can be heard in the warehouse. The door is opened upstairs at twenty minutes past eight and shortly after there are three taps on the floor: Anne’s porridge. I climb upstairs and fetch my ‘puppydog plate. Down in my room, again, everything goes at terrific speed: do my hair, put away my tin pottie, bed in place. Hush, the clock strikes! Upstairs Mrs. van Daan has changed her shoes and is shuffling about in bedroom slippers. Mr. van Daan, too, all is quiet.
Now we have a little bit of real family life I want to read or work, Margot as well, also Daddy and Mummy, Daddy is sitting (with Dickens and the dictionary, naturally) on the edge of the sagging, squeaky bed, where there aren’t even any decent mattresses; two bolsters on top of each other will also serve the purpose, then he thinks, “Mustn’t have them, then I’ll manage without!”
Once he is reading he doesn’t look up, or about him, laughs every now and then, takes awful trouble to get Mummy interested in a little story.
Answer, “I haven’t got time now.” Looks disappointed for just a second, then reads on again; a little later, when he comes to something extra amusing, he tries it again, “You must read this, Mummy!” Mummy sits on the “Folding” bed, reads, sews, knits, or works, whatever she feels like. She suddenly thinks of something. Just says it quickly: “Anne, do you know …
Margot, just jot down … I”
After a while peace returns once more.
Margot closes her book with a clap. Daddy raises his eyebrows into a funny curve, his reading wrinkle deepens again, and he is lost in his book once more. Mummy begins to chatter with Margot, I become curious and listen too! Pim is drawn into the discussion … nine o’clock! Breakfast!
Yours, Anne
Friday, 10 September, 1943
