Hope: A Tragedy (15 page)

How’s our friend doing?

Kugel shrugged.

She’s a little high maintenance.

You give her my best now, said Will.

Kugel promised that he would. Will walked to the kitchen, passing by his father without so much as a word. Senior watched him go.

Yep, said Senior, picking up his whiskey glass. Could do with a few rewrites myself.

17.

CAN I HELP YOU? asked the young woman at the bookstore help counter.

I’m looking for
The Diary of Anne Frank
, said Kugel.

The . . . Diary . . . of . . . Anne . . . Frank
, she said as she typed the title into the computer. I haven’t read that, she added. I should.

Mmm.

I saw the movie, though, she said. That was great.

Kugel nodded.

Which movie was that? he asked.

Oh, you know, said the young woman. The one with what’s her name? I can’t remember the actress’s name . . . you know, her teacher, and she teaches her sign language at the end?

That’s Helen Keller.

She snapped her fingers.

Yes, she said, yes, that’s right. Helen Keller. What a story, huh? So, you know . . . just, wow.

Inspiring.

Yes. Very inspiring. She dies, right?

That’s Anne Frank.

Okay, good, she said cheerfully, so I wasn’t totally off. Here we go, it’s in the memoir section. I’ll take you there.

He hadn’t intended to buy the diary; after speaking with Senior, though, Kugel began to think his best option for getting rid of Anne Frank might just be to help her finish her book; he didn’t want to say it to her directly, but maybe a novel was not the same as a diary; maybe she needed some help. He picked out a handful of writing books for her—The Guide to This, the Handbook for Whatever—and then decided to get a book or two about the Holocaust.

We have one, said the young woman at the help counter, squinting as if in pain at the word on the computer monitor.
Butcherworld: A History
.

Buchenwald, said Kugel.

He wondered if Anne Frank was hungry.

And one, she said, on Austerlitz.

Auschwitz, said Kugel.

He wondered if she needed more printer paper.

That was when he asked about the diary.

Kugel paid for the books and left (the Holocaust books, he couldn’t help noticing, were twenty percent off), and stopped on his way home at Vince’s, the local hardware store.

My cat, Kugel said to Vince, peed in the heating vent.

Get rid of the cat, said Vince.

I’m working on it.

Once a cat starts peeing in a vent, likely as not she’s going to keep peeing in it.

I’m working on it.

Vince recommended scrubbing the vents and ducts with a mixture of water and vinegar and then sealing the damned thing up.

Better yet, said Vince, get rid of that damned cat.

I’m working on it.

Kugel purchased a plastic bucket, a wire brush, and a box of latex gloves, and spent the rest of the day cleaning up from a cat that didn’t exist and a mother that did, who was suffering post-traumatic effects from a genocide that happened, but not to her. Afterward, he went out back to the small gardening shed at the edge of the woods, where he found an old wooden-handled hammer and a rectangular scrap of pine board, which he nailed over the heating vent in Mother’s bedroom floor. He drove the nails through the board, crushing the wood fibers with the end of his hammer, sealing it like the lid of a coffin. He didn’t feel bad for the wood. He didn’t feel bad for the nails. Problem solved. That was the old Kugel. Large and occasionally in charge.

He liked this hammer.

He liked this hammer a lot.

A fourth farmhouse burned that night.

It was near midnight, and Kugel had been telling Bree about his conversation earlier that day with Senior. He told her that Senior believed the woman really was Anne Frank, that she had been in his attic for over forty years.

Has everyone in this town, said Bree, lost their mind? What are we doing here?

That was when the firehouse alarm rang.

Kugel stood by the open bedroom window, listening to the long, mournful wail of the siren, rising and falling slowly in the night air. He was certain he could smell smoke, but it may have been just a neighbor’s woodstove. He pitied the wood. He hoped the wood’s children would remember him. He shivered and closed the window.

He said we’ll forget she’s there.

You actually sound like you agree with him.

It’s some food and water, Bree, it’s no big deal. She’ll be done soon. We won’t know she’s there.

No, we won’t, said Bree. Because she’s leaving.

At least, Bree argued, Kugel’s mother had given birth to him—Bree could understand why he’d feel some responsibility to house her, care for her. But what had this woman in the attic done that Kugel should feel such a responsibility to her, a responsibility even greater than the one he felt to his family?

Tell me, she said, I just want to know. Okay, so she’s Anne Frank. Let’s say she is. What has she done, Sol? She hid? She wrote a diary? She got caught? I could almost understand, almost, if it was Miep Gies hiding up there. She was a hero, she risked her life for another, she did something.

Keep your voice down, said Kugel.

She could be crazy, said Bree. She could be violent. Look at yourself—one eye half-swollen shut, a gash across your forehead. How much do you have to suffer before you can be done with this? She could be sick, Sol, she could be diseased. Your child is in this house, your family, your future. What are you trying to fix? What are you atoning for? What she went through? Or what you didn’t? Could another Holocaust survivor throw her out, would that be okay? Could we have Elie Wiesel come by and throw her out? Maybe he has a sideline business, something to supplement his income.

In the distance, Kugel could hear the fire engine sirens beginning to scream.

If Bree couldn’t understand Kugel, Kugel couldn’t understand her, either. So Anne Frank stays in your attic for a while, so what? So you toss her a bit of matzoh and you put up with her annoying writer bullshit now and then, so what? When she’s gone, when she’s finished her book or dropped dead trying, they can all go up there, toss her shit away, lock the attic door behind them, and live happily ever after. A Nazi’s son took care of her for ten years; a Jew is going to throw her out after forty-eight hours?

He turned from the window to face her.

Did you even read the book? he asked her.

What book?

The diary.

No, she said. I didn’t. Did you?

No, said Kugel, I didn’t. But I know the story.

Everyone knows the story, so what?

So it’s tragic.

No, she said, it’s not. It
was
tragic. We
thought
it was tragic. But she lived, right? She’s upstairs in our attic, Kugel, that’s what Will said, that’s what Senior said. It’s a happy fucking ending.

That doesn’t make it any less tragic.

Dying is always more tragic than surviving, said Bree. Just listen to your mother on that one.

Kugel was discovering something about Bree that he had never known, and it worried him; he wondered if this whole incident had revealed an unbridgeable gap between them: how could she think that dying was always more tragic than living? Kugel was a firm believer that death was not always a bad thing—that life often reached such levels of crapitude that dying was preferable to living. Maybe that was why Smiling Man was smiling? Maybe he realized it would soon be over. Maybe he wasn’t happy—maybe he was
relieved
. Maybe the rest of them, looking on in misery, were still holding on to the idea—Bree’s idea—that any life is better than death, which, given their situation, was tremendously bad news. Maybe Smiling Man—emaciated, diseased, his loved ones murdered, his earth a hell—maybe he knew it was almost over, and maybe he was glad.

Fuck all of you motherfuckers.

Toodle-oo.

Surviving? said Kugel. She’s been living like a rat in attic after attic for the past seventy years. That’s much more tragic than if she had been murdered.

How can life be more tragic than death? asked Bree.

You can spend it in an attic, said Kugel.

Do you really think, said Bree, her voice rising, that anyone would have read that fucking book if she had survived?

Keep your voice down, snapped Kugel. He imagined Anne Frank upstairs, her ear to the vent, listening to them, listening to Bree, hearing those words. They would cut her to the bone.

Of course they would have, he said loudly for Anne Frank’s benefit. It was a terrific book, heartfelt and beautifully written.

Because she
died
, said Bree. There are a dozen other books by survivors—a dozen dozen—and nobody reads them. You know why? They’re by
survivors
. People read Anne Frank because Anne Frank died.

What’s your point, Bree?

My point is that death is more tragic than life, than any life, because every life has hope of some kind. She’s alive, Kugel—and she needs to go.

Kugel covered the vents with their bed pillows.

Jesus Christ, said Bree.

Imagine, Kugel said in an angry whisper, just imagine, that you heard that a black man found Martin Luther King Junior in his basement, alive, and kicked him out. What would you think of him?

You need help.

He got shot, sure, but they dragged him away, patched him up. But it fucked him up, messed up his head—he couldn’t go out there anymore, so he decided, Bree, to let the world think he
had
been assassinated, that sometimes it’s easier to live on this planet if everyone thinks you’re dead. And we’re sitting in the living room one night, you and me, watching TV, and the story comes on that MLK isn’t dead: some guy found him hiding in his basement. A black man. And he threw him out. A black man, a son of slaves, threw Martin Luther King Junior out on his ass. What would you think, Bree? You’d look at me and shake your head and say, What a piece of shit. And you’d be right.

Is that what this is about? asked Bree. What other people think? When does what your family thinks start to matter?

It’s about what’s right.

So you’re going to tell Jonah? Who she is, what a Nazi is, what happened, why she’s here?

No.

So you’re going to lie to him. Is that what’s right?

Kugel’s head throbbed. He hated arguing with Bree, they almost never did. It was one of the cornerstones of their relationship that no matter what they were discussing, they remained rational, calm, able to compromise.

I’ll tell him she’s his Aunt Frank, said Kugel.

The hell you will, said Bree.

And this she added with a quiet, chilling calm:

You want to live with Anne Frank over your head, be my guest. But I’ll be damned if my son will.

And Bree slept that night on the floor of Jonah’s bedroom.

18.

KUGEL RETURNED to his office the following morning, trying to return some measure of normalcy to his life, but he was preoccupied, tired, and nervous, and he remained that way over the course of the day. He was uninvolved in meetings, and when asked his opinion on some matter or the other, could not recall what subject they had been discussing. He phoned home often, every hour or so, hanging up if Bree answered (though relieved to know that the house hadn’t been burned to the ground), and if Mother answered, asking how Anne was doing.

She’s sleeping, Mother would say.

Are you sure?

Should I check?

No, no, you’ll wake her.

I think she’s okay. Do you think she’s okay?

She’s probably fine.

Should I check?

Can you hear anything?

Hold on . . . No.

Maybe you should check.

The effect of the recent economic downturn upon EnviroSolutions had been severe; they had lost revenue, market share; in response, they expanded their product offerings to include environmentally friendly, eco-conscious office furniture. The pressure to bring in sales was intense.

Kugel had been out a while, and he had some lost time to make up for. He phoned his client, Mr. Thomason, the superintendent of the largest local school, whom Kugel had, some time ago, signed on as one of EnviroSolutions’ biggest recycling clients. It was a contract that caused the whole company to celebrate, and Kugel was heralded as a hero, but the reality was that he’d just gotten lucky; under pressure from environmental groups, the state and local government had begun offering financial incentives to any organization that instituted a comprehensive recycling plan, and Mr. Thomason had negotiated such a low-cost contract with Kugel that he was actually making money off the new plan, and pocketing the extra incentive fees for himself. But nobody was offering incentives on eco-friendly furniture, and Mr. Thomason had already turned down two other EnviroSolutions salesmen in the past week alone.

Hello, Mr. Thomason, Kugel said into the phone, Solomon Kugel here from EnviroSolutions. Did you know that your students’ chairs might be affecting their minds? Off-gassing from plastic seating has been . . . Yes, of course, I understand. Yes. Of course, yes, but for only a few dollars per unit, your students could be sitting on eco-friendly bamboo chairs that save their minds and save the planet.

Kugel sighed and rubbed his eyes with the fingertips of his free hand.

That’s probably overstating it, to be honest, he added. Wouldn’t that be great, though, Mr. Thomason, if some chairs could save the planet? If chairs could save the planet, I’d be the happiest motherfucker alive, let me tell you. We have hemp office chairs, Mr. Thomason, made of sustainable something or other. Can I interest you in hemp office furniture, Mr. Thomason? When the oceans rise and drown us, at least you can smoke the goddamn things. But the oceans won’t rise, Mr. Thomason, I don’t want to worry you about that; God Himself promised, after the whole Noah thing, he promised he wouldn’t drown us, and, fuck, Mr. Thomason, if you can’t trust God, well, we’re all fucked. You know who wanted to save the earth? Hitler. Mr. Thomason? Hello?

The line had gone dead a while ago, but Kugel soldiered on.

Perhaps I can interest you, he continued, in some handmade recycled cardboard office partitions? Handmade by, well . . . by hands, I suppose. That’s better than partitions not made by hands, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Thomason? We all have hands, you know. We all have hands and we have feet and we have heads. Did you know that repurposed printer tables are a great way to save . . . something? To protect the whatever? The sun? Have you thought about the sun, Mr. Thomason? Have you?

He was beginning to shout.

Have you ever thought about the sun, Mr. Thomason? Think about the sun, man, just once, for God’s sake, think about the sun!

If you’d like to make a call, said the phone, please hang up and try again.

Kugel hung up, and after a moment phoned home.

Is she okay? he asked.

I think so, said Mother. She’s hungry.

She said that?

No, but I think she is.

It should be there soon.

How soon?

Soon.

Okay.

Let me know when it gets there.

Okay.

Okay.

Last night, he had gone online and ordered Anne Frank a twelve-pack of Streit’s matzoh (
4 stars—Light and crispy! Great packaging!
), and he went back online now and ordered her a jar of thick-cut herring (
3 stars
) and a six-pack of Gold’s Russian borscht (
no reviews
).

A salesman named Neil stuck his head into Kugel’s office.

You okay? he asked. I heard some shouting.

Customers, said Kugel. Can’t see the big picture.

Nasty shiner, said Neil.

In this difficult financial atmosphere, supervisors brought quick attention to the slightest of their employees’ failings and mistakes, and coworkers privately made it known to those same superiors that, in regard to Employee X or Y, they were in complete agreement with their superior’s judgment and shared his or her concerns. Kugel didn’t blame them; he understood and accepted the nature of business, and what it meant for the way others behaved. That’s business, said Kugel, suggesting that people were less treacherous and self-serving in everyday life. This concerned Professor Jove, who insisted that the regular world was no different from the business world, and attempted to get Kugel to see it that way, too.

What do you call five lawyers in quicksand? asked Professor Jove.

Kugel shrugged.

Fucked, replied Professor Jove. And if one has to step on another’s head to get himself out, that’s what he’ll do.

Because he’s a lawyer?

Because he’s a human being. Survival has its own morality, Kugel. Only a fool would expect someone drowning in quicksand to behave any differently. And, brother, we’re all in quicksand. Up to our eyeballs, from the moment we’re born. And do you know how to get out of quicksand?

Is this a joke?

No.

I don’t know, said Kugel. How do you get out of quicksand?

There are two ways. The first one never works.

What’s the first one?

You wait for someone to save you. You rely on the kindness of strangers.

What’s the second way?

You save yourself. You step on something. Living or dead, you step on it and get the fuck out.

Ten years earlier, Kugel had been at a sales conference in Los Angeles when a perfect series of perfect storms left flights across the nation canceled and airports closed. It was a few days before Christmas, and even once the storms had passed and travel was restored, the backups and delays meant many would be stranded away from home over the holidays. The company, though, decided to charter a small plane from Los Angeles to New York, reserved for just those employees with family back east—wives, husbands, children. It was a tremendous show of corporate sensitivity at a time of terrible uncertainty. As soon as word of the chartered plane got out, though, senior executives, similarly stranded in Los Angeles, began to complain: Why should I have to stay here? one asked. Why does that nobody get to go home before me? asked another. And so the higher-ups soon began using their rank and seniority to force their way onto the plane, until one by one all the mothers and fathers of lower rank were bumped off, and all that remained on the flight were senior executives and their personal assistants.

You step on something.

You get the fuck out.

According to John, author of the Gospel by the same name, Jesus, dying on the cross, said this: It is finished.

Was he referring to his life? Or, supposed Kugel, to mankind, to humanity, to the species that could do such a thing to one of its own? You never see a lion crucifying another lion. You never see a bear just randomly murdering salmon for anything besides food; bears don’t form armies, invade rivers, tear the heads off male salmon, rape the female salmon, and enslave their salmon children.

It is finished, to Kugel, sounded a hell of a lot like Fuck all of you motherfuckers.

Kugel wondered if Miep Gies would have done what she had if she’d had children of her own. Would anyone blame her if she didn’t? Maybe, on the contrary, they would have thought her irresponsible if she had?

At lunch that day Kugel asked Neil: Would you hide me?

Hide you?

Hide me. And my family. Wife and a child. He’s three. Maybe a dog.

What are you talking about?

If something happened.

If what happened?

Whatever.

Whatever?

Whatever.

You’re freaking me out, Kugel. People are starting to talk.

Would you hide us? That’s all I’m asking.

Where?

In your attic.

I have a lot of shit up there, Kugel.

But would you? If we had to hide?

From who?

Whoever.

Whoever?

What’s the difference?

What’s the difference?

What’s the difference? Would you hide us or not?

I have a lot of shit up there, Kugel.

Is that a no?

Are you okay, Kugel? That’s a nasty bump on your head.

Of the seven people in his office Kugel asked that day if they would let him and his family hide in their attic, three said they had a lot of shit up there, one said he would love to but was allergic to dogs, one said he didn’t have an attic but Kugel could stay in his garden shed (on condition that, if discovered, Kugel would back up his claim of ignorance), and one said he could probably stay in his attic, but he didn’t want to commit to anything at the moment and Kugel should ask again when the time came.

He left work early, complaining of a headache. As he was driving home, he received an e-mail from his supervisor:

Your performance of late has been subpar.

A last line?

A tombstone:

SOLOMON KUGEL

His performance, of late,

had been subpar.

Born, unfortunately. Died eventually.

As Kugel pulled into his driveway that evening, the UPS man was there, delivering packages.

Kugel knew all too well that this would be a terrible time to lose his job. Nobody was hiring, Mother wasn’t paying rent, and their only tenant was threatening to leave, if he wasn’t already out looking for a new apartment.

The twelve-pack of matzoh cost $64.95, and would last Anne Frank about three days. The borscht cost $74.95. A nine-cubic-foot mini-fridge cost $265.43.

Kugel wondered if in these days of the Internet you would even need a Miep Gies anymore, if you could make it through a genocide these days with just a smartphone and a credit card, and he was hopeful that in the event of another Holocaust, he would have some sort of broadband Internet access. Still, somebody would have to sign for the packages and bring them up to the attic, so he was back to square one. Also, they would probably be tracking Amazon orders, or at least UPS deliveries, so he’d probably have to have the packages delivered to an alternate address and brought to him by Miep (assuming Amazon even took orders from Jews once the shit started going down, which they probably wouldn’t).

Bree looked at the UPS packages piled up on the front porch and shook her head in disgust.

The house was beginning to smell again.

Kugel phoned Professor Jove.

Jove wasn’t in.

Kugel left a message.