The Mystery of Right and Wrong

by Wayne Johnston

  As we drove home, we spotted a girl hitchhiking on a street that was mostly lined by schools and churches. I saw her beneath a street lamp, the thumb of one bare hand stuck out, the other hand pressed to her ear. She wore a short black coat that had no hood, and she hunched beneath the weight of a heavy-looking knapsack.

  “That’s one of my students,” Dad said, and began to pull over.

  “Dad!” I protested, but he ignored me.

  “Professor van Hout!” the girl said, leaning in when, at Dad’s instruction, I rolled down my window. She was pretty, petite, with short black hair.

  “Anne, isn’t it?” he said.

  “What a good memory,” she said. I rolled my eyes.

  “Climb in,” he said, and she opened the back door, got in and slammed it shut behind her.

  “It’s so cold out there,” she said, blowing on her hands.

  She said that, after leaving work, she had missed the bus that went by her house, so she decided to walk. She hadn’t realized that a cold wave had set in while she was at work. She told us she’d used her hands to warm her ears until she could no longer stand the pain in her fingers—then she put her hands in the pockets of her coat until her ears hurt so much she covered them with her hands again. She’d been about to stop at a stranger’s house to ask if she could call a cab and wait indoors until it came, when we pulled up beside her.

  “Where are you headed?” he said. She gave an address that I was afraid would take us out of our way, though I wasn’t sure where it was.

  “My daughter Rachel,” Dad said, and the girl behind me said, “Hi.”

  I said nothing. I pictured the three of us in the car outside her house, my father spouting small talk to his captive audience. It occurred to me that it was likely he would suggest that he and I go in with her for a surprise visit. He would barge into the house with me in tow, the professor and his daughter dropping in on Anne’s unsuspecting family for no reason but that he had magnanimously picked her up because she’d missed her bus. He might linger there an hour while the girl’s bemused and nervous parents fussed over him.

  “Dad, drop me off first,” I said in as pouty a tone as I could manage.

  When my father said something about me being frantic that I would miss a minute of a TV show I liked, Anne laughed and said that she had been like that at my age.

  “I’m thirteen,” I said, “not six,” and the two of them laughed together.

  She was chewing gum, probably the only habit that my parents disapproved of that my sisters and I had never picked up. I had a low opinion of those of my classmates who chewed gum. I couldn’t stand the sound when they talked and chewed at the same time. She worked at a convenience store and was still, she said, wearing her uniform beneath her coat. I fancied that she would quit university as soon as her parents let her, which would be very soon. She would become a beautician or a secretary, get married and have three kids by the time she was twenty-five, and would still be chewing gum.

  My father looked at his watch. “That television program of yours is over,” he said to me. “Why don’t you just come along for the drive? You can talk to your new friend, and you can keep me company on the way back.”

  “It’s not that far to her house, is it?” I said.

  I knew he was trying to annoy me for talking back to him in front of the girl he likely had as low an opinion of as I did.

  “It’s fine if she doesn’t want to,” the girl said. “I mean, it’s fine by me to drop her home.”

  It was true that the TV show was over. If I hadn’t been so full of spite, I probably would have stayed in the car. She gripped the seat with one hand, trying to get a look at me. She wore two large plastic rings shaped like butterflies on her right thumb, one green and one yellow. She saw me looking at the rings.

  “Prizes from boxes of Cracker Jack,” she said. “I wear them as a joke, but not everybody gets it.”

  I kept acting as if she wasn’t there.

  “What grade are you in, grade eight?”

  “Grade ten,” Dad said.

  “Ten? Most people are fifteen in grade ten.”

  “She was promoted two grades,” Dad said. “She’s very bright. Like you. Highest mark in my class.”

  “In high school,” Anne said, “people think that if you get one hundred in everything, you’re weird. They think that all you do is study. It’s a bit better now. I have a few friends. And I’ll soon be far away from here, anyway.”

  “Rachel gets one hundred in everything too.”

  “Dad!” I said.

  The girl laughed. “Wow,” she said. “That’s amazing.”

  “It was Rachel’s birthday, yesterday,” Dad said.

  “Happy birthday!” the girl said. I only sighed. “Oh, you’re so pretty,” the girl said. “If I wore my hair as long as yours, it would look like a mop.”

  She asked me if I’d ever heard of Anne Frank.

  “We’re doing the book in school next term,” I said. “I’ve already read it a dozen times.”

  “Then you’ll have a jump on all the others,” she said, sounding not at all offended. “My favourite book is To Kill a Mockingbird. I love Scout. But I like The Diary of Anne Frank too. When you’re a Jewish girl, it’s supposed to be your favourite. But it’s so sad.”

  “It’s not sad,” I said. “What happened to her after she stopped writing it is sad, but the diary is not sad.”

  “That’s true. I’ve got a copy with me. I always do.”

  I heard her opening her knapsack. She said she liked the book so much when she first read it that she had underlined almost every word. She held the book over the seat so that I could see it. My curiosity got the better of me, and I took the book from her. I was determined not to look at her, but she leaned over the seat so that she could see my face. Her expression was so impish I couldn’t help but smile. I leafed through the book. As she said, she had underlined a lot of passages or highlighted them with yellow marker. And she had written things in the margins and in between the lines.

  “Not much resale value in that book,” she said. “I mark up all my books, but that one is the worst. My parents think the world of Anne Frank.”

  “Why do you carry it around if it’s not your favourite?” I said.

  “It was a birthday present. And I still read it a bit. Once something gets into my knapsack, it tends to stay there.”

  I was now in the strange position of wanting to stay in the car while he drove her home, but not wanting to admit that to my father. So I didn’t.

  “My parents, they gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday. See, there’s an inscription.”

  I read it: “This book was written by the heroic girl whom you are named after. Her father gave her the famous diary when she turned thirteen. May God give you her courage and her strength, and may he confer upon you many blessings all your life. Happy Birthday, Anne, from Mom and Dad, March 19, 1970.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “I want to be a writer,” she said. “I’m taking accounting because my parents want me to. No offence, Professor van Hout.”

  “None taken,” my father said. “But it might come in handy someday when you get rich from writing.”

  She laughed and looked at me again. “A Jewish girl named Anne who wants to be a writer. What a cliché. There may be thousands of us, but, still, it’s what I want.”

  I told her that Dad grew up close to the Secret Annex.

  “Oh my God, Professor van Hout, that’s amazing,” she said.

  “I don’t like to talk about Anne Frank,” he said, and adjusted the rear-view mirror so that he could see her. “Where are you from?”

  “Here,” she said. “I was born here. But my parents came here from Halifax in 1950. My mother’s side of the family is from Hungary and my father’s is from Poland. All fou
r of my grandparents came to Canada just after the First World War.”

  “Good timing,” my father said.

  “Yes. Mom says that, if my grandparents had been more successful, I might never have been born.”

  “She’s right,” my father said.

  “I know you’re not Jewish, because my parents would have met you if you were,” she said. “Not many Jews in St. John’s.”

  “No. We are not Jews. We would not be here if we were Jews. Alive, I mean. What’s your last name? I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten it.” He looked at her in the rear-view again.

  “Wilansky.”

  “The dry cleaners on Water Street.”

  “Yes,” she said. “People think that if you’re Jewish and your name is on a sign, you must be rich. My parents barely manage to get by.”

  “I suppose that depends on what you mean by getting by.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I am from Amsterdam, originally. I was there when the war broke out. I was there throughout the war. I was about your age when it started.”

  “Oh my God. It must have been terrible.”

  “It was.”

  “Dad was in the Dutch Resistance,” I said.

  “Really? Oh my God, really? You must have been so brave. I would have been too scared. My parents will want to meet you when I tell them. They’ll think the world of you.”

  “No. No. I don’t like to talk about the war, or to be reminded of it. Rachel knows that.”

  “I understand,” Anne said.

  The three of us were quiet for a while.

  “Rachel was born in South Africa,” my father finally said. “Her three sisters were as well.”

  Anne said, “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t born in Newfoundland besides my parents.”

  “Well, now you’ve met two more and know of four others.”

  “I don’t know anything about South Africa,” she said. “I mean, absolutely nothing.”

  “Really?” Dad said. “You’ve never heard of apartheid, then?”

  “No,” she said. “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer, instead saying, “I bet there are more Jews than South Africans in St. John’s. Jews are everywhere. Everywhere I’ve ever been, there have been Jews.”

  “The diaspora.”

  “Yes. You should give Anne our number, Rachel.”

  I thought about making up a number—I don’t know why I didn’t, since I didn’t want to talk to anyone about my father or Anne Frank. Instead, I tore a piece of paper from my school scribbler and wrote our number on it and handed it to her over the seat.

  She smiled. “I’ll call you,” she said. “We don’t have to talk about Anne Frank. We can talk about anything.”

  When Dad stopped outside our house, I got out in a hurry. She got out as well so that she could sit in the front. “You seem so nice,” she said. “I hope we meet again.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I said, but my words were lost in a gust of wind.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t call you,” she said, and winked at me. It was so cold that her bright green eyes were blurred with tears. So were mine. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my coat. She tucked the piece of paper with my number on it into one of my pockets. “We might meet again, someday when a few years difference in age is no big deal.” She pried my arm from my side just enough to wedge her copy of The Diary beneath my armpit. “Here,” she said. “Happy birthday. I want you to have this. Your dad was her neighbour.”

  “But it was a birthday present from your parents,” I said.

  “And now it’s your birthday present,” she said. She gave me a little hug. “Get indoors before you freeze to death.”

  And it was such a relief to get inside, where it was warm.

  HANS

  December 14, 1974

  “It’s so cold out there,” she said as she got back in and slammed the door. “As soon as I can afford it, I’m going to buy a car.”

  He hadn’t been able to smell her perfume when she was in the back, but he smelled it now. It was as if she had doused herself with it, sickly sweet, cheap, mint-scented perfume.

  “You’ll have to get your driver’s licence,” he said as he pulled out into the street.

  “Oh, I have my licence,” she said. “Dad taught me how to drive, but he never lets me use the car. What sense does that make?”

  “None at all,” he said. “One of my daughters, Gloria, has her licence. She’s in Quebec at university, learning to speak French, which I could have taught her right here at home. What sense does that make?”

  They drove in silence for a while. “It’s quiet without Rachel,” the girl said, her voice quavering a touch with nervousness. He wondered how long he’d been lost in thought.

  “Gloria got married just recently. She was nineteen,” he said.

  “That’s really young,” she said. “I’m almost eighteen and—”

  “And you won’t be married by this time next year, will you?”

  “Who knows?” she said, laughing and throwing up her arms as if to say there was no telling what might happen to her in a world in which there were men such as him who could not control their daughters.

  Pellets of road salt and grains of sand pinged against the windows and the doors. “I’ll probably forget how to drive before Dad lets me use the car,” she said.

  “What does he think you’ll do if you go out in his car?”

  “He doesn’t give reasons. He just says what he says and that’s that.” She sat there with her knapsack on her lap, her arms folded on top of it, her chin resting on her arms in a pose of reflectiveness. She was pretty for a Jew, petite, delicate, but her personality didn’t match her looks. How could it? The first time she’d opened her mouth, he’d seen that she was like all the Jews he’d ever known, in love with the sound of her own voice, irritatingly argumentative, deaf to the difference between eloquence and cant, and completely self-absorbed.

  “You can drive this car if you like,” he said.

  “Really? But we’re only about five minutes from my house.”

  “That’s true. Not much of a chance to brush up on your driving skills.”

  “It was very nice of you to offer, though.”

  “I wasn’t thinking. Your parents must be expecting you.”

  “I’m the baby of the family, and they treat me like a baby even though I’m as good as eighteen. They didn’t even want me to get a job.”

  “But you got one. You put your foot down. Good for you. Rachel’s the baby of our family and, as you saw, she has me wrapped around her finger.”

  The girl fell silent.

  “No one was watching at the window for me,” he said. “I have them well trained. They know that I hate to be tied down, that I like to get out of the house. I often drive around the city at night just to be by myself. Sometimes I can’t sleep. Too many memories.”

  “Of the war?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was not a nice time. I think that, after I drop you off, I’ll drive around for a while. If I go straight home, I’ll only wind up going out again after midnight when it’s even colder.”

  “Where will you go?” she said, sounding sorry for him.

  “Oh, I usually just drive around, see where I end up and then drive somewhere else.”

  “You really wouldn’t mind if I drove your car?”

  “Not at all. You have given me your word that you are licensed to drive. I won’t ask for proof.”

  She laughed. “It’s a deal!”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, pulling over to the side of the street. She giggled and opened her door, which was caught by the wind and pulled her from the car so that she wound up on her backside on the sidewalk.

  “Are you all right?” he called.

  She laughed lou
dly as she struggled onto her feet. He held tight to his door as he opened it and stepped out onto the street. When he saw that she was coming around the front of the car, he went around the back, one hand on his fur hat lest he lose it in the wind.

  He got in the car on the passenger side. Sitting behind the wheel, she tugged her door with both hands but lost hold of it as the wind kicked up. She reached out and grabbed the door again but couldn’t close it. He leaned across her lap, his left elbow on her thigh and clutched the handle of the door with his left hand, which enclosed both of hers. Together, they barely managed to shut the door. They shared a laugh as he shifted back to his side of the seat. The cold, the smell of her minty perfume, the feel of her hands beneath his, her hair brushing his cheek, their conquest of the screeching wind exhilarated him.

  “We did it,” he said. She laughed and shuddered at the same time, hugging herself as her lips quivered.

  “Oh my God, it’s cold out there,” she said, blowing on her hands. He nodded and rapidly clapped his hands together to warm them, but she mistook it for applause and joined in. “We did do it, Professor van Hout,” she said, laughing as if he was a child to whom nothing mattered more than her praise and approval.

  “Where to next?” she said.

  “You’re the driver,” he said. “You decide.”

  “Well,” she said, “first we have to move the seat forward.” He reached beneath the seat, took hold of the lever, dug his heels into the floor mat and shifted forward, causing the seat to lurch ahead until his knees were just inches from the glove compartment. “Perfect,” she said, “for me at least. You’re kind of squished up.”

  “I’m just fine, Anne. Let’s see how well you drive.”

  “I’m serious. Where to next?”

  “The driver chooses where the car goes and by what route it gets there.”

  “Is that the van Hout rule? Is that what you tell Mrs. van Hout?”

  “My wife was raised to think it’s unladylike to drive a car,” he said, resenting the girl for having mentioned Myra.

  “Really?” She laughed as if they were sharing a joke about a woman who had tricked him into marriage, the sort of woman other men would have known should be avoided.