Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel

by Shalom Auslander

  I’m sick of this Holocaust shit, young Kugel had said.

  So horrified was Mother at that, she didn’t even yell at him; she didn’t lecture him; she simply turned on her heel and walked away. Later, he went to her and apologized.

  I’m sorry, he said.

  She gave him a choice: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl or The Sorrow and the Pity.

  He took the diary from Mother’s hand and turned it over. The heartbreaking something, he read, of a tragic whatever.

  He went with the documentary, all five hours of it. At least he could fast-forward when Mother wasn’t looking, and he kind of knew how it ended.

  Kugel gave Hannah a long, enthusiastic hug, holding her tightly while peering over her shoulder for Anne Frank.

  He didn’t see her. The floor, he noticed, was strewn with photos, newspaper clippings, and scissors.

  Mother, said Kugel, releasing his sister. What did I tell you about that?

  For some time now, Mother had been putting together a family scrapbook for Jonah. Kugel had begged her not to, but with her memory fading and her time running out, she was determined to leave behind a family history for her sole grandchild. She had requested assistance from her children, cousins, aunts, and uncles in the form of any old family photographs they could provide her with, and they speedily obliged. To her dismay, however, the photographs told a very different story from the one she remembered, or wanted to tell, or wanted Jonah to be told: faded black-and-white photos of families playing in the sand at the beach, beaming brides and proud grooms, sepia-toned families enjoying a round of badminton fun at some well-manicured Catskill resort, young lovers holding hands on the boardwalk at Coney Island as appreciative passersby smiled wistfully in their direction.

  Useless.

  So she began to include, here and there, a news photograph of prisoners at Buchenwald, some press clipping about pogroms in the Soviet Union, a collage of Kristallnacht, corpse piles at Dachau, mass graves at Auschwitz, until these terrifying images of history’s tragic victims equaled, and soon outnumbered, the photographs of any actual Kugels.

  Zelig himself, thought Kugel, would be proud. Then he would turn into a lamp shade.

  Mother began the project last year, when Jonah had taken sick. From the beginning, Kugel had begged Mother not to editorialize; Mother insisted it was just adding context, making history come alive. Kugel appreciated that she wanted to leave his child something, but there was, he insisted, a better story, a truer story: her story. Mother’s story. A story of moving on, he said, of a woman left alone and raising, against the odds, a pair of semi-normal, occasionally functioning children with only mild sexual dysfunctions.

  He should know about his past, Mother said.

  You are his past, said Kugel.

  Mother shook her head.

  I had it easy, she said. If all you teach a boy about hurricanes is what it’s like in the eye of the storm, he’ll never know what to do when the wind tears the roof from overhead and the rain destroys all that he owns.

  Kugel stared at her for a moment.

  What the hell are you talking about? he asked.

  I’m talking about life, said Mother.

  You’re talking about death, said Kugel.

  What’s the difference? asked Mother.

  Reason rarely worked with Mother, so Kugel had appealed, as he often did, to her emotions. As destructive as her way of showing it may have been, Kugel believed she loved Jonah deeply, and genuinely cared, first and foremost, for his well-being.

  You’re going to scare him, Kugel said, looking deep into her eyes.

  Somebody has to, Mother replied.

  Hannah went to Mother and began helping her collect the loose photos from the attic floor. It was then that Kugel spotted, through a gap between the boxes on the wall behind Hannah, the cloudy yellow eye of Anne Frank.

  We should get dinner going, said Kugel.

  Mother sighed loudly and shook her head at the clipping in her hand; it was of the now-iconic photo of male prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp, crammed on top of one another on the stacked wooden planks that passed there for something like beds.

  Your cousin Alex, she said.

  For as long as Kugel could remember, Mother had kept a large print of this photo on the wall of their old living room in the city; every so often, she would point to one of the prisoners—the young one, using his metal food bowl for a pillow, or the one on the bottom bunk, the one with those terrible sunken raccoon eyes—shake her head, and say, poor Cousin Alex. Or, Oh, dear Uncle Morris. Or, How I miss your grandpa Solomon—you were named for him, Sol.

  Kugel glanced at Anne Frank.

  We really ought to get dinner started, he said.

  Kugel remembered the photo, was haunted by it, less for his supposed family members and more for one of the prisoners, the naked one standing at the far right of the frame. He was emaciated, pale shrunken skin pulled tight over weary twisted bones, holding a cloth of some kind over himself in some final instinct of modesty and self-respect. And, somehow, he was smiling. Kugel was sure of it, ever since Mother first showed it to him; it wasn’t a broad smile, more of a grin, a Mona Lisa thing, but a smile nonetheless.

  Why is that man smiling? he had once asked Mother.

  He’s not smiling, she said with disgust.

  But he was smiling, there was no question about it. Even now, as Kugel went to help Mother up, he looked at the photo and saw him, still naked, still emaciated, still smiling. Why, Kugel wondered anew, was he smiling? What was so funny? And, more important, most important: how? How can one smile in that world of misery and death? And why, for that matter, did he still play along with this game of Mother’s? Why didn’t he ever just call her on it, make her at last admit the unhorrible truth: that life, tragically, hadn’t been so bad? That, relatively speaking, they had been, unfortunately, fortunate?

  Let’s go, Mother, he said. We should get dinner going.

  Sons of bitches, said Mother.

  It’s okay, said Kugel.

  Kugel helped Mother up, and she protested—There isn’t much time, she said—until Kugel promised to bring the photo boxes downstairs later so that she could continue her work in her bedroom. Kugel was most concerned that Jonah not discover what Mother had been putting together, and her bedroom was the safest place for that (Jonah had not set foot in there since she moved in).

  Hannah, meanwhile, was kneeling beside the box of photos, holding a small black-and-white photograph in her hand, cupping it like a broken bird. She shook her head and sighed. It was a photo of Father.

  That son of a bitch, she said, hatred hardening her voice. A wife, a home, two beautiful children. What kind of a coward kills himself?

  Kills himself? asked Kugel. Turning to Mother, he said, You told me he disappeared. You told me he was murdered.

  What’s the difference? Mother asked.

  What’s the difference? Kugel asked.

  What’s the difference? Hannah snapped, coming to Mother’s defense. Everything happens for a reason, so what’s the difference?

  Then why are you so pissed off at him? Kugel asked.

  At who?

  At Father.

  Just because there’s a reason for what he did, said Hannah, tossing the photo to the floor, doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed off. And just because I’m pissed off doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason. There is a reason for everything.

  There’s absolutely no reason to believe that, said Kugel.

  It was a common belief—reasonism, Kugel called it. They were a volatile bunch, the reasonists; all Christians, for example, are reasonists, but not all reasonists are Christian. Hannah was more of a general reasonist, not getting too specific about what the reason might be but certain above all that there was one—and it wouldn’t irritate Kugel as much as it did if she were more honest, if she acknowledged, however briefly, that if there was indeed a reason for everything, it was as likely to be a bad reason as it was a
good reason. But for reasonists, the reason was always positive: to teach us X, or so that we learn Y, to bring us closer to Z. The reason was never because life’s a bummer, or because whoever or whatever the Reason for Everything is, it finds our misery kind of funny.

  Hannah’s face had grown red with anger, and a family feud was only narrowly averted when, just then, the tenant appeared at the top of the attic stairs.

  No space, Mr. Kugel? said the tenant, looking around the attic. It certainly seems to me you have plenty of space.

  We’ve just been tidying up, said Kugel.

  Very good, said the tenant. So then at last I can bring my belongings up?

  Yes, said Kugel, of course. Let me just figure out a reasonable time . . .

  Reasonable time? the tenant asked. What’s wrong with right now?

  It’s late, said Kugel. My son will be going to bed soon, and I’m concerned the noise overhead will keep him up.

  I truly hope we won’t have to settle this in court, Mr. Kugel, said the tenant.

  Big talker, said Mother.

  Pardon me? said the tenant.

  Do you really think, Mother said to Hannah, he’d be opening his fresh mouth like that if Alan Dershowitz was here?

  Mother, said Kugel, guiding her to the stairs. Let’s just go downstairs.

  You left your grocery bag, said Hannah.

  I’ll get it later, said Kugel.

  Mother wagged a finger at the tenant.

  He’d wipe the floor with you, she said, that’s what he’d do. One little phone call, one little letter from Alan Dershowitz, and you’d run away with your tail between your legs.

  Let’s go, Mother, said Kugel.

  Yes, sir, Mother continued, even though the tenant had already gone. If Alan Dershowitz was here, young man, you’d be shaking in your boots.

  13.

  MOTHER WENT TO BED EARLY; this was fortunate, because all through dinner, the tapping on the vents never ceased. At times it sounded to Kugel as if Anne Frank were using her arthritic, gnarled knuckles to rap on the metal register; at times it sounded as if she were using her talonlike fingernails; at times something metal—a spoon or a knife.

  Tap, tap-tap.

  No, he thought.

  Tap. Tap-tap.

  No.

  Go fuck yourself.

  He refused to respond to her, to encourage her.

  Six million he kills, thought Kugel, and this one gets away.

  I shouldn’t have thought that, he thought.

  At least I didn’t say it.

  But you thought it.

  That’s not as bad.

  It’s bad, though.

  I just wish she’d shut up. I just wish she’d go away.

  It was exhausting. Whenever the tapping began, Kugel did something to try and mask it—clanking his dinnerware, shuffling his chair on the floor, coughing.

  Are you okay? Bree asked.

  Wrong pipe, Kugel said, clapping his chest.

  Bree probably hadn’t heard the tapping anyway, thought Kugel, rapt as her attention was in the discussion she was having with Hannah about Brooklyn.

  Bree loved talking about Brooklyn. When Mother moved in with them, Hannah and Pinkus had taken over her old apartment in Williamsburg, and Bree couldn’t hear enough about it.

  Bree had always wanted to be a writer, and though she had been writing for a while now, and applying herself with fierce determination to learning her chosen craft, she had yet to find success in the publishing world. In her darkest moments of frustration, when she swore she would never write again and swore a moment later that she could never do anything else, Kugel tried to convince her that her writing was improving, deepening, and that was all that mattered. Everyone, though, needs some external acknowledgment, and Bree was no different. She began to have regrets, doubts. She wondered if she should have gone to a different university, if she should have taken more workshops, if she should have read more books. And she wondered, lately, if she should be living in Brooklyn.

  You know who I saw the other day? Hannah said to Bree, and, not waiting for an answer, continued: Philip Roth.

  Brooklyn seemed to be the center of the literary world of late, and Bree couldn’t help wondering if living in a more artistic, urbane location would prove helpful to her career, would inspire her. What would Joyce have been without Dublin, Miller without Paris, Kafka without Prague?

  Really? said Bree. Does he live in Brooklyn?

  Of course, said Hannah. Philip Roth?

  Tap, tap-tap.

  I thought he was dead, said Bree.

  Tap, tap-tap.

  Kugel stood, went to the sideboard, and turned on the stereo.

  Maybe it was that other guy, then, said Hannah. What’s his name?

  Can you lower that? Bree asked Kugel.

  Sorry, said Kugel.

  What is that, anyway? she asked.

  Wagner, said Kugel.

  It’s depressing, said Bree.

  Kugel shut off the music.

  Tap, tap-tap.

  He ran the sink.

  He flushed the toilet.

  Bree said, What’s with you? Sit down and eat already.

  Kugel said, I’m not hungry.

  Later that evening, as Bree lay beside him in bed with her head on his chest, pressing her warm body against his, Kugel stared up at the ceiling and wondered what Anne might have needed. The tapping had stopped some time ago. Was she dead? She had her bread, she had her vitamins. Water? Had he given her water?

  Bree ran her hand over Kugel’s arm and looked up at him.

  I’m worried about you, she said.

  He hadn’t been sleeping well for some time, she pointed out, and now he wasn’t eating.

  Are you really that worried, she asked, about some stupid arsonist?

  Kugel shrugged.

  He hated keeping things from her, hated the bottomless chasm even the smallest lie created between them.

  Oh, who cares, said Bree with a smile, sliding her leg over his and snuggling tightly to him. Let him burn it down; the insurance is worth more than the house anyway.

  She looked up at him.

  We’ll go to Brooklyn, she said with a grin.

  Kugel kissed her and smiled. He assured her that nothing was wrong, that it was just the stress of the move. Bree ran her fingers gently through his hair, told him that the storm was over, that they could just settle in now and enjoy life. She lightly traced her fingertips over his lips.

  The tapping on the vents began again.

  Tap, tap-tap.

  Bree kissed his cheek, his chin, his mouth.

  Kugel turned his head from her; she kissed his neck, and he stared at the heating vent in the floor.

  I can’t, he said.

  Tap, tap-tap.

  Bree ran her hand over his chest and whispered in his ear, Of course you can. It’s been so long.

  I know.

  What’s wrong?

  I just can’t.

  Why?

  There’s just . . .

  He shook his head again.

  There’s just too many damn people in this house, he said.

  Bree pressed herself up and looked at him.

  It’s your mother, isn’t it? she said.

  Kugel sighed; he knew that this had been coming for a while. They’d never really discussed Mother’s moving in, or the effect it was having on them. Bree’s anger, he knew, had been building for a while.

  Bree stood and angrily pulled on her robe—tap, tap-tap—tying it tightly around herself as she went on a furious tirade against Kugel’s mother, and against Kugel himself, leveling the same accusations at him as she had when he had first told her that Mother was to move in: that he cared only for his mother, that he was a momma’s boy, that he was Abrahamically sacrificing the Isaac of their future on the altar of his miserable past. That she was getting tired of this. That there was just so much she could take.

  Kugel, meanwhile, had dropped to his knees on the fl
oor, and was busily covering the vent with as many pillows and quilts as he could gather, piling them into a small mound above it.

  What in God’s name are you doing? Bree asked.

  She can hear us, whispered Kugel as he worked.

  Perfect, said Bree. That’s just perfect. I’m yelling at you for only caring about your mother, and you’re covering the heating vents so she won’t hear me. That’s perfect, Sol.

  He stopped, sat back on his heels, and looked up at her.

  It’s not Mother, he whispered.

  Who is it, then? Bree asked. Jonah? He knows more than you think.

  Kugel stood and ran a hand through his hair. It was time.

  It’s . . . someone else, he said as he got to his feet.

  Someone else, asked Bree, crossing her arms. What are you talking about? You’re fucking someone else, is that what you’re trying to tell me?

  Kugel pulled the chair away from his desk and sat down, his head heavy in his hands. He rubbed his face and looked up.

  It’s Anne Frank, he said.

  Bree stared at him for a moment, hands on her hips.

  You’re fucking Anne Frank? Bree asked. Isn’t she a little young for you, Sol?

  Last night, he began. I heard something.

  He told her everything. That she was up there, that she was old, grotesquely so, and that she claimed to be Anne Frank. That Wilbur Junior seemed to think that was who she actually was. Bree stared at him, now dumbfounded, now incredulous, but Kugel felt better already. Why hadn’t he told her right away? It was as Professor Jove always said—hoping he could protect her, he had only succeeded in hurting her, lying to her, when all she ever gave him was support and encouragement.

  Tap, tap-tap.

  Goddamn it, said Kugel. That’s her.

  He kicked the pillows aside and threw himself onto the floor.

  Shut up, he shouted into the vent. Shut the fuck up!

  Bree stepped backward, a hand over her mouth.

  You’re mad, she whispered in horror. It’s the move, the money, the stress . . . You need help, Sol, we’ll get you help . . .