded.

  You don’t say, said Will.

  Something he left in the attic, said Kugel. In the attic.

  He studied Will’s face, looking for any sign of worry or surprise, but found there only confusion.

  Like a bag or something? Will asked.

  Kugel nodded.

  Yes, said Kugel, like a bag. Like an old bag. I thought maybe your father would want the old bag back.

  Will scratched his chin.

  Hmm, he said, shaking his head. An old bag. Can’t say I know of it. Truth be told, Dad took care of most of the packing. Where did you say you found it again?

  Kugel glanced around again.

  In the attic, he said. I found the old bag hiding. In the attic.

  Will folded his arms and shook his head.

  An old bag in the attic, he said, a bit more loudly than Kugel would have preferred. And then, like the young man in the grocery, he snapped his fingers and said: I wonder if it’s Anne Frank’s?

  Kugel stared at Will for a moment, sure he had misheard him.

  Will nodded now, certain that he had figured it out.

  Yep, he said. I bet that’s it. I bet it’s Anne Frank’s.

  There was no mistaking that. Will had very definitely said the words Anne Frank. The shock of hearing her name spoken aloud both rattled and relieved Kugel; he wasn’t crazy, that was something. That was the good news. The bad news was worse: someone—a respected member of the community, no less—believed she actually was Anne Frank.

  Goddamn it, thought Kugel.

  He knew she looked Anne Frankish.

  Maybe he could order the matzoh online. Amazon probably sold matzoh; they probably sold borscht.

  Did you ask her? asked Will.

  Kugel, momentarily at a loss for words, shook his head.

  Well, said Will, you might want to start there. I’m thinking if you found an old bag in the attic, it’s probably hers. If it isn’t, you might want to give my dad a shout.

  Will handed Kugel one of his snowplow business cards and pointed to the phone number at the bottom.

  That’s the new home number, he said. How’s she doing, by the way?

  Who?

  Anne.

  Kugel looked at him a moment, uncertain how to best respond.

  She’s a little high maintenance, said Kugel.

  Well, after what she’s been through, said Will with a solemn shake of his head.

  Unimaginable horrors, he added.

  Sons of bitches, said Kugel.

  An elderly woman pressed by, her arms full of grocery bags.

  Mrs. Lesko, Will called with a smile, what’d I tell you I’d do if I saw you carrying bags again?

  She laughed as he took the bags from her arms and helped her to her car.

  I’m calling Dr. Zisman, said Will. I warned you.

  Oh, don’t you dare, Mrs. Lesko said with a laugh.

  I am.

  Wilbur Junior, you call my doctor and I’m calling your father.

  I can think of a few things you can call him that ain’t been said before, said Will, and they both laughed again.

  Kugel got into his car and slammed the door shut behind him.

  He wasn’t crazy.

  That, at least, was something.

  11.

  UNCERTAIN AT FIRST about the wisdom of moving homes, Kugel had consulted with Professor Jove. He described the charming house, the wooded property, the idyllic town of Stockton; he gave voice to his hopes for a new start, a fresh beginning. The professor sighed heavily and shook his head.

  Why did the chicken cross the road? Professor Jove had asked him.

  I don’t know, said Kugel. Why did the chicken cross the road?

  Because he was a schmuck, said Professor Jove.

  I don’t get it, said Kugel.

  The chicken crossed the road, said Professor Jove, for the same reason we all cross roads—because he thought that there might be something better on the other side. Tell me, Mr. Chicken: there are no wars on the other side of the road? There is no suffering, no divorce, no failure? No hunger, no disease, no tears, no pain? They don’t commit genocide on that side of the road, Mr. Chicken? On the other side of the road parents don’t bury their children, sons and daughters always get the love they need, men and women don’t grow old and bitter and die of regret?

  Kugel looked down at his shoes.

  Fathers disappear, said Professor Jove, his voice soft with compassion. On both sides of the road.

  Can’t hurt checking it out, though, said Kugel. The other side, I mean.

  On the contrary, said Professor Jove. Nobody said the chicken made it to the other side. Roads are no place for naive chickens dreaming of nirvana. There are cars on roads. There are trucks. And there are a lot of flattened chickens. Few of them make it. And if one does, and he finds a Kentucky Fried Chicken there and says, To heck with this, I’m going home, odds are even higher that he won’t make it back. Chickens would live longer lives if they just stayed on the side of the road they were on. And they’d live happier lives if they just stopped hoping there was something better on the other side. Kugel, I’ll ask you again—why did the chicken cross the road?

  Because he was a schmuck, said Kugel.

  Precisely.

  So you don’t think I should buy the house.

  Professor Jove shook his head.

  I do not, he had said.

  The Stockton office of Promised Land Fine Properties and Estates was located in the center of town, inside a stately old Victorian home whose interior had been converted into offices. Climbing the wide stairs of the wooden front porch, Kugel wondered how the house felt about the conversion; resentful, he imagined; it probably missed having a family around; it probably missed the sounds of laughter and life and the smells of dinner, replaced so cruelly with the dead sounds of fax machines and printers and ringing phones. And, on top of that, to be used to sell other homes to the very families it so wished were living inside itself? The indignity.

  Kugel tried the door.

  Locked.

  Goddamn it.

  He knocked.

  Nothing.

  She can run, thought Kugel, but she can’t hide.

  He sat down on the bench beside the front door, put the grocery bag on the seat beside him, crossed his legs, and folded his arms across his chest.

  I can wait.

  So she was Anne Frank. Maybe. More to the immediate point, the man who grew up in his house was well aware of her existence�
�lived there with her, in fact, his entire life; if Will Junior knew about her, then Eve knew about her, too, and she had been required by law to tell Kugel everything—full disclosure, he recalled the term—which she obviously had not. She had lied to him, and Kugel now had proof. Good, he thought. The rancid grotesque in his attic was now Eve’s problem; if she didn’t want a lawsuit on her hands, she would get Anne Frank the hell out of his attic, posthaste.

  The noon sun was directly overhead; even in the shade of Promised Land’s porch it was brutally hot.

  I can wait all damned day.

  It’s about the house, he would say to her. We need to talk. Her face would drop, her heart would pound in her chest, her horrible lie revealed at last. It’s about the house, he would repeat. She would begin to sob, fearful for her job, her career, her family. She would throw herself at his feet, beg him not to report her, not to sue, she would swear to make it all right, to fix it, to make him whole. Or maybe not—maybe she would be aggressive, belligerent, denying it to the end. You leave me no choice, he would say, turning on his heel. You’ll be hearing from my attorney.

  Kugel stood, sat, and stood again, pacing back and forth on the porch, anxious to resolve this issue at last. He didn’t want the old woman spending one more minute in his house, and if Eve would only return soon, they could get her out before Mother woke from her nap, before Bree returned home with Jonah from day care; nobody would know the hideous freak had ever been there. And even if she were Anne Frank, so what? Getting evicted wasn’t the worst thing to happen to her in her life; in fact, thought Kugel, it was almost better that she was Anne Frank. She’d been through worse than a simple relocation, for God’s sake.

  Kugel stopped pacing to look over the property listings posted in the front window.

  Nestled in the something.

  Enjoy your own private whatever.

  Unobstructed views of some goddamned thing.

  If only he had picked a different house. A non-farmhouse. A house without an attic. A must-see modern contemporary with soaring ceilings, lots of light, and no survivors.

  On second thought, said the first little pig, homeless now and forced to live with his brother, I probably should have gone with brick.

  Kugel could see himself reflected in the Promised Land window, ghostlike and bedraggled over a perfect four-bedroom contemporary with an in-ground swimming pool on five gorgeous acres of rolling hills and outstanding views that wouldn’t last at this price.

  Ten-plus acres with something-top vistas.

  Welcome to somewhere.

  Leave wherever behind.

  He looked like the living dead. He needed sleep.

  He sat back down on the bench beside the door. The Stockton Café and Bakery was located directly across the street and, seeing it, Kugel was suddenly reminded of how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten a thing all day. His stomach rumbled, but he wasn’t about to leave his post beside the door. Eve was probably inside, waiting for him to leave, so she could run out and flee.

  Pathetic.

  Or she was outside, waiting to run in.

  People were the worst.

  What was Ezekiel bread anyway?

  Kugel was famished. Ordinary bread would cause his stomach to react violently, but he was starving now, and hoped there were no glutens in Ezekiel bread. Everything else in the grocery was gluten-free, he thought, why would Ezekiel bread be any different? He tore off the end of the loaf, and hungrily chewed it. He moaned with contentment and leaned back against the house. He tore off a second piece.

  Fucking Ezekiel, he thought. How difficult could it be to be a prophet, anyway? Predict the absolute worst horrors you can imagine—persecutions, atrocities, fires, floods, famine—and odds are pretty good they’ll come to be.

  I see misery and suffering. I see pain and anguish. I see gnashing of teeth and desperate prayer but no help will arrive.

  Really?

  You think?

  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—each one foresaw more misery than the one before, and what did that abject pessimism; that supernal, sorrowful, suffocating cynicism get them? It got them their own books in the Bible, that’s what. Not little ones, either—fifty, sixty chapters a piece. You know who didn’t get his own book in the Bible? The guy who said, It’s going to be okay, folks; honestly, I think it’s coming around. Nostradamus was no idiot—if he’d predicted peace, calm, and sunny skies we wouldn’t know his name today.

  The combination of the midday heat and his now-full stomach caused Kugel to grow sleepy, and he yawned, leaned his head back against the house, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

  When he awoke some time later, his face was covered in a fine mist of sweat. He had no idea how long he had slept, but his insides were burning like the sun above; pain shot through his abdomen and stabbed at his belly. He groaned, winced, and doubled over in excruciating pain.

  Fucking glutens, he grunted through clenched teeth. Fucking Anne fucking Frank.

  He sat back up, and noticed a young couple on the porch beside him, standing together in front of the property listings.

  They looked at him strangely.

  They were quite tall.

  Glutens, groaned Kugel again, forcing a smile.

  The man put his arm protectively around the woman’s shoulders.

  Kugel, still bent over, did his best Adenoid Hynkel: Ah, the glutens, he said, shaking his fist. The glutens, the glutens.

  The couple frowned and turned back to the listings. Kugel didn’t like tall people, and these tall people were tanned, which made it even worse, the kind of tan that only comes from very intentional tanning; it wasn’t that they had been out cultivating their garden, or even engaging in some mindless outdoor sport; no, these two had set out together, with single-minded determination, to become tan. Let’s become tan, they had agreed, and after much struggle and sacrifice and aloe, they had at last achieved their goal.

  Assholes.

  It felt as if there was a furious rodent burrowing through his core, ripping his insides apart, desperately trying to get out, clawing at his flesh: an explosion of pain, first here, then there, subsided for just a moment before slowly building again somewhere else.

  The woman’s arm was around the man’s waist, his arm was around her shoulders, and every time one pointed out a house to the other, they read it together and hugged and kissed.

  If Kugel hadn’t immediately disliked them so much he might have told them about the arsonist, might have warned them about Eve’s duplicity. But he didn’t like them, so he let them keep hoping. Besides, he desperately needed to get to a bathroom, and was concentrating as best he could on not allowing his bowels to move on their own; he couldn’t fault his body for reacting so violently to what it regarded as poison, but it was a survival instinct that overrode any messages his brain tried to send his colon, and he knew from experience that in these situations, he only had limited control of that particular bodily function. Still, how could he leave now? He’d waited this long.

  Excuse me, he groaned to the couple. Do you have the time?

  The man turned and looked down at Kugel, who now felt terribly small.

  No, said the man, pulling the woman even closer with his arm, but Kugel could clearly see the silver diving watch on his wrist.

  Tall people appeared to have it easy; that was what Kugel found so galling. Like things just went their way. Let’s go buy a house! Let’s get expensive diving watches! Why not, we’re tall! What could go wrong? The woman wasn’t quite as tall as the man, but she was marrying into his tallness, hoping for a piece of that ever-perfect tall pie, and for that, Kugel hated her even more than he did the man.

  The creature inside Kugel’s gut lashed out again; a sustained blast of fiery pain; it was determined to get out, to find freedom.

  I’d never make it in Auschwitz, thought Kugel. Not a week. Not a day. Bread was all they ate there, wasn’t it? Soup if they were lucky. He’d die, he knew it, and not even in a gas chamber or a cre
matorium—no, not he, not Solomon Kugel; Solomon Kugel would die in the latrine. He’d die on the toilet. His descendants would speak of him sadly—Those sons of bitches, they would say—and they would make Great-grandfather Kugel out to be some sort of martyr, some sort of hero, but they would never speak openly about how he really died: doubled over on the crapper, dead of dehydration. Dead of glutens. Dead of the shits.

  The woman pointed up at an advertisement for a large white Victorian house, in front of which stood a tall oak tree with fiery orange autumnal leaves. The man pointed to the child’s tire swing that hung from one of the tree’s heavy branches. The woman hugged the man and he kissed her on the top of her head.

  Kugel could never survive a genocide, not with his stomach. And Bree, with her dye allergy; Pardon me, Herr Kommandant, but do you have a clear soup? I’m very sensitive to coloring.

  Someone would have to hide them, that much was certain.

  If what?

  If something happened.

  If what happened?

  Something.

  What?

  Whatever.

  But who? Of the roughly 2,400 residents in Stockton, Kugel knew about twenty of them by name; of those twenty, there were probably a total of seven who would agree to hide him and his family in their attic (this was assuming that those seven hadn’t already promised their attics to other Jews, blacks, homosexuals, Asians, Muslims, immigrants, etc., which you had to assume at least two or three of them already had; first come, first saved). The Kugels, though, were at a distinct disadvantage for the remaining five attics: together with Bree and Jonah, there were three of them, and if Mother kept hanging on the way she was, they were four (I am not, resolved Kugel, taking Anne Frank with us); realistically, they’d probably need a whole attic to themselves. He and Bree would share a bed, but Jonah was getting too old to share one, and Mother would need one, too (nobody was going to agree to share a bed with Mother, and Kugel would sooner force Jonah into a cattle car and seal the doors himself than make him share a bed with his grandmother). It wasn’t a question of greed, just pragmatism, and, of course, no doubt: if the attic they wound up hiding in was large enough, Kugel would be more than happy to share it with another young couple, or maybe some children whose parents had been arrested by the authorities (they’d need constant reassuring, though, which he’d be willing to give them in the early days, but as the genocide dragged on, they were going to get on his nerves, he knew that now; man up, kids, this isn’t easy for anyone). One thing was certain: with the Kugels’ various dietary restrictions, whoever shared the attic with them ought to know straightaway that they were not going to be sharing their food, he didn’t care how grim the situation eventually became; he’d bring an extra jar of peanut butter or something, some extra cans of corn, they can have some of that (he knew full well, too, that if they really did end up sharing the attic with two small children whose parents had been arrested by the authorities, he’d probably change his mind and share the food with them even though he was insisting now that he wouldn’t; and, yeah, at the last minute, he’d probably take Anne Frank, too, so that made five people now, even before the orphans [let’s face it, their parents are probably dead]). It would be nice if the attic were somewhere close by their home, not just so that he could get something if he forgot it (he’d definitely forget the iPod, he always did, and now, probably, the corn), but so that when the genocide was over, they wouldn’t have too far to travel. Which is why, of the five people who might let Kugel and his family hide in their attic that hadn’t already promised their attics to someone else, his first choice would be his next-door neighbors, the Ambersons, who, unfortunately, just adopted a puppy to replace a cat that had recently disappeared; even if the damn thing didn’t spend all day standing in the hallway and barking up at the attic, it would only serve to remind Jonah of his confinement to see her running in the yard and chasing squirrels. The other choices were no better: the Millers down the road were Jews, so to hell with that (hiding from genocide inside a Jew’s attic, thought Kugel, is like hiding from a lion inside a gazelle), and while the Dooners at the far end of the street were the only other neighbors Kugel knew, Kugel once borrowed their lawn mower and only remembered after returning it that he’d neglected to refill the gas; it was too awkward for him to go back and say so, so he never said anything at all. He even went out and bought a new mower of his own, not just so that he would never have to ask Dooner to borrow his, but in the hopes that Dooner would see his new mower and understand, at some level, that Kugel had bought it as a way of acknowledging his earlier mistake.