Margot: A Novel (23 page)

18
Not only is he editor of my sister’s famous book, but also
19
now he is husband to a woman named Fritzi Markovits. He
20
is owner of a new life, lover of a new woman, holder of an
21
indelible legacy.
22
Sometimes I imagine what might happen should I even
23
find myself standing on
his
doorstep, ringing his bell.
24
I would not be disguised then in a nun’s habit, my hair
25
short and shorn, my flesh falling across my bones. Now I am
26
still thinner than I was before the war, older, but all in all, I
27
look very much the same girl who hid there on the Prinsen
S28
gracht.
N29
01
But even if I went to Switzerland now, found him now,
02
even if he opened the door and his eyes shone with recogni
03
tion, I know the first thing he would ask me: how did I get
04
away from the Nazis, and why did I stay hidden so long. And
05
then, he would turn his brown eyes toward me, ripe with
06
disappointment, or even disgust.
07
Where is your sister? How could you come back here with-
08
out your sister?
09
If I made it past that, and I was still breathing, then I
10
might say,
Where is my diary? Why is my sister’s book, filled
11
with stories, the one the world knows? Why have you always
12
loved her more than me, even in death?
But, most likely, I
13
would not say any of this. I would only stare at him, loving
14
him and feeling angry with him. Wanting to hug him tightly
15
to me and wanting to run.
16
Who is it?
Fritzi might call from somewhere behind him,
17
inside the house.
Who’s at the door, Otto?
18
No one, dear,
he would answer her.
19
Then he would shake his head, and he would whisper to
20
me,
You killed her. And I am the one keeping her alive.
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28S
29N
01
02
03
C
hap
ter
Thirty-one
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
Early Friday morning before Shelby has arrived,
14
Joshua buzzes me into his office. I wonder if he has come to
15
work today just to talk to me, and the thought thrills me a
16
little. “Well,” he says, motioning me to have a seat. “How did
17
it go with the rabbi?”
18
I hear Rabbi Epstein’s words in my head again:
God knows
19
who is a Jew and who is not,
but Joshua, he does not. He has
20
no idea. “Fine,” I tell Joshua. “Rabbi Epstein will pass out the
21
flyers tomorrow at the services.”
22
“All right,” Joshua says, smiling at me. “Very good, Margie.
23
Let’s see if you get some more calls next week, and we’ll go
24
from there.” He pauses. “Mr. Bakerfield is coming in at ten,
25
and then I’m off to Margate for the weekend. Hold all my
26
calls, and leave the messages on my desk. Send Mr. Baker
27
field back when he arrives.”
S28
“Of course,” I say, standing, walking to the door.
N29
01
“Anything else, Mr. Rosenstein?” I want him to say there is,
02
that there is something. What, I’m not sure. But something.
03
But all he says is this: “That’ll be all for now, Margie.”
04
05
06
At precisely 10 a.m., Charles Bakerfield steps off the elevator.
07
He tips his hat, nods in my direction. “You can go ahead
08
back,” I tell him. “Mr. Rosenstein is expecting you.”
09
He stares at me for another moment. Then he smiles and
10
walks into Joshua’s office and shuts the door behind him.
11
“Now, that one,” Shelby whispers across the desks, “gives
12
me the willies.” I do not really know the details of Charles
13
Bakerfield’s case, except what I have gleaned from typing
14
some of Joshua’s notes and from what I recall from reading
15
the stories in the
Inquirer
last year, after it happened. His
16
wife was found strangled in her bed, but according to Joshua’s
17
notes, Charles claims it was an accident. “What a creeper,”
18
Shelby says.
19
“Shhh,” I whisper to Shelby now. “He might hear you.”
20
She shrugs. “What’s he going to do?” she asks. “Kill me?”
21
It is such an American thing, to talk of death as if they are
22
so far from its reach. Perhaps it is their inability to understand
23
that murder, it is easy for some people. These people, they
24
will kill, and they will kill again, and it will mean nothing.
25
26
27
I was familiar with trials, even before I came to America and
28S
began working for Joshua. In Frankfurt, Eduard and I, we’d
29N
sit on the sofa in his parlor drinking tea and listening to the
voices stretching out on his radio, recounting the events. In
01
Nuremberg, in Luneberg, in Kraków, Hamburg. The men,
02
the Nazis, they were found guilty, and condemned to die by
03
hanging. I wanted to watch them hang, watch them struggle
04
to breathe, with the ropes tightening around their necks. But
05
even if I could have, Eduard never would have let me.
06
After a while he would switch the radio off. “This isn’t
07
healthy, Margot,” he would say to me. And my ears would
08
yearn for more, for something. I’d have to bite back the urge
09
to push Eduard away, to turn the radio back on. But Eduard
10
was filled with kindness, and I never wanted to do anything
11
that might cause him sorrow.
12
Sometimes when he was at work, though, I would come in
13
from the garden and switch the radio on and listen without
14
him. Sometimes, if I moved the antenna just right, I could get
15
the American station and then I would listen to the smooth
16
voice of Mr. Walter Cronkite recounting the events of the
17
day. He was the one who told me that the men, the Nazis, in
18
Nuremberg, they were to be hanged. Eduard told me too,
19
later that same day. But Walter Cronkite, of course, said it
20
better, with just the right amount of anger, defiance, and dis
21
gust. In Eduard’s voice, I heard only sadness.
22
“There will be some justice,” Eduard told me, but I did not
23
think he really believed it, that any justice could actually be
24
served.
25
I shook my head. “Hanging a few Nazis is nothing,” I said.
26
“Margot,” Eduard said again. “Turn the radio off. It’s not
27
healthy.”
S28
There was controversy after Nuremberg over whether
N29
01
the ropes used to hang the Nazis were too long on purpose.
02
If the ropes were too long, Walter Cronkite reported, it meant
03
the men struggled and died slow and painful deaths, whereas
04
if the ropes were shorter, their necks would’ve snapped imme
05
diately, quickly.
06
The executioner denied the claims, saying the ropes were
07
just the right length. But I suspected he was lying, and that
08
was something for which I was glad.
09
I know Charles Bakerfield, he is not a Nazi. But still, I
10
agree with Shelby that he is, as she calls him, a creeper. Most
11
likely, he is also a murderer, and it pains me that if he is set
12
free, if he is not to be hanged for his crimes, that it will be
13
Joshua’s doing. That Joshua is the one who will help him get
14
away with murder.
15
16
17
Charles Bakerfield walks out of Joshua’s office just before
18
lunchtime. He tips his hat at me and holds his wild green
19
eyes on my face for maybe a moment too long. “Have a nice
20
weekend,” he says to me, smiling wide enough to reveal a
21
golden tooth on the right side of his mouth.
22
Shelby is on the phone, but she shakes her head at me
23
after the elevator doors shut. I shrug and continue with my
24
typing, glancing out of the corner of my eye through the glass
25
window as Joshua readies his desk and gathers his things for
26
the weekend.
27
He walks out of his office and stops in front of my desk. I
28S
look up and he smiles at me, gray-green eyes dancing. “Well,
29N
I’m off to Margate,” he says.
I nod, because he has already told me this earlier, and it
01
feels like there is something else he wants to say but maybe
02
not in front of Shelby.
03
“Have a nice time,” I tell him. “Enjoy the sea.”
04
He smiles again, and his face softens. “Have you ever been
05
there, Margie?”
06
“To the sea?” I ask, and I am suddenly filled with sadness
07
as I think of Peter’s eyes, the way they held me, on the divan.
08
“No.” He laughs. “To Margate.”
09
“No,” I say. “I have never been to the New Jersey sea.”
10
“Well,” he says, “it’s really something. You’ll have to go
11
sometime.”
12
He is just being nice, making conversation, I know that.
13
But still, I can’t help but think it sounds almost like an invita
14
tion. “Yes,” I murmur. “Maybe sometime.”
15
“See you Monday morning,” he says, tapping on the side
16
of my desk, and then I watch him walk lightly to the elevator.
17
“Don’t you just love it?” Shelby shakes her head after the
18
elevator doors shut behind him. “Our bosses out on the beach
19
while we’re stuck here.” She wags her forefinger across the
20
desk at me. “We’re leaving early today, Margie, and I’m not
21
taking no for an answer.”
22
She switches on her radio, and I hear the soft strains of
23
“Lonely Boy” drifting across the desks. Suddenly it is as if Mr.
24
Paul Anka, he is singing directly to me.
“All I want is someone
25
to love . . .”
I think about Joshua leaving for Margate, where
26
he will probably spend the weekend with Penny, again. And
27
then I think about the pink Cadillac. What if it was a mis
S28
take? A visiting friend? Or Peter’s car? What if the American
N29
01
Pete wants to emulate Elvis Presley?
Greatness is in bravery,
02
Joshua said.
03
“I’m actually going to leave right now,” I tell Shelby, and I
04
stand up and gather my things to put into my satchel.
05
She glances up from her typing and raises her eyebrows.