Hope: A Tragedy Read Online Free PDF Page A

revealed, behind the remaining boxes and to the left of her bed, what seemed like a small table—a two-foot-long scrap of splintered floorboard lay across a pair of Bree’s old shoeboxes—on top of which sat a small lamp, a laptop computer, and a small laser printer.
    He aimed the flashlight at the makeshift office.
    What the hell? he said softly, reaching out toward the pile of neatly stacked papers sitting facedown beside the printer.
    The old lady moved very quickly, though, much more quickly than he would have guessed she could, and shouted No! as she slammed down her hand on top of the papers.
    Kugel reared back.
    You can read it, she growled, when I’m done.
    Kugel looked at her, trying to decide if she was real or if this was something else, a dream, a nightmare, maybe a hallucination. He hadn’t slept well in a while. The stench, though, convinced him it was real.
    I’m calling the police, he said.
    He snapped off his flashlight and backed toward the stairs, afraid to turn away from her. She waved in annoyance again, shuffled forward out of the eaves, settled in front of the computer and, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had occurred, began to type.
    That was the sound. The tapping of the keyboard. He’d been hearing it for days.
    Kugel stopped at the head of the attic stairs.
    And let me tell you something else, he said.
    She continued to type, paying him no attention.
    I don’t know who you are, he said, or how you got up here. But I’ll tell you what I do know: I know Anne Frank died in Auschwitz. And I know that she died along with many others, some of whom were my relatives. And I know that making light of that, by claiming to be Anne Frank, not only is not funny and abhorrent but it also insults the memory of millions of victims of Nazi brutality.
    The old woman stopped typing and turned to him, fixing that hideous yellow eye upon his.
    It was Bergen-Belsen, jackass, she said.
    Kugel continued to glare at her, even as he felt a flush of shame color his face. He turned and began climbing down the stairs.
    And as for the relatives you lost in the Holocaust? she continued.
    Kugel stopped and looked at her, and when he did, she yanked up her shirtsleeve, revealing the fading blue-black concentration camp numbers tattooed on the inside of her pale forearm.
    Blow me, said Anne Frank.

5.
     
    YOU EXPECT CERTAIN THINGS when you move to the country. You just do. You expect these things because you’ve seen the films, you’ve watched the TV episodes. You expect dishonest carpenters and creepy locals. You expect deer eating your petunias and raccoons toppling your garbage. You expect poison ivy and power outages and colorful neighbors and mice.
    You don’t expect arson.
    And you sure as hell don’t expect Anne Frank.
    Kugel sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at the telephone in his hand. Behind him, Bree snored softly in her blissful, oblivious slumber.
    The numbers on her arm.
    They were a problem.
    A big fucking problem.
    If she didn’t have numbers on her arm, he would have phoned the police immediately. Maybe not immediately—he would wait until morning for Bree to take Jonah to day care, no need to frighten the child—and then, when they had gone, phone the police without delay. But she had numbers, didn’t she, he had seen them, those damned numbers, and the numbers meant that Anne Frank or not, consumed by madness or not, half-dead or not, rotting like a hundred-year-old corpse or not, the old woman was a goddamned Holocaust survivor.
    Which was a problem.
    Was he really going to throw an elderly, half-mad Holocaust survivor out of his house? Speak of madness! He could never do it, he knew that, even if she was old and emotionally damaged enough to think she was Anne Frank. Pity was a funny thing: it would be easier to throw out the real Anne Frank than it would be to throw out a Holocaust survivor so fucked up by the Holocaust that she thought she was Anne Frank. Can you imagine the