Margot: A Novel (12 page)

“Not at all,” I say.
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“I know Miss McKinney can be a bit of a gossip, and I
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don’t want what we’re doing here to get back to my father. At
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least until I have a plan.”
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“Of course,” I say. I am surprised by the fact that he seems
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to have some understanding of Shelby, but more, I am pleased
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that he has used the word “we’re.” Joshua and I. We’re doing
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something together. Then I remember what that thing is, and
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I cling tighter to my sweater around my chest.
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Isaac’s sits in a small glass-covered storefront, underneath
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a low brick office building. Joshua pulls open the heavy glass
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door and holds it back, motioning for me to pass in front of
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him. “Order whatever you want,” he says as he strolls up to
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the counter. “I’m buying.”
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I order an apple and a cup of chicken soup, and I carry my
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tray to a small table by the window, which is one of the only
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ones still open. There are twenty or so tables crammed into
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the small space, but most of them are already occupied by
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men in dark-colored suits like Joshua’s. A haze of smoke
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hangs in the air from their lunchtime cigarettes, but Joshua,
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he does not smoke. Or at least, not at the office.
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Joshua sits down across from me, so we’re facing one
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another. It’s loud in here, men’s laughter bellowing across
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the room, but when Joshua looks at me, I no longer hear it.
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His eyes are a gray green, closer to the color of winter grass
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than the sea. I spoon my soup carefully into my mouth
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while Joshua takes a bite of his chopped liver, which looks
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just the way Mother used to make it before the war, when
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there was still food to be had, and when everyone still had an
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appetite.
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“Are you sure that’s enough food, Margie?” Joshua asks,
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looking at me, in between bites.
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I nod. “Yes,” I say. Joshua raises his eyebrows, but then the
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moment passes and he takes another bite. I could tell him
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that once you have come close to starving, it still feels impos
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sible to eat in abundance, these many years later, but of
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course, I don’t. We weighed ourselves in the annex once, and
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I was 132 pounds. After the camp, I was flesh and bone, and
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now I am only marginally better. The last time I stepped on
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the scale, at Ilsa’s urging, I was just around 110 pounds. But I
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try to avoid weighing myself now, the same way I have stopped
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checking my face in the mirror. Though my face is rounder
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than my sister’s, my nose a bit wider, my eyes a bit more cir
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cular, there is still something there that bears a similarity to
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her. And without my glasses on, my face appears blurry in the
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mirror, an apparition. My sister’s face staring back at me.
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“So tell me,” Joshua is saying now. “How was Miss Korzyn
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ski yesterday?”
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I swallow some soup and will myself to also swallow away
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the image of my sister’s ghost. But even as I put down my
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spoon and pull the thin yellow paper with the two names on
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it out of my satchel, her face stays in my mind.
Paragon of
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virtue,
she whispers.
Living your great American life hiding in
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your thick sweater
.
What do you think you’re doing here, now,
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at lunch with your boss? And what of that other yellow paper
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folded in your satchel?
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I glance down to check that this yellow paper is the right
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one before handing it across the table to Joshua. It is. He
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takes it from me, and for just a second the tips of our fingers
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touch before I pull back quickly. But Joshua seems not to
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notice, as he is already staring at the paper and frowning.
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“Two isn’t enough,” he says. I nod, because I have already
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come to this realization myself. “We need fifty names. Maybe
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a hundred.”
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“A hundred?” I say, focusing my full attention on him now,
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on the way he looks so different when he’s frowning, older,
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more like Ezra. “I don’t think she’ll ever get you that many
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names.”
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“You may be right, Margie. And yet I know they’re out
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there. Robertson has three factories in Philly and another
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four across the river. And many of his workers are Jewish
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immigrants, like Miss Korzynski.” He sighs. “I’m sorry I’ve
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wasted your lunch hour with all this.”
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“You haven’t,” I say. “I was glad to leave the office for a
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little while.”
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He nods. “You should leave the office more at lunch. It’s
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good to get out of there sometimes.”
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“Okay,” I say.
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“Sometimes I think I’ll suffocate in that place.” He shakes
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his head. “My father always seems to think greatness and
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money are the same thing, but you know what I think great
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ness is?”
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“What?” I ask.
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“Being brave, like Miss Korzynski. Doing something that
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no one else has dared to do before you. Finding something
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that terrifies you and then doing it anyway. Does that make
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sense, Margie?”
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“Yes,” I say. “It does.”
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I stare at Joshua, and for the moment before he stands, his
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gray-green eyes flicker with something that I can’t exactly put
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my finger on. And then, quickly, he smiles, and he is glowing
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again, like the Joshua I am used to.
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Peter’s eyes, they were a blue so deep, you might have thought
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they were in a painting, a van Gogh or a Cézanne. His eyes
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held onto me when we spoke.
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At first, we shared lunch. Every day for a week. Or maybe
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two. Time had an odd quality in the annex, hours into days,
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days into weeks, weeks into months, then years. It was hard
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to remember the days, to keep track.
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But for some time, Peter and I sat on the divan tossing
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bread crumbs at Mouschi and talking about the people we
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knew from school, wondering what had happened to them.
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Who had been taken? Who was in hiding? Later, when we
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wanted to become a secret, Peter and I would be together
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only at night, after everyone else was sleeping. But at first, we
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shared bread and whispers as the sunlight poured in through
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the high glass window in Peter’s room.
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After that week, or maybe those two weeks, Mouschi
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decided he liked me and came onto my lap, which Peter said
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was strange, because Mouschi normally only liked him and
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him only. “He knows that you are special,” Peter said as he
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stroked back Mouschi’s fur. His hand bumped against my leg,
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unintentionally, but it warmed my skin, even through the
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cloth of my skirt.
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“I can’t believe your parents let you bring your cat,” I said,
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wondering what had become of our own poor Moortje. Had
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the neighbors found her, or had she escaped and become one
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of those fierce alley cats? Father had said bringing her was too
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dangerous.
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“They didn’t have a choice really,” he said. “I told them I
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wasn’t coming here without him.”
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“You did?” I stared at him, at the way his blue eyes held
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steady. “Were you serious?” He nodded. “You were ready to
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die for a cat?”
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“It’s different for you,” he said. “You have a sister.”
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“But you have your parents,” I pointed out. “They have to
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mean more than a cat.”
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He shook his head. “Nah, they probably would’ve left me
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there and come into hiding without me. But they were too
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busy worrying about themselves to argue with me over a cat.”
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His voice sounded small as he said it, and watching the way
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they alternated between yelling at him and ignoring him in
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the annex, I was almost inclined to believe him.
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He held on to me then, with his blue eyes, as if we were
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the only two.
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“Oh, Peter,” I said. “They wouldn’t have left you behind.
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How could they have? You’re their son.” He shrugged, and I
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reached my hand up to touch his cheek. It was smooth, a
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boy’s cheek still, or perhaps an almost-man’s. “I would never
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leave you behind,” I whispered.
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He smiled at me and stroked Mouschi’s fur. His hand
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grazed my thigh, and stayed there a second longer than if it
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were an accident. “I know that,” he whispered back. “And I
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would never leave you behind either.”
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Chapter Sixteen
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Joshua has an on-again, off-again girlfriend: Penny
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Greenberg, daughter of Saul Greenberg, one of Ezra’s part
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ners and another name on the law firm’s letterhead. Penny is
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tiny, almost childlike, with thick black curly hair that tumbles
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past her shoulders. She shows up at the office sometimes,
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wearing elegant dresses that I imagine were intended for par
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ties, not for every day or for work. Though I’m pretty sure
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both that Penny doesn’t work and that she considers every day
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a party.
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Penny has been stopping by to see her father a lot lately,
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but mainly I suspect she is at the office to see Joshua, using
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her father as an excuse. I also suspect that she likes Joshua a
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whole lot more than he likes her. More than once, Joshua has
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asked me to lie about him being in a meeting or on an impor
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tant phone call when she has shown up.
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This afternoon, though, she saunters in, draped in a dress
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the color of a ripe tomato, with a hat to match, her hair
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twisted underneath in some kind of fashionable up-do that
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seems impossible to create oneself. I wonder if she has paid
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someone to do it for her.
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“Hello, Margie,” she says. “Josh is expecting me.”
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She walks past my desk, sashaying her hips. “Hold on a
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second,” I call after her. “I’ll buzz him. He may be in the
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middle of something.”
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“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”
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I press the button on the phone to buzz him, but she is
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already past me, in his office. She doesn’t shut the door all the
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way behind her, and after a moment I hear the sound of her
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giggle and Joshua’s ebullient laughter.
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Five minutes later, he walks out with Penny draped on his
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arm. “Margie,” he says to me, tipping his hat on the way past.
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“I’m leaving for the day.”
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“Okay,” I say.
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He winks at me, and then he says, “Have a nice weekend.”
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Shelby stops typing as soon as the elevator door shuts behind
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Joshua and Penny.
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“Now this,” she says, smirking, “is an interesting devel
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opment.”
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“What’s that?” I ask, finding nothing about Penny’s quick
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escape with Joshua in the least bit interesting.
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“I thought he didn’t go to Margate because he and his
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father are in a fight. But maybe he didn’t go because of her.”
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“Why would you say that?” I ask, my face turning red
thinking about how I considered our lunch might have been
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the reason.
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“His father is away for the weekend. They can have his
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father’s big Main Line house all to themselves.”
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“But Joshua has his own house,” I say. I have ridden the
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bus past it before, a duplex near Broad and Olney, on a corner
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filled with flower boxes, a location I find divine but that I
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imagine feels way too bourgeois to Ezra Rosenstein.
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Shelby waves a hand in the air. “But a girl like Penny. She’d
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be impressed by the fancy house. Heck, I’d be impressed by
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the fancy house.”
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“You’d be impressed by anything.” I can’t stifle my
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annoyance.
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“I’m just saying,” she says. “The cat’s away, and the mice will
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play.”
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“That’s such a stupid expression,” I say. “It doesn’t even
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make sense.”
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She laughs. “Come on, Margie. It’s the weekend. Let’s get
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out of here and get a drink.”
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I shake my head, because even with all of Shelby’s talk
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about Penny and Joshua, I am still thinking about what
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Joshua said to me at lunch. That greatness is in bravery. Have
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I forgotten how to be brave, even in the smallest way? Is that
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why I hold so tightly to my sweater, my new name? Is that why
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I have not written the letter to my father that I have com
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posed in my head a thousand times? Why I have not tried to
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find Peter, for so very long? Why I have tucked the woman’s
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voice away, in the back of my head these past few days, denied
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it, excused it? Am I a coward now?
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“No,” I tell Shelby. “I can’t. I have something else I need
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to do.”
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“It’ll keep till Monday,” she says.
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“No,” I say. “It won’t.”
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I leave Shelby on Market Street and then walk in the opposite
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direction from my apartment toward the bus stop at the cor
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ners of Market and Seventeenth. After I turn the corner, out
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of Shelby’s line of sight, I pull the tiniest of squares from my
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satchel. I unfold it, read the address again, though I have
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already committed it to memory:
P. Pelt, 2217 Olney Avenue,
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Apartment 4A.
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Once I am sitting on the bus, I still clutch tightly to the
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fading scrap of paper. My fingers ache and tremble, and I do
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not feel brave in the slightest.
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When I first came to Philadelphia in 1953, I tried desper
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ately to look for Peter. I called the operator every day from
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Ilsa’s telephone and asked her for Peter Pelt. “No listings
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under that name,” she always told me.
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“Try van Pels,” I’d say, just in case he’d decided not to
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change his name after all.
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“No. No listing for that either.”
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But then, nearly a year into my American life, I saw it for
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the first time. My sister’s diary, in the window of Robin’s
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Books. It caught my eye as I walked by, the echo of her face.
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I walked past it, then slowed down, then stopped, then
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walked back, though I am not certain how my legs moved.
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