Of Augustus, Anne, and Andrew

Preface: This post is scattered, overemotional, full of sweeping generalizations, inconsistent, barely edited, likely fraught with logical fallacies, vaguely depressing, etc. It’s not a travelogue, or a fun anecdote. It’s largely unfunny, and has a terrible ending. But sometimes it’s more important to write something and just put it out there than it is to polish your thoughts until they’re unrecognizable. Also, spoilers for a book you definitely should have read already: The Fault in Our Stars. You’ve been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

I rarely think about tenses. Past tense, present tense, future tense… it all tends to pass under my radar. 

Sometimes an author uses present tense to help create their world, but even then I rarely notice right away. It’s more like, why am I so stressed out reading Catching Fire? Oh, because it’s present tense, so I feel like the plot is happening to me right now. 

Future tense is rarely-if ever?- used for novels. A practical reason may be that future tense makes storytelling more difficult: it will be a bright cold day in April, and the clocks will be striking thirteen? But difficulty of style has never stopped experimental novelists (I’m looking at you, any author who’s ever thought that eliminating punctuation makes for an enjoyable read). 

So why don’t we write in the future tense? My theory is that we avoid it because no one really knows what will happen. You will probably wake up tomorrow and go to class or work, but you might not. What if you decide to stay in bed? What if you break your leg going down the stairs? What if Marie Antoinette tumbles out of a time tunnel in your closet, pleading with you in lilting French tones to help her rehabilitate her image? Anything could happen to anyone at any time, so writing in future tense seems to me an extremely arrogant enterprise.

Anything can happen, and anything does. 

There are two realms in which things happen: history and literature (also known as life and art, non-fiction and fiction, truth and untruth, etc.). There are things that affect us that really happen- football games, earthquakes, family Christmases, elections- and things that affect us that are inventions of someone’s imagination- books, TV, movies, the moon landing (nyuk nyuk nyuk). The line between the two is occasionally crossed, but usually people are either aware of the crossing (mockumentaries like The Office or false documentaries like Paranormal Activity) or furious at being tricked by the crossing (A Million Little Pieces, that fake Shark Week documentary). History and literature are (or should be) two distinct concepts in the healthy human consciousness, although they constantly reveal and affect one another. Friendships are built around TV shows, confessions of love are inspired by songs, and families bond over books read aloud.

But literature has privileges that history isn’t afforded, chief among these being the ability to happen in all tenses. 

Let me explain (no, there is too much, let me sum up): in history, things have happened, or they are happening and then they’ve happened. That’s all. For example, President Kennnedy was shot. For a handful of onlookers in Dallas, Kennedy is shot and then forever afterward was shot. For the vast majority of us, Kennedy simply was shot. Even if you don’t find out about it until 2030, Kennedy was still shot on November 22, 1963. That event, like every other historical event ever, occurred for a moment and then simply was. Since that time, it has always happened to the world, and it will never happen to the world again.

Literature is different. Take Pride and Prejudice, for instance. Because it was written in a moment before this one, I can say that Lydia made a huge mistake, past tense. But in English class, you’re required to refer to events in the “literary present,” as though they are currently taking place. So I can say that Lydia makes a huge mistake, present tense. But the next time I pick up Pride and Prejudice, right as Lizzy begins to warm to Darcy, the same set plot point will follow. So I can say that Lydia will make a huge mistake, future tense. Literature is free to exist in any tense. Lydia made, makes, will make a huge mistake. This goes for any literature, film, television… Replace Lydia, Pride and Prejudice, Lizzy, and Darcy with GOB, Arrested Development, Marta, and Michael respectively, and the principal still applies. The three tenses can be applied to any action, event, or feeling in literature. The Grinch hated, hates, will hate Christmas. Mona Lisa smiled for viewers in the 1800s, she smiles in her portrait, and she will be smiling when you see her next. Literature happened, happens, and will happen. History happened, or is happening and then happened. That is all.

This is all a lot of thinking for someone who refuses to take Philosophy classes. There’s a reason these things have been on my mind, and it begins at the Anne Frank House.

It was a beautiful October day in Amsterdam, a more beautiful day than I had ever seen anywhere else. The sun shone through a few gray clouds above and glinted off the canals below. The trees covered the spectrum of fall colors perfectly, as though they’d been arranged by a florist at an oversized flower stand. The greens and yellows and reds were expertly spaced, and swathed at the base in a leafy ring of their own color. This is precisely why I didn’t mind the hour’s wait to enter the Anne Frank House. The line wound around the building and down the cobbled sidewalk down by the Westerkerk, a magnificent cathedral accented with blue, red, and gold designs on its steeple. The church bells (always one of my favorite sounds) tracked my progress in the line. By 10 chimes, I was inside. I took two booklets (one in English, of course, and one in Hebrew, to see just how rusty I was after three semesters without practice), paid for my ticket, and went inside.

I had picked up a copy of Anne Frank’s diary a week earlier, knowing that this trip was ahead. I hadn’t read it since 8th grade, and remembered very little about it. This was one book that led me to the House. The other was John Green’s incredible and widely-acclaimed novel The Fault in Our Stars. In it, cautious protagonist-with-cancer Hazel Grace, her oxyen tank, and charismatic love-interest-with-cancer Augustus Waters journey to Amsterdam, sharing their first kiss in the Anne Frank House. As Hazel reasons, “Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House.” Anne Frank left the Anne Frank House to die shortly after, at the age of 15. Augustus Waters left the Anne Frank House to die shortly after, at the age of 17. I deem it wise that I have not brought anyone to kiss to the Anne Frank House, as it does not seem to breed particularly good luck.

After touring the bottom level, I came to the steep staircase that led to the Secret Annex. I see why this was so hard for Hazel and her oxygen tank, I thought as I climbed carefully. My English brain drew a squiggly green line under that thought. Or why it IS so hard for her. The next time I read TFIOS, I’ll be able to visualize exactly where Hazel was. Is! So the next time I read this, this staircase is where she will be. 

I shuffled through the main room of the Annex, which doubled as Mr. and Mrs. van Pels’s bedroom, and into Anne’s bedroom, shared with the dentist Pfeffer. There, on the wall, were the pictures Anne had pasted on the walls. Photos of movie stars, nature scenes, and children looked out from behind a layer of protective plastic. This is where Anne lived, or lives, and will live the next time I read her story. We all know Anne Frank was real, but coming face-to-face with her handiwork made her seem so close, like she could come in and demand to know what all of these people are doing in her room, isn’t it crowded enough already in this Annex with Mother’s nagging and Pfeffer’s snoring and Mrs. van Pels’s ego! 

I finally entered the room where Hazel and Augustus had their big moment. I stood back and imagined it, savoring the last few months of my unspoiled mental picture before the movie comes out and changes that forever (although I am almost certain it will be an excellent adaptation). This is where Hazel and Augustus kiss, I thought, seeing them before my very mind’s eyes. Where they kissed when they came, where they will kiss when I read the book again. And then they leave, and go home, and Augustus dies. Or died. Or will die. Just like Anne.

Is it just like Anne? I wonder, as I watch Otto Frank admit his heartbreaking belief that no parent can ever really know their own child. Augustus wasn’t real. He doesn’t have a flesh and blood father to mourn him, like Anne does. Anne was real. She lived. She had a real death, and it affects people. But Augustus’s death affects people too. 

My head buzzed as I climbed down the stairs to the bookstore, where I absentmindedly ran my hand along the “definitive edition” of this young girl’s innermost thoughts. 

What’s the difference between Anne and Augustus? Their deaths are equally real to me, because they both changed me. When I read about Augustus and what he left behind, it made me want to make the world a better place for living in. The same happened to me when I read about Anne. But Anne is more real than Augustus? What about everyone else who died in the Holocaust? What about the fifteen-year-old girls whose names are lost to history? Why doesn’t their death get to be the one that changes people for the better?
I know exactly why this bothers me so much, but I push it back.

Anne made herself literary. She left us her personality in book form, and so she still lives, existing for eternity with all of the complexity she possessed when she was alive. John Green gave us Augustus, so he lives too. They exist in all tenses. That’s the literary privilege. That’s the privilege that history only awards a select few. 

I leave the giftshop and silently exit onto the street. It’s bubbling up now. I push it back.

Augustus was taken in his youth, but he still lives. Anne was taken in her youth, but she still lives. Why them? Why do their deaths get to affect people more than his? Why are they still living in print? People can still get to know them. People who never met them can fall in love with them for the first time, seeing each facet of their personality just as it is, or was, or will be forever. Why doesn’t this happen for everyone? Who decides who gets a literary death, and who just DIES?

I’ve been walking by the canal, thinking and pushing back and thinking and pushing back and finally I 

Stop. 

I look into the canal, and I just stop.

On August 13, 2013, Andrew Duncan died.

Anne at 15. Augustus at 17. Andrew at 20.

I could say so many things about him, but nothing that hasn’t been said over and over again since his death. You only need to look at his Facebook to see how much he was loved. And is loved. And will be loved… but in the passive. The active voice, in this world, has no more business with Andrew in the present and future tenses. Only in the past. 

1945 and now and later- Anne.

2012 and now and later- Augustus.

2013- Andrew. 

And I’m furious.

I’m furious! And I’m furious beyond the “why did this happen” stage, although I was there for so long and I still return for an unfriendly visit on occasion. I’m furious at a whole new level, and a much more existential one.

I knew Andrew. His parents, his incredible parents, knew Andrew. His six siblings, each wonderful and smart and brave and strong in a completely unique and totally inconceivable way, knew Andrew. My brother knew Andrew, probably much better than I did, or at least in a very different way. We knew him in his complexities. His life impacted us so much, and his death impacted us so much. 

But no one new will ever know Andrew. 

No one who didn’t know him before he died will get to read him in a book, giggling despite themselves at his dumb pickup line one minute and tearing up over his thoughtfulness the next. No one who didn’t know him before he died will get to ask him where the hell his ridiculous ideas come from, and watch him glow with pride when they admit that he actually has a remarkably high success rate. Andrew was thoughtful. Andrew was ridiculous. Andrew was incredible. Andrew laughed. Andrew danced. Andrew read. Andrew flirted (a lot). Andrew supported. Andrew screwed up. Andrew redeemed himself.

Then Andrew died, and now he doesn’t get to do any of that anymore.

I hope I haven’t misled you, but there’s no happy solution to my story. I mean, there is for him, because Andrew has arrived in the place he was made for, but there’s not a happy, easy solution for me. The pain and confusion and anger that I felt staring into a canal in Amsterdam is the same pain and confusion and anger that I have with me now, a month later. I know he is safe and content and joyful more truly than I know anything else. But I still want him here, now. I want to read him in a book and feel better, and then hand the book to someone else and say, “This is him! This is my friend. This is why he meant what he meant, and means what he means,” and have them understand. 

But I can’t. I could write a Les Miserable-sized novel devoted solely to descriptions and encapsulations of Andrew (which, for the record, would have done waaay too much for the boy’s ego when he was still present tense), but it would only be the way I saw him and not the way he was. I could interview every one of his many Facebook friends, and include his tweets and Facebook posts and Pinterest page (that I never stopped teasing him about), and I still wouldn’t have him. I just want to show everyone what he was to me, what he is, what he will be to me for the rest of my present-tense occupation. The best way I know to do that is to write about him, and talk about him, and laugh at things he would have laughed at, and cry in movies that he would have pretended he wasn’t crying in. He’s fine now. It’s just the rest of us who have to get through. And even though it feels like a punch to the gut to know that no one new gets to know him, it is of immeasurable value to me that I did.

Like Kathleen Kelly, I don’t really want an answer to this question. I just want to send it out into the void.

So goodnight, dear void.