good enough. Hitler came to power in 1933. The Nürnberg Laws were passed in 1935. There wasn’t a Jew in Europe who didn’t know that something terrible was coming.
Then Michal reached into her pocket and took out a coin. She held it by the rim, between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand—squeezed it hard, moving it back and forth, pressing grooves into her fingertips. It was a funny gesture, administering a little pain to herself, it seemed, like the pinch you give yourself when you’re getting a shot. All during this time—you’ll hear it on the tape—she picks up that coin, cuts grooves in her finger, then slaps it down on the table. Picks it up, slaps it down. Let me start the tape.
There was a long hiss, and finally, above the annoying drone of the poor-quality machine, came Michal Gershon’s beautiful voice.
Let us be clear, Michal was saying. I am only going to talk about what came just before the war, and what came after, where you are born and enter the story. Understand that. The middle, the Holocaust—too long, too dark, too many endless things to say. I would like to start just as you enter the story, but you cannot understand the “after” unless you know something of the time just … before all that. Do you agree?
What choice do I have? asked the patient.
Michal laughed.
None.
My parents left in 1938, she continued on an intake of breath. The whole family left. Only I remained.
Where did they go? asked the patient on the tape.
To the Netherlands, Michal replied. Then she stopped speaking.
The tape whined and hissed for fifteen long seconds. One could hear the ticking of the clock that hung in the kitchen. It seemed that all Michal Gershon’s resistance to remembering her “after” life had been distilled into those sounds: the clock tick, the machine drone, the sinister whisper of the tape.
Then came a loud clack—the coin slapped down on the table? Yes, that must have been it, the slap signaling Michal’s determination to continue. For now her words tumbled out in a monologue:
They went to the Netherlands, she said. They were sure they would be safe in Amsterdam. Such a mistake. The Dutch are still seen as such nice people. They get a “good rap,” as the Americans say. And all because of Anne Frank. The world thinks the good Dutch people hid her. Ah! But they also betrayed her. Consider that the Germans needed only two thousand soldiers to keep the entire country subdued. The Dutch police did all the work. Eichmann himself was dumbfounded at how easy it was: at the willingness of the good Dutch people to turn over their Jews.
She laughed.
My parents rented a house on the Prinsengracht, she went on. On the canal. They settled in. They received funds from—I’ll get back to that. I’ll just say that all seemed well for while. Then … the roundups began. Roundups of the Jews, done with the quiet but thorough compliance of the Dutch police and bureaucracy. What else could they do? the good Dutch people told themselves. Poor us! We are conquered! Well … My parents were rounded up early. They were too prominent, too visible.
For a while, I still received letters from them. They tried to be reassuring. They said at first they were only going to be resettled. Then that they were “only” going to a work camp. Finally I received a strange, cheery postcard that said, We are resettled in a lovely valley.
She paused.
Then nothing, she said. I never found my family again.
I turned off the tape at that point, the patient told Dr. Schussler. Michal stopped speaking for a long time, and in that silence, with the clock ticking away madly over my head, it seemed somehow wrong to keep the recorder going. I didn’t dare say a word or ask a question, because Michal’s face had fallen in on itself again. She picked up that coin and pressed it hard, then harder; I could see the tendons flexing. Finally she cleared her throat and said:
Anne Frank was sent to Bergen-Belsen.
This startled me and I said:
Did you see her there?
She gave me this terrible look.
How naïve you are! How stupid! By the time I got to Belsen, Anne Frank and her sister were stinking corpses in tattered clothes, half returned to the earth.
I just sat stunned, the patient told Dr. Schussler. What could I say to that? The clock ticked, Michal said nothing, and Gerda shifted