Read Hope: A Tragedy for Free Online

where you happen to live or when you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.
    I just want my family to be safe, said Kugel. I just want the world to leave us alone. Is that asking too much?
    What, asked Professor Jove, did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
    I don’t know, said Kugel. What did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
    He said Ouch, said Professor Jove.
    I don’t get it, said Kugel.
    There’s nothing to get, said Professor Jove. It hurt. First they whipped him half to death, then they held him down and nailed iron spikes through his wrists. If he was lucky, they did the same to his feet. The weight of his body bearing down on his chest made it difficult to breathe, and he died, slowly and agonizingly, from respiratory distress.
    I still don’t get it, said Kugel.
    There is hurt in this world, said Professor Jove. There is pain. Hoping there won’t be only makes it worse.
    Kugel pulled the bedcovers up to his chin and moved closer to Bree. She turned over and draped her arm across his chest, burying her face in his shoulder.
    While there’s never a good time to find Anne Frank in your attic, this was a particularly bad time. Even with the low purchase price of the farmhouse, they needed to rent both downstairs bedrooms in order to cover their mortgage; Kugel’s giving Mother the second bedroom was a decision that still angered Bree. She had been irate when Kugel suggested it, and leveled bitter accusations at him, accusations he denied even as he suspected they were true: that he put his past before his future, that his former family came before his current family. And she had been right. It had been only a couple of months since they signed the mortgage, but they were already falling behind in the payments; in an effort to find some way to make ends meet, Bree recently suggested renting out the attic in order to make up for the loss of rent from Mother’s bedroom. But where would Bree write? And with that old woman up there now, what was Kugel going to do? How many more rooms was he going to let for free? To make matters worse, their sole tenant—Haman or Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar or something—had, ever since moving in, been after Kugel for a corner of the attic where he could store some of his extra belongings. Kugel was afraid to refuse him and risk his leaving; he had originally requested a bit of patience on the tenant’s part, claiming that the attic had not yet been organized or cleaned from the move; as soon as it was, Kugel had promised, he would find the tenant some space. But it had been some time now, and with that old woman up there now, he couldn’t have the tenant traipsing in and out; what would he think of her, of her living there for free, of her filth, her stench, of her taking his storage space? And if, either in anger or disgust, the tenant suddenly moved out, Kugel worried Bree might just do the same.
    Anne Frank, thought Kugel, running a hand through his hair. That’s all I fucking need.
    The sun was rising.
    Christ, it was already morning. Sunlight crept in through the back window of the bedroom and poured slowly across the floor. All at once, the typing sounds stopped.
    Bree pressed herself to Kugel and moaned softly.
    There was no need to tell her about the woman in the attic, there really wasn’t. Why upset her? He would deal with it on his own. How difficult could it be to get an elderly Holocaust survivor out of your house? He’d play Wagner. He’d get a German shepherd. When the UPS man had gone, he’d tell her it had been a man from the Gestapo, asking a lot of questions. A
lot
of questions.
    Did you
shower
yet, honey? he would call downstairs to Bree. Because if you
showered
already I’m going to
shower
now.
    She’d be out in a day.
    Piece of cake.
    Even if she didn’t leave, so what? Who would know she was there? She was hiding,