Hope: A Tragedy (13 page)

Kugel watched Bree as she worked at the stove, her hips swaying slightly as she did, and fresh desire rushed through his veins.

Kugel had only loved one other woman in his life, an African American woman named Aleeyah, whom Mother disapproved of for not being Jewish. She would, Mother wailed, be the end of the Kugels, which only made Kugel want Aleeyah even more (so much did he want her that he was willing to overlook the fact that her name, in Hebrew, meant
to go up
, and was the idiomatic term used to describe immigrating to Israel; Kugel hated the superiority and judgment implicit in that term, and though he loved Aleeyah and thought the world of her, he was concerned that a part of him, however small, just wanted to “fuck Aleeyah”). Unfortunately, Aleeyah was an intensely political member of the African American community, and all she seemed to want to speak about with Kugel was the suffering of her people, of slavery and Tuskegee and Birmingham.

Can we talk about something else? he asked one night.

Can we talk about something else?

I don’t want to talk about the past all the time.

The past, said Aleeyah, is the present.

Then let’s talk about Auschwitz, he said. Let’s run a warm bath, fill it with bubbles, undress, climb in, and talk about Auschwitz.

I’m sick of that Holocaust shit, said Aleeyah.

When he met Bree a few months later, the fact that she was Jewish was mitigated by the fact that her connection to that part of her history was tenuous at best; she neither hated nor adored it; she simply didn’t give it much thought. He admired that about her, emulated her, wanted to become like her; how much happier he could be, he thought, if he could just turn ambivalence into indifference.

Well? asked Bree as Kugel sat down at the table.

Well what? Kugel asked.

Bree glanced at Jonah.

Did you talk to h-e-r? Bree asked.

Kugel sat down at the table beside Jonah.

She’s a s-u-r-v-i-v-o-r, hon.

Bree brought over the plate of eggs and dropped it with a clang onto the table in front of Kugel.

Who isn’t, she said.

Bree had suffered physical abuse when she was a child—her father had been a violent man with a drinking problem, her mother a weak woman with a self-esteem problem—and the moment she turned eighteen, she left her home and moved to New York City; she hadn’t spoken with them since. At the beginning of their relationship, Bree wanted to talk about it and Kugel wanted to listen. Like his own mother, though, he felt that, compared to Bree, he hadn’t quite suffered enough, and wasn’t qualified to advise or even relate to her. What was an absent father compared to an abusive father? Was a good father leaving as bad as a bad father staying?

Which is worse? Kugel had asked.

They’re both bad, Bree had said.

Yes, said Kugel, but which is worse?

It’s enough that you listen, Bree had said, but Kugel couldn’t help wanting to help, even if the only way he could think to help her was to help her help herself. With books. Books had always been his answer, and he bought her so many self-help books—Overcoming This, Getting Past That, Coming to Terms with Your Whatever—that she soon stopped wanting to talk about it at all, concerned that this part of her past she just needed to talk about, to share with him, was now becoming, for Kugel, her defining feature. She was no longer Bree; she was becoming Bree of Sorrows, Bree of the Leather Belt, Bree of the Thrown Shoe; Bree, Patron Saint of Adult Children of Alcoholics.

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?