I suffered, Bree maintained. I’m not a sufferer.
Kugel wasn’t sure he understood the distinction.
The tenant appeared in the doorway. Kugel was not in the mood for him. He didn’t want to hear about the damned attic. There were dead chipmunks all over the road. Did this jackass even know that? Did he even give a damn about the poor dead optimistic chipmunks?
The tenant did not enter, remaining instead in the doorway, arms folded across his chest.
This house, Mr. Kugel, said the tenant, smells like shit.
Kugel felt a searing rage grow in his heart, a rage he could feel throughout his entire body, in his fingers, in his toes. Maybe the rage was due to lack of sleep, maybe it was all of it—Anne and Mother, Bree and Eve, bicycles and chipmunks, the past and the present—but he was suddenly certain that his situation would not have become as dire as it was—indeed, there would be no difficulties at all—were it not for the damned tenant; were it not for his damned complaining, his damned insolence, his damned arrogance; were it not for his damned covetousness, duplicity, and selfishness, would this situation ever have gotten so out of hand or seemed so insoluble?
I shouldn’t be surprised, the tenant continued, unaware of the hatred building within the man before him, that it smells like piss. It smelled like piss when I first got here. But the smell of shit, Mr. Kugel, that is not . . .
Kugel stood suddenly, knocking his chair over backward and pointing an angry finger at the tenant.
Get out! he roared.
The tenant stepped back.
Get out, Kugel continued loudly, stepping toward him, or shut the hell up. Stop threatening me, stop complaining to me, stop it all, or so help me God, I’ll throw you out on your ass.
The blood was pounding in Kugel’s ears; if it came to blows, he thought, he might kill the son of a bitch.
Solomon! said Bree.
Jonah began to scream.
The tenant turned on his heel and left.
Bree lifted Jonah into her arms and now it was Kugel’s turn to have an angry finger thrust in his face.
You better make sure he doesn’t leave, Bree hissed. And then, pointing to the ceiling, she added, And you better make sure she does.
She grabbed Jonah’s lunch bag from the kitchen counter and stormed from the kitchen.
Bree, said Kugel, as he followed her.
She stopped when she reached the front door and glared at him.
And if your mother doesn’t drop d-e-a-d soon, she said, I’m going to k-i-l-l her myself.
She slammed the door behind her.
Kugel stood with his hands on his hips, his head lowered. The silence that rushed in after them, at least, soothed him.
Tap.
Kugel closed his eyes.
Tap-tap.
Don’t tap on the vents, said Kugel aloud.
TAP.
TAP-TAP.
Don’t tap on the vents, he said again, louder this time. He threw himself to the floor and shouted into the vent, tears of anger and frustration clouding his eyes.
Don’t tap on the vents! Don’t tap on the vents! Get out of my house, would you? We all have our problems! You’re not special! You’re average, you’re ordinary—do you know that? You’re fucking boring, you’re a quitter, your troubles are over, you have the damned attic, stop complaining. I’m down here, trying to live, trying to deal with the real world, while you’re hiding, bitching, fucking everyone’s shit up but your own, so shut up, just shut the fuck up. Thirty-two million copies, thirty-two million copies, that’s what you got for your pain. What do I get for mine? What does anyone get for theirs? Nothing, not a fucking thing, they get another goddamned day of it and another goddamned day of it after that, so just shut up, will you? Will you just shut up?
Kugel heard the back door open. A moment later, Mother appeared.
The corn is coming in so nicely, she said. And avocado—who knew? I always knew I had a green thumb. But who can tend a garden when you’re always running, always fleeing, always being chased? Feh. There’s no end, no end. They won’t give us a moment’s peace.
She sighed heavily.
Why are you on the floor? she asked. Who are you talking to?
TAP.
What’s that noise? Mother asked.
TAP-TAP.
And that was when Kugel—on the floor, on his hands and knees, shouting into a foul-smelling vent, bowed like that before his mother, standing in front of him, gloating over an armful of vegetables she never planted—realized the solution to his Anne Frank problem.
She was standing right in front of him.
He’d considered it before—Mother always had to be the biggest sufferer in the room—but now he was sure of it. There he was, tears running down his cheeks, and she’s talking about being chased from her garden.
Mother, said Kugel, getting slowly back to his feet, there’s something I have to tell you.
She wouldn’t suffer another sufferer in the house for one moment, particularly one who had the numbers to prove it. There was no way.
He led her to the couch in the living room and sat down beside her.
Who died? she asked.
Nobody died, said Kugel. I don’t want you to be frightened, okay, but the other night, I discovered someone—an old woman, far older than you—hiding in our attic.
Mother gasped.
In our attic?
Kugel nodded. There was a loud crash from above.
That’s her now, said Kugel.
You’re putting me on, said Mother.
Kugel shook his head.
And there’s something else you should know.
Kugel watched her face closely as he said the next words: She’s a survivor, Mother.
Mother frowned and stiffened, crossing her arms over her chest.
Bingo.
A survivor? said Mother. Please. Of what?
A Holocaust survivor, Mother. She has numbers. And she says—and here’s where I need your help, Mother—she says she’s Anne Frank.
Oh, for goodness’ sake, said Mother. Is this some kind of a joke?
Kugel slowly shook his head. He explained that he had tried to find out for certain if she was who she claimed, that he had made certain calls, certain inquiries, but it wasn’t easy, and she did look like Anne Frank, and her story did seem to contain a certain degree of plausibility.
Did you call the police? asked Mother.
No.
Did you call the Simon Wiesenthal Center?
I did.
And?
TAP, TAP-TAP. TAP, TAP-TAP.
Kugel glanced down at the vent.
She’s calling me, said Kugel.
How?
She’s tapping on the vents.
Why is she tapping on the vents?
She’s a little high maintenance, said Kugel. Come, let’s go up.
Now?
Mother was frightened, but Kugel assured her as they headed upstairs that it would be okay, and that if she was really uncomfortable—well, this was her house too, and she should feel free to tell the old lady to leave, to just get the hell out, to find another attic somewhere else. He added that, due to her own time in the war, she was certainly better qualified than he to know if the woman was lying or not, not just about being Anne Frank but about having been in the war at all. If, Kugel assured Mother, she decided the old lady was a fraud, and that she needed to go immediately, well, then, he would act on her wishes. This was, after all, her house, too.
Kugel pulled down the attic door, and unfolded the stairs.
I’m frightened, said Mother.
There’s nothing to be frightened of, Mother, she’s quite old. She couldn’t hurt a fly.
Kugel called up the stairs for Anne to come down.
Anne? he called. Anne, are you there?
Nothing.
She sleeps during the day, he said to Mother.
This is absurd, said Mother.
He waited another moment.
Anne, he called, it’s me. I heard you tapping. I thought I’d come see if you needed anything.
He smiled at Mother and winked as he made the “She’s crazy” sign with his finger, twirling it at the side of his head.
It’s all right, Anne, he called again. I’d like you to meet my mother, I’ve told her all about you. She loved your book.
There was still no reply, and Mother asked Kugel if he was pulling her leg, if maybe the move had been too much for him. Just then, they heard a loud crash as a storage box fell on the attic floor above; Mother jumped and grabbed at Kugel’s arm.
It’s okay, said Kugel.
Overhead, something began shuffling, sort of dragging its way to the stairs, and at last the hideous old woman peered over the edge.
Mother gasped.
Oh, dear God in heaven, she said.
So far, so good, thought Kugel. In the daylight, he knew, she was even more repulsive than she was cowering in the darkened attic eaves. Kugel could hear Mother’s breath catch in her throat.
Anne Frank, said Kugel, this is my mother. Mother, this is Anne Frank.
Mother held her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide open. Anne Frank, leaning on one hand, held up the half-eaten loaf of Ezekiel bread in the other.
What the hell, said Anne Frank, do you call this?
Ezekiel bread, said Kugel.
Did I ask for Ezekiel bread? she suddenly shouted. Did I?
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 cou
ch, 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.
Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel Page 13
