Hope: A Tragedy (21 page)

God Bless America, shouted another sign.

Was it God, Bless America? Like an order? Like a command? That didn’t seem wise, ordering God around like that. And didn’t that suggest that God hadn’t blessed America? That America was unblessed? If He had blessed us, we wouldn’t need another blessing, would we? Or was it God Bless, America. Like, See you later, America. Like, you’re fucked. Like, find an attic. Fast.

A salesman quickly approached him.

Just looking, Kugel said to the salesman.

No problem, no problem, said the salesman. Just so you know, all sale items are marked with a yellow star.

Perfect, thought Kugel. I’m going to buy Anne Frank a Jewed-down deathbed with a yellow Star of David on it.

Spinoza.

What a jackass.

Of course, you don’t buy a deathbed. There is no such thing. You buy a regular bed and croak on it. A Sleep Master or a Dreamweaver or a NightCloud, made with Advanced PolyCarbonate Progressive Coils, BioReactive TemperPads and GermResistant PermaSoft Memory Foam, the highest tech, the cuttingest edge; even the cheapest ones were hundreds of dollars, some were thousands. It made sense, Kugel thought as he looked at the prices, that an empire in decline should spend its finest scientific and intellectual capital on sleeping. On napping. On a snooze. Why didn’t they sell deathbeds? he wondered. Specifically. A Serta PerfectDeath. A Sealy SwanSong. A Tempur-Pedic UltraPlotz with Advanced MortalCoil Technology. Something decent, something comfortable, but not something intended to last more than a few months, tops. These non-deathbeds had twenty-year warranties; why should he have to pay for nineteen and a half years of sleep he had no intention of using? He sure as hell wasn’t going to use a bed after someone died on it. Maybe he could just return it after she died? Could you return a bed someone died on? How would they know?

Hitler was an optimist.

The more Kugel thought about Spinoza, the angrier he became. It’s not like the guy was an idiot. What hope was there for the rest of us if a mind like that can still, when it comes to his emotions, be such a fool? And not merely a fool, but a stark, raving basket case. If the clearest logic the human mind is capable of is still woefully insufficient, why even bother? What hope is there?

Will you be checking any luggage today, Mr. Spinoza?

Just the two bags. I’ll be taking the deathbed as my carry-on.

Very good, sir.

Kugel made his way around the store. The selection was dizzying. Latex, foam, coil, twin, twin XL, queen, king. He hadn’t even considered the size. What size would she need? Queen? The twins were the least expensive, maybe he should just get that and be done with it. She was small, what did she need with a queen?

Kugel lay down on one of the beds, rested his hands on his chest, and looked up at the ceiling.

There might be death throes.

Thrashing around or whatever.

At the moment.

Of her death.

Maybe go with a queen.

Stan Laurel, on his deathbed: I’d rather be skiing.

Do you ski, Mr. Laurel? the nurse asked.

No, he said, but I’d rather be doing that than this.

The chaplain said to Chaplin: May the Lord have mercy on your soul?

Said Chaplin to the chaplain: Why not? It belongs to him.

Kugel closed his eyes. He didn’t want Anne Frank falling off the side of her own deathbed.

I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Spinoza, that deathbed isn’t going to fit in the overhead compartment.

Soon Kugel fell asleep. He dreamed again of the elderly terminal patients in hospital gowns and bandages hobbling up his driveway. Again they walked past him, only this time he didn’t try to stop them. He simply watched them shuffle and limp by, moaning and wheezing and bleating and farting, and he followed them, once again, out to the backyard, where they stepped, one by one, off the edge of the cliff. This time, though, Kugel pushed his way between them, made his way to the edge of the cliff, and peered over; he felt that he needed to know what became of them there, over the edge. At the base of the cliff, the dead were forming a mound of bloody, broken bodies, wooden canes, steel IV towers, bent walkers, cracked wheelchairs. Pools of blood formed around the base of the pile. Nobody made a sound, nobody struggled to get up. Kugel’s knees grew weak as he was suddenly overcome with a fear of the cliff before him, and he tried to back away from the edge of the cliff, but he couldn’t, there were too many of them now, pressing past him, nudging him closer to the cliff even as he pushed back against them.

Kugel woke to find the salesman nudging his shoulder.

That’s a quality product, said the salesman. Serta Perfect Sleeper with Memory Foam Topper.

How much is it? asked Kugel.

It’ll add years to your life, that one, said the salesman. One night and you’ll feel ten years younger.

Kugel made a note not to get one for Mother.

How much? he asked.

In queen, said the salesman, you’re looking at eight hundred, eight fifty or so, and we’ll throw in the frame at no extra charge.

Eight hundred and fifty dollars? asked Kugel. What time is it?

Half ten, said the salesman.

Fuck, muttered Kugel.

We can get you wrapped up and out of here in five minutes, said the salesman.

How much is the futon? asked Kugel.

One fifty, said the salesman.

I’ll take the futon, said Kugel.

By the time the salesman tied the futon to the roof of Kugel’s car, it was close to eleven o’clock. As Kugel pulled out of the parking lot he pictured Anne Frank dying. He pictured her lying on her back, in the gloomy evening half-light of his attic, peering into the middle distance, trying to speak, trying to say one last thing, but able at last only to draw one last breath, one last time, her miserable life coming to an end at last.

On a futon.

Would Spinoza have carried his mother’s futon around?

Fear cannot be without hope, nor hope without fear; now give me a hand with this futon frame, it’s heavy as
fuck.

At the next traffic light, Kugel made a U-turn, drove back to the mattress store, and laid out over a thousand dollars for the Serta Perfect Sleeper with Memory Foam Topper.

Goddamn it, he thought.

He pulled into the office parking lot, a queen-size mattress and box spring tied to the roof of his car, at ten minutes past twelve. He was met in his office by his supervisor, a man from security, and a woman from the human resources department. There were a number of empty cardboard boxes on his desk.

We can no longer afford, said his supervisor, to look away.

Last words?

He would write those down.

25.

FOR ALMOST A WEEK, the fires had ceased. Kugel spent the evenings downstairs reading books about Anne Frank and the Holocaust, while Bree, upstairs, pored over the budget and bills. The police were said to have identified a suspect, though no details were being released, as the case was still under investigation and the suspect was still at large. Then, later that week, the arsonist struck again at the old farm on Sawmill Road, one of the grandest, most impressive farms in the region, setting fire to the horse stable and storage shed. Fortunately, it had been a long time since there were horses in the stable—the present owners were executives from the city who used only the main house—and the firemen arrived before too much damage could be done. Two days later, the arsonist struck the same farm, this time setting fire to the front and rear porches of the farmhouse itself. Again, the firefighters responded quickly; there were rumors of someone seen fleeing the scene, of someone being chased into the woods, of security cameras that had captured a photo of the arsonist even if the police had failed to capture him. The following day, the town was abuzz with the police department’s public naming of a prime suspect: Wilbur Messerschmidt Jr.

The townspeople were shocked. None could believe it. Wilbur Junior was a volunteer fireman and a beloved member of the community. The family had lived in the area for almost two hundred years. Why would he do such a thing? Senior, Will’s father, granted only one interview, with the local radio station, in which he tried to explain his son’s actions, an interview Kugel listened to as he drove home with a mattress tied to his roof and a pink slip in his pocket.

The Messerschmidts, said Senior, had been farmers. For years, they successfully lived off the land, until industrial-scale agriculture, heavily subsidized by the government, made it impossible for them to compete. Lately, as they liked to say in the family, they lived on the land, but not off it. They began to lose their homes, one after another, defaulting on second mortgages, owing back taxes, watching as their history was sold off, piece by piece, to the young wealthy families that were beginning to leave the cities; what had once been family treasures where generations of Messerschmidts had been born and raised now sat empty all week, the owners coming up only on weekends, installing central air conditioning and in-ground pools and complaining about the slow hot-water heater. And so, said Senior, Wilbur Junior had decided that if the Messerschmidts couldn’t have their farms, well, then, nobody could.

Wilbur Messerschmidt Jr., the interviewer noted, was still at large.

I can return it, Kugel said.

We’re drowning, Bree said, tears of anger in her eyes.

We’ll be okay.

Don’t say that.

Okay.

It’s not okay.

I’m sorry.

I don’t care.

You don’t care?

I don’t care, said Bree. I care that we can’t afford this house. I care that you chased away our only paying tenant. I care that you care more about them than you do about us.

That’s not true.

It is true.

It isn’t.

Kugel could understand her anger at the situation, but he couldn’t understand her anger toward him. What options did he have? Even if he wanted to throw Anne Frank out, Mother would never let him. And Mother was almost dead herself, the doctors all but guaranteed it. It would all be over soon. What better indicator of that was there than a brand-new deathbed?

How much did it cost? she asked.

I can return it.

How much did it cost?

He told her.

She slapped his face, hard, and stormed away.

I can return it, he said.

The mattress and box spring stayed on the roof of Kugel’s car overnight and into the next morning, when Pinkus agreed to come over and help bring them up to the attic; with his injuries, Kugel simply couldn’t carry them alone. Mother, busy with her scrapbook, couldn’t help, and Bree, furious, wouldn’t. They left him alone there that morning, and for that he was glad—Bree took Jonah to day care, and Mother went along to do some shopping.

She should have some fresh bedding, said Mother.

Kugel waited on the front porch for Pinkus. The mattress, tied to the roof of the car, made him think of refugees. It made him think of fleeing. Where would they go if something happened?

If what happened?

He remembered reading something about papers, about needing papers—people in Holocaust books and movies were always worrying about their papers: getting them, not getting them, getting them when it was too late, getting them in the nick of time, forging them, hiding them, losing them. Did he even have papers? What were papers, anyway? Papers like what, like a passport? Papers like a birth certificate? So many people had trouble with these papers, it was the stories where people
had
their papers that always surprised Kugel. Really, you have papers? How did you know you were supposed to have papers? Who gave you the papers? Did Bree have papers? Did Jonah have papers? Did they need papers?

iPod (headphones/charger)

EpiPens

Zyrtec

Papers (?)

He knew it, he hated to admit, from the very first time his mother showed him footage of the corpse piles at Dachau. That was his first thought: I wouldn’t make it. He wasn’t the survivor type. He was a succumber. A perisher. A plotzer. He never did get on that plane from LA. He had no idea how to get out of quicksand. Bree was a survivor. Bree was an overcomer. Bree would be out of the quicksand, showered, and changed before Kugel ever got a footing. Kugel hoped Jonah had some Bree in him. More Bree, less Kugel. He might make it then. But Kugel? Never. He wouldn’t stand a chance. He would kill himself. He would lose his mind. He couldn’t withstand a day of Auschwitz, not an hour, not a minute. And brother, Auschwitz happens.

Toodle-oo.

Canada.

He’d probably go to Canada, assuming that whatever it was that was going on here wasn’t going on there. But that was what Otto Frank thought, wasn’t it? That was Otto’s plan. Northward Ho hadn’t exactly worked out for him, had it?

Nowhere Ho, that’s what Kugel wanted. Him, Bree, and Jonah, in his car, flat out, pedal to the metal on the Nowhere Highway, singing songs and stopping at drive-thrus.

Are we almost there, Dad?

Almost, buddy, almost.

He didn’t even have roof racks, Kugel thought, looking at his car. Jesus Christ, what kind of an idiot in this world doesn’t have roof racks? He remembered a legend he had been told in Hebrew school, of an angel that visits the baby inside the womb; the angel sits with the child and teaches him all the wisdom of the world, everything he will ever need to know to survive; then, just before birth, the angel presses his fingertip against the baby’s upper lip, leaving behind a small indentation and removing everything he has been taught. Kugel could never understand the point of that, but now, he thought, he knew exactly what the angel must say to every child about to embark on a life on earth: Listen up, kid: roof racks.

You don’t escape genocide in a sedan. You don’t escape anything in a sedan. A sedan was just asking for trouble. He should trade it in for an SUV. Maybe a Jeep.

Military-like.

Prepared.

A list.

Listen up, kid: four-wheel drive.

And don’t order the fish.

At last Pinkus arrived. It took the two of them the better part of an hour to drag the mattress, box spring, and metal frame up the stairs and squeeze them through the narrow stairwell of the attic. Pinkus left for work, and Kugel set about putting together the frame and setting up the bed.

When it was done, he lay down on it and looked at the roofing nails pointing down at him. He heard a slight shuffling behind the wall of boxes, and then that grim, creaky voice.

What the hell, asked Anne Frank, is that?

You’re welcome, said Kugel.

I don’t want it.

Don’t mention it, said Kugel. It’s a quality product.

Take it back.

It’s not for you. It’s for my mother.

Then put it in her room.

Silence.

Do you have any money? he asked.

More shuffling, then a heavy groan, as if she were lying back down on her pile of blankets.

The first Jewish homeowner in sixty years, Anne Frank said, and he wants to charge me rent. Perfect.

Kugel looked down at his right arm. He was beginning to get a rash of some kind. He scratched it with the cast on his left arm, then felt more itching around the base of his neck.

How’s the book coming? he asked.

There was no answer.

How did you get out, he asked.

Silence again.

I asked you a question, he said.

Kugel sat up, swung his feet off the side of the bed, and pressed his clenched fist into his forehead.

Maybe he
should
kill her, after all.

Who would know?

He tried to control his anger.

Hitler was an optimist.

Monkeys are assholes.

Roof racks.

Father, I something something my something.

I’ve been reading, said Kugel. About you.

He’d ordered and read them all, looking for answers: all the testimonies of Anne Frank, the histories, the biographies, the martyrologies, the hagiographies. You might also like, said Amazon,
Rwanda: Portrait of a Genocide
,
Pol Pot’s Bloody Reign
, and
The Starving of the Ukraine in Words and Pictures
.

Mazel tov, said Anne Frank. Reading is fundamental.

People saw you, said Kugel.

Fucking Spinoza.

In the camp, he continued. They saw you. You were sick. You were dying.

He stood and walked toward the wall of boxes.

People, he said. Numerous people. They saw you. Anne Frank.

Silence.

You were dead, Anne. Stone cold.

He stood at the wall, waiting, breathing through his nose, his hands on his hips.

Ach, said the old woman behind the wall. I’m sick of all that Holocaust shit.

Kugel kicked out with his good leg, sending a section of the wall crashing to the ground. The broken arm, the job, the rash, Bree, Jonah, the tenant, the finances—it all bubbled over. He shouted as he kicked over another section of the western wall, then another. Anne scurried through the shadows, hiding deep in the dark eaves as Kugel picked up a nearby broom in his good hand and began swinging it at the boxes on the two remaining walls, shouting and screaming and raising the broom overhead again and again as he smashed her boxes, her lamp, her table; everything was destroyed, the kitchen overturned, the bed quilts scattered; Anne Frank cowered in the eaves, her bony hand clenched in a feeble fist, and at last Kugel’s rampage stopped, and he stood there, exhausted. He stayed like that for a few moments, threw the broom to the floor, turned, and went to the attic stairs.

I was dying, said Anne Frank.

I don’t care, said Kugel.

Everyone was, said Anne Frank.

Finish your book, said Kugel, and get out.

Auschwitz was different, she continued. Auschwitz was a factory—a death factory, yes, but precise, orderly.

Kugel stopped at the stairs.

Belsen, though, Anne Frank continued, was a toilet. That was the idea of Belsen, you see, the whole concept. Filth and disease. Bodies lay everywhere, unburied. They were dying faster than they could get rid of them. I lay there on the wooden bed beside the door to our bunker, beside Margot, shivering despite the heat every time the door opened. She was dead, I don’t know for how long, and I waited, hopefully, for death to come for me. But it never did. My fever broke. The blissful freedom of my delirium vanished and I was a prisoner again in my own sanity. I decided to remain with the dead. I didn’t move, I don’t know for how long. The other prisoners, thinking we were both dead, carried us outside the bunker and laid us down on the ground beside the other corpses. Again I didn’t move. After some time there, I dared to let one eye creep open and realized that some of the other dead were not—that others there were doing the same thing as I, pretending to be dead; we spotted one another—a corpse who suddenly seemed to move, or whom you caught, for a moment, looking at you before quickly shutting her eye. At night, in the safety of the dark, some of the other non-dead would rise and move quietly about the yard, attempting to find some bread or water, and in the morning, before the dark lifted, they returned, bringing with them a piece of a turnip or crust of bread to the others they knew to be faking. A Sisterhood of the Dead. The threat of the SS loomed as ever, but the greater threat was that of the starving prisoners who had taken to eating parts of the dead—cutting off a nose, a tongue, to stay alive one more hour, one more day. I watched such a thing happen to a woman who had brought me a turnip one morning—in the middle of the night, a starving figure approached, knelt over her body, and tore her ear off, shoving it desperately into its mouth. The woman, though, didn’t move, didn’t cry out; only when the figure scurried off did she roll to her side, the side of the bloody ear, because bleeding might give her away, and I heard her whimper softly. That much grief she allowed herself. In earlier days, it would only be an hour or so before they dragged a dead body to the mass graves; we had heard, though, in past weeks, that the war was coming to an end, that the Russians and British were already on German soil; we often heard such rumors before, but the SS were beginning to behave strangely, like frightened birds, neglecting their duties—even the sacred roll call was sometimes skipped—and it seemed perhaps that the rumors this time were true. Once the dead piled up, any fool could see that it would be safer to be among them; the SS officers were more concerned with their own escape than with burial or cremation. Many of the officers dressed in civilian clothes and simply left, walked away, and I began to think of escape. We had been warned when we arrived at Belsen that escape was impossible, that even if you got past the guards and dogs and electrified gates, the roads around the camp were laid with mines, but from where I lay, I could see that the trucks and cars outside the gate drove safely in and out without incident. I lay there next to my sister’s corpse for two full days, and one night, as a transfer was taking place, I took my chance and stood, wobbling at first, for I hadn’t stood or eaten in some time, and I ran as best I could for the gate, using an exiting supply truck to shield me from sight. My sister was dead, my mother was dead, I assumed my father was, too. I waited for the bullet to strike me in the back; I waited for the mine explosion to tear me in half; the grenade, the dogs. But they never came. I ran through the woods, with no idea where I was going or why. I don’t remember how long I ran. At nights I pressed on, in the daytime I covered myself with leaves or hid beneath rocks and slept. One night, as I pressed through the woods, I came upon an old farmhouse. I hid among the bushes, not moving, watching, and when at last the sun rose, the man of the house came outside, got into his car, and drove off; soon after, his wife and young daughter did the same. I waited until I was certain they were gone, and I ransacked the place. I found a cloth laundry bag in the bathroom and filled it with everything I could: clothing, food, medicine. I thought, perhaps, I was dreaming, hallucinating. I washed myself in their sink, changed into some of the daughter’s clothing—she was much younger than I, but I was very thin at the time, and they fit me. A new dress, it had been so long. I grabbed my sack of provisions and ran out the front door onto the front porch . . . and then I stopped. I froze. I didn’t want to go out there again, Mr. Kugel. The world seemed enormously cruel and dangerous. I had only vague memories of life before war; the only place I could ever remember feeling safe was the attic in Amsterdam, that tiny, stifling annex with Margot and Father and Mother. So I turned around, went back inside, climbed upstairs, and hid in their attic. It was a nice attic, not much different from this one. How happy I felt, how safe. The owners found me a few days later, and they brought me food and water and clothing. They hated themselves, you see, and so they took pity on me. Yes, yes, I know, pity is contempt; but you take what you can get. Years later, when they moved to America, they arranged for my own safe passage, too, through a number of admittedly illegal means. The husband died and soon after, the wife grew ill, and she arranged to move me to a new family, a new attic, and so I went, here and there, house to house, family to family—a Polish family first, for a short time, then an elderly Austrian couple—until finally I came here, thirty or forty years or so ago, where the Messerschmidts took over my care. I have been the blessed beneficiary of sixty years of humanity’s guilt and remorse, Mr. Kugel. Did you like the part about the cannibals and the ear? Or the part about the tiny dress that fit my emaciated body? These are true details, I assure you, but I know to emphasize them; I’m not a fool; I know of guilt myself, Mr. Kugel. My sister died beside me. My mother died, my friends. I survived. That’s not easy, either. Perhaps it’s true that I am seeking to have it both ways; I want to be Anne Frank without the Holocaust, but I use the Holocaust to subsist, to get what I need: shelter, food, a place to work. To that I plead guilty. But would you have let me stay here if I hadn’t told you who I am? I doubt it very much. I’m a survivor, Mr. Kugel—not of this war or that, but as a type. I survive. I do what I have to. I survived death in my youth, and I’ve been surviving life ever since.