Margot: A Novel (18 page)

Shelby and I sit at a low round table, just next to the
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checkered dance floor, though it is too early now for anyone
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to be on it, for the loud music to be playing, or even for
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the place to be crowded. Only one other table is taken, on the
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other side of the bar, with two girls looking not all that dis
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similar to Shelby and me in their plain cotton dresses, so I
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guess they work for rich men who leave early on Fridays too.
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And there are a few young men sitting by the bar, dressed in
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suits, who are either conducting a business meeting or pre
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tending to, I think.
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Shelby orders a vodka tonic, and I order a club soda with
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a twist of lime. When our drinks arrive, I am surprised to find
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myself mildly disappointed when I take a sip and it does not
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burn my throat. Perhaps I should’ve ordered what Shelby is
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having. Maybe next time I will.
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“Okay, Margie,” Shelby says. “You know what I think?” I
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shake my head. “I think it is time for us to find you a man.”
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“A man?” I laugh a little, into my club soda.
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“Yes,” she says. “Preferably a good-looking one with a
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decent job.” She scans the room with her eyes.
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“Oh, stop,” I say.
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“You’re not getting any younger,” she tells me. “Before you
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know it, you’ll be thirty, and being unmarried and thirty is
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like death in this city. You may as well just buy a few cats and
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call yourself a spinster.”
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Really, I am thirty-three, but Shelby, like everyone else
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who knows Margie Franklin, believes her to be twenty-seven.
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So I don’t tell her now, of course, that I am already well past
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thirty. “I don’t even want to get married,” I say instead. “And
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I like cats.”
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She gasps, as if I’ve just said something blasphemous. “Of
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course you want to get married,” she says. “Don’t you want to
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fall in love?”
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“I’ve been in love,” I tell her.
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“And not with Joshua.” She shakes her head. “That doesn’t
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count.”
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“I told you,” I say, biting back my annoyance. Though it is
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not, truly, annoyance with her. At the moment I feel more
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annoyed with Penny, with just the idea of her in her frivolous,
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tomato-colored dress. “Nothing’s going on with me and
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Joshua.” I pause. “And I wasn’t talking about Joshua.”
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“So what’s his name?” she asks me.
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“Peter,” I say, and I surprise myself with my honesty. But
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in some instances, you are so hidden that even the truth is
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safe. I know Shelby will never connect the pieces between
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the movie she has seen and a Polish American girl named
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Margie Franklin. She would never even imagine that my Pay
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ter is the Peeter she saw on the silver screen, the Peter who
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was kissing that Millie Perkins Shelby is so fond of.
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“Peter,” she says, arching those eyebrows. “And where is
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this Peter now?”
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“I knew him when I was a girl.” Then I add, for good mea
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sure, “In Poland.”
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“Well, Margie,” she says, waving her hand in the air and
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polishing off her drink. “That doesn’t even count. We need to
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get you an American man.”
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“That does count,” I insist. “And who knows,” I say, “per
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haps now he is an American man.” I think of the tiny square,
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folded, folded, folded again in the bottom of my satchel, the
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mailbox reading
Pelt
.
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“No,” she says. “I mean a real American man. How about
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him?” She points to one of the men at the bar. He is tall with
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wire glasses and the face of a boy, and he wears a brown suit
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that swims on his lanky frame.
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I shake my head. “I know you are trying to help,” I tell her.
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“But really, Shelby. I’m not interested.” Then, to change the
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subject, I quickly say, “Whatever happened with Ron and his
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hussy? Did you ask him about her?”
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“Shhh.” She leans into the table and looks around the
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room to see if anyone has heard me. “You can’t just go shout
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ing that word in public, Margie.”
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I am not sure why not, as she was the one who used it first,
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and in the office no less, but I offer an apologetic shrug, then
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take another sip of my drink.
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“Now don’t laugh at me,” she whispers, and leans in close,
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as if she is about to reveal the grandest of secrets. I nod. “Last
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Friday he said he was working late. So Peggy and I, well, Peg
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did it actually, we tried to call the office to check if he was
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there. But no one answers, right? Because it’s after hours. The
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girls have all gone home.”
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I nod and hang on to her words. “So then what did you
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do?” I whisper back.
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“Peg and I, we took the bus to his house, and the whole
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house was dark, so we knew he wasn’t home. Then we waited
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on the street, hiding behind the big oak tree when we saw
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his car.”
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“And . . . ?”
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“And nothing.” She shrugs. “He got out by himself, carry
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ing his attaché, and he walked into the house. He really was
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working late, just like he said.”
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I think about the fact that Shelby does not really know
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where Ron was before he drove home, that he could have
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been off with his hussy then, but I am not going to point this
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out to her. “What about the huss—woman Peggy saw him
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with before?”
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Shelby shrugs and takes a sip of her drink. “Maybe it was
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a mistake.” She rolls her eyes. “Peg is forever forgetting to put
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her glasses on. Maybe she wasn’t wearing them, and it wasn’t
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even Ron.”
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“Maybe,” I say. I do not really believe that Peggy would’ve
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made such a dramatic mistake. But then I remember the way
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my own face changes in the mirror, without my glasses on.
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The way I so easily see myself as a ghost.
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“Now, enough about me,” Shelby says. “I’m serious about
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finding you a man, Margie.” Her eyes scan the room once
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more.
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I finish my drink, and I stand up. “It is time for me to go
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home,” I say.
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“Oh, come on,” she says. “Don’t be like that. The night is
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just getting started.”
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I shake my head again. I want to leave plenty of time to
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make it home before nightfall.
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I have missed one Shabbat. It is not the end of the world, I
know it, but still the guilt bubbles up inside my chest when I
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remember last Friday night, at O’Malley’s with Joshua. Father
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was a liberal Jew and could care less about rituals. Mother,
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however, she always believed. “Religion is breath, Margot,” she
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told me once.
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This was even after the yellow star, even after the word
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Jood
became something dirty, something foreign. The yellow
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star. The Star of David. The Star of Death.
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Margie Franklin, she is a not a Jew. But every time I light
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a candle and say a silent prayer as darkness breaks on Friday
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night, it feels like a reminder of the person I once was, that
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somewhere, deep underneath my sweater, my second skin,
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my lies, she is still in there. Sometimes, in the wash of the
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cool yellow flame, I can even hear the sound of my mother’s
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voice, so close, it is almost as if she is still with me. “Religion
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is breath,” Mother told me. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
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Ch
apter
T
wenty-t
hree
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Sometimes I wonder if Pete Pelt fears discovery, the
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way I so often do. Does he keep his forearm covered, or does
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he not let it bother him now, the way a true American, or my
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sister, might?
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In the annex, I asked him once, just before the end, how
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we would do it. If we could really hide ourselves forever, even
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after the war. “Two years has been so long,” I said. “And every
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day, we are afraid.”
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He’d shaken his head, and leaned in and kissed me on the
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forehead. “Margot,” he said. “Hiding who you are, it’ll be so
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much easier than hiding where you are.” He paused. “We will
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be out in the open then, living life. Just different names,
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that’s all. No longer Jews.”
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“Can it really be that easy?” I asked him.
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“Yes,” he said. “It’s like an annex in your mind. And no one
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can unlock your mind.”
But what would Peter have said if I could’ve talked to him
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after that morning, when the Green Police ripped us out of
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the annex? Or after the war, after my father published my
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sister’s diary for all the world to read, then see on the stage
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and now the silver screen? Perhaps he would look me in the
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eyes, and I would notice his eyes are darker than the sea,
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black as night. Perhaps he would look at me and say that now
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he understands, that you really cannot hide forever, even in
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your mind. A hiding space can only remain secret for so long.
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That always, eventually, you are discovered.
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Sunday morning, I am still thinking about what Shelby said,
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about how she and Peggy spied on Ron, and though I am
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holding on to my paralegal studies and readying myself to
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leave for Fairmount Park, I find myself walking in the other
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direction, toward the city bus stop. I tuck my studies into my
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satchel and board the bus toward Broad and Olney. I feel
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guilty about pushing my studies aside once more, and I prom
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ise myself again, double studying next week, or even triple, if
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I must. But today I cannot shake Shelby’s plan from my mind.
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I do not have to knock on the door,
I think
. I do not have to
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be brave. I can just hide on the street and watch.
I will go, and
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just like Shelby, I will spy from a distance.
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On the bus, I close my eyes and lean my head against the
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dirty window. I think about what I might see when I get to
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Peter’s house, what he might look like now, if I will even
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recognize him. I try to conjure up the fantasy image of him in
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my head, the man I have envisioned, over and over again,
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taking the train home from work, walking into our home in
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Levittown. But now, as hard as I try, I can only picture Joshua.
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Joshua.
Joshua, I remind myself, is in Margate, with Penny.
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Then I hear my sister’s voice in my head, again, the way I
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so often do.
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“I could fancy Peter,” she is saying. She said this to me
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once. We sat together on her bed, in the room she, by then,
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shared with the dentist. We were both writing in our diaries,
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and I put my pen down to look at her. Her almond eyes were
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glossy, nearly feverish.
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“But he loves me,” I said. Or maybe I didn’t say that.
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Maybe I said, “That’s ridiculous.”
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She shook her head. “His eyes are dreamy.”
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“You should stay away from him,” I said. “Father won’t like
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it.” But warnings, especially mine, bounced off my sister, as
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if her glowing skin made her immune to them.
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“Oh, don’t be such a paragon of virtue,” my sister said,
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laughing a little.
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I get off the bus and walk down Olney. The sun is warm
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today, my sweater too hot, and I feel my core temperature
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rising, my skin ready to burst, but I do not even push up my
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sleeves. I have lived through worse than feeling a little hot,
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haven’t I?
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I approach 2217 with care, whispering through the air,
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walking on my tiptoes so as not to be noticed, though the
early morning street is quiet, and I imagine most families in
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these houses are still sleeping. But I am a spy this morning,
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not
a paragon of virtue. A genuine Ethel Rosenberg, I think.
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And I am trying to act the part, a thought which makes me
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smile a little. Then something catches my eye, and I stop, and
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my smile quickly fades away. Even from a few houses away, I
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can see exactly what rests in the small drive at 2217.
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There are two cars there, parked side by side: a black Volk
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swagen Karmann Ghia convertible parked first, and then, right
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next to it, there is a Cadillac, its sharklike fins, its powdery pink
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color like silk, taunting me.
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I have seen enough. I turn and run back toward the bus stop.
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My heart rises and then falls against the rhythm of the city bus
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that takes me back toward Market Street. A
pink
Cadillac. It
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is a woman’s car, certainly. There can be no other explanation
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for that, can there? And it would not be a housekeeper there,
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this early on a Sunday morning, would it?
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I hear my sister’s voice in my head again, though this time
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it sounds like it did that very last morning, as she stood at the
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doorway to Peter’s room. “Peter?” His name was a question.
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I wanted to ask her then,
What, why?
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But then there was a man grabbing on to my arm, twisting
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it roughly, and pulling it against the coarse green flesh of his
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uniform. He didn’t have to pull so hard. I would’ve walked. I
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would’ve just gone with him. Just seeing them there, I already
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knew we were defeated.
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“No,” my sister screamed. “I’m not leaving.” She dug her
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heels into the floor. She was holding it in her hands, the
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orange-checkeredbook.
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The man picked her up and flung her over his shoulder, so
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hard that I gasped, afraid her neck might snap.
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The book went flying across the room, landing somewhere
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close to where Peter and I had spent the night on the divan.
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My diary was hidden away, in between the layers of the cot
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where I was supposed to sleep in my parents’ room.
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Back in my apartment, I cannot shake the picture of the
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driveway at 2217. But the farther away I am, the less certain I
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become about exactly what it was that I saw. Some spy I am.
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I can see now why Shelby convinced herself that Ron was not
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off with his hussy while she and Peg were waiting behind the
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oak tree. That was what she wanted to see, I suppose.
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I lie on my blue couch with Katze and think about it. I
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cannot imagine that my father would ever own a pink car, but
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American men, who knows? And Pete Pelt, I am certain he
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is a very American man. Joshua drives a blue car, and so does
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Bertram, but I wonder if that is just by chance.
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Just before dusk, I pick up the phone and dial Ilsa’s num
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ber. “My dear,” she says immediately, “is everything all right?”
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“Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
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“You are never any bother,” she tells me.