David Gillham - Annelies

Also by David R. Gillham

City of Women

VIKING

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Copyright 2019 by David Gillham

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Excerpts from The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty. Translation copyright 1995 by Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Title page photograph: ilolab/shutterstock.com

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Gillham, David R., author.

Title: Annelies / David R. Gillham.

Description: New York City : Viking, [2019] |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018025172 (print) | LCCN 2018026671 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101601280 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399162589 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525561781 (export)

Subjects: LCSH: Frank, Anne, 1929-1945--Fiction. | Holocaust survivors--Fiction. | Psychic trauma--Fiction. | Amsterdam (Netherlands)--History--20th century--Fiction. | GSAFD: Alternative histories (Fiction)

Classification: LCC PS3607.I44436 (ebook) | LCC PS3607.I44436 A85 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025172

This is a work of fiction based on actual events.

Version_1

To all the Annes

Contents

Also by David R. Gillham

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

1. The Heath

1945

2. Her One True Confidante

1942

3. Diving Under

1942

4. The House Behind

1944

5. Radio Orange

1944

6. Burglars

1944

7. The Freedom of Sunlight

1944

8. Boulevard Des Misres

1944

9. A Prayer

1944

10. Hope

1945

11. Furies

1945

12. Survivors

1945

13. Grief

1945

1945

14. The Truth About Desire

1946

15. Jealousy

1946

16. Trust

1946

17. Forgiveness

1946

1945

18. Bread

1946

19. Betrayal

1946

20. A Kiss

1946

21. The Transvaal

1946

22. Another Birthday

1946

23. Sacrifice

1946

24. Enemy Nationals

1946

25. Pity

1946

26. The Fourth of August

1946

27. The Pages of Her Life

1946

28. The Canal

1946

29. Mieps Typewriter

1946

30. Gods Comedy

1946

31. The Question of Forgiveness

1946

32. Truth

1946

33. Atonement

1946

34. The Diary of a Young Girl

1961

1961

35. Repairing the World

1961

Authors Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

I want to go on living even after my death!

Anne Frank, from her diary, 5 April 1944

1THE HEATH

We thought we had seen it all.

Until Belsen.

J. W. Trindles Until Belsen 1945

1945

Konzentrationslager (KL)

BERGEN-BELSEN

Kleines Frauenlager

The Lneburg Heath

THE GERMAN REICH

She lies sprawled among the dead who carpet the frozen mud flats, time slipping past, her thoughts dissolving. The last of her is leaking away as the angel of death hovers above, so close now. So close that she can feel him peeling away her essence. Her body is baked by fever and ripped by a murderous cough; her mind is more animal now than human. She is numb to the bitter cold that has penetrated her bones. Thirst is gone, and so is hunger. She has passed through them on her way out of her body.

But from somewhere there is a loud pop, the anonymous discharge of a rifle or a pistol, and she can feel the darkness above her hesitate. The sound of the gunshot has grabbed its attention, and instead of collecting her final breath, death, in its forgetfulness, passes over her. And in that fractured moment, the world that would have been takes a different path: a flicker of the girl she once was makes a last demand for life. A breath, a flinch of existence. A small, tentative throb of expectation dares to flex her heart. A beat. Another beat, and another as her heart begins to work a rhythm. She coughs viciously, but something in her has found a pulse. Some vital substance. She feels herself draw a breath and then exhale it. Slowly. Very slowly, she pries open her gluey eyelids till the raw white sunlight stings.

She is alive.

2HER ONE TRUE CONFIDANTE

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because Ive never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.

Anne Frank, from her diary, 20 June 1942

. . . all Dutch Jews are now in the bag.

Dr. Hans Bhmcker, Beauftragter des Deutschen Reiches fr die Stadt Amsterdam, 2 October 1941

1942

Merwedeplein 37

Residential Housing Estate

Amsterdam-Zuid

OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS

Two years since the German invasion

Anne gazes out the open window of their third-story flat in the Merwedeplein, her elbows braced against the windowsill. The sun is cradled in a sharp blue sky. The grass of the common is a lush green. Its a Sunday midday. Down below, a stylishly dressed wedding party is off to the magistrates office, and Anne is absorbing the details with excitement because she positively adores fashion. The bride is modeling a well-cut suit with a tapered skirt and a felt hat. A wartime look for a bride, sleek and smart without the frills. She carries a generous bouquet of white roses. People peer from their balconies as the bride and groom process down the steps and pose for a movie camera as if they were film stars.

Anne, get away from the window, please, her mother calls out. Unwilling to budge, Anne calls back over her shoulder, In a minute! She imagines herself in front of the camera one day, as a famous film star. Like Greta Garbo, or Priscilla Lane. She loves the films and film actresses, and it angers Anne more than almost anything that the Nazis have seen fit to ban Jews from the cinemas. After the war, though, who knows? She could become another Dorothy Lamour, followed everywhere by eager photographers.

Her mother grows adamant, correcting her in her normal singsong reprimand. You should be setting the table for lunch. And besides, its simply too unladylike for you to be there with your head stuck out the window like a nosy giraffe. Though Mummy herself cannot resist a discreet giraffes peek, followed by a shallow sigh. When I married your father, I wore a beautiful white silk gown with a long, long train, she reminds herself. Decorated by the most charming little filigree of Belgian lace, specially imported.

Im never going to marry, Anne decides to announce at that instant, which leaves her mother blinking, utterly appalled. Really, Anne was just irritated and wanted to strike back at Mummy in some way she knew would sting. But her mothers expression is positively stricken, as if Anne has just threatened to jump out the window.

Anne, but you must,