Margot: A Novel (5 page)

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ways I was that girl too: that Jew trapped like a rat, deeply in
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love, stolen away by the Green Police. That I
am
that girl.
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That Jew.
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About a year into my life in Philadelphia, I began to notice
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articles in the
Inquirer
about terrible things that had been
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done to Jews. A gang of hoodlums went after Jewish children
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in a very “Jewish section of the city,” my sponsor, Ilsa,
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informed me. Then a few weeks later, a flaming flare was
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nailed to a house nearby, just because a Jewish woman was
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thought to live there. With the flare, the Nazis left a message
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that said
der Jude,
the German word for Jew, and
Deutschland
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über alles.
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Ilsa looked over my shoulder as I read the articles and
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clucked her tongue. “It is terrible,” she said to me. “And with
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the firebomb thrown into that synagogue last fall.”
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“Firebomb in the synagogue?” I asked, the words feeling
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like rubber on my tongue. Synagogues being bombed, in the
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city of Philadelphia? Jewish children being attacked?
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It was late spring 1954. The air had just begun to grow
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warm and heavy. I put my sweater on. And I have worn it,
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tightly, ever since.
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Chapter Seven
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“I think Ron has another girl on the side.” Shelby
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whispers this to me, across the desks. It is Friday again, and by
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now, I have almost forgotten about both her teary entrance on
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Tuesday and her talk of the movie, which she has dropped in
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favor of a new concern over Rock Hudson and Doris Day: are
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they an item or no? Shelby believes they are, especially because
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she saw the poster for their new movie,
Pillow Talk,
coming out
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in the fall, and she thinks they just
look
like an item.
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“A girl can always tell these things,” she told me as I’d nod
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ded and half listened, thinking instead about the tiniest
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square of paper still folded inside my satchel. It was one thing
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to know Peter might be here, but another thing all together, to
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actually call the number. After all this time.
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Now Shelby’s voice has taken on an unusually serious
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tone, and her normal smile is gone from her face as she men
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tions that she thinks Ron is not being faithful to her.
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“Why do you think that?” I ask her, looking up from my
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typing.
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“He’s been lying to me. Telling me he’s working late, when
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really he’s not,” Shelby says.
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This Friday morning Joshua has come in for a few hours
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before heading to Margate, but Ezra is already gone and
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Joshua doesn’t mind when Shelby plays her radio softly. I hear
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the strains of Mr. Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” floating across the
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desks. Frankie croons, and I glance through the glass window
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at Joshua, who is talking on the phone and scribbling some
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thing at his desk. He runs his fingers through his chestnut
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curls and smiles as he says something to the caller. He is
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hunched over his desk, but still, his shoulders look wide and
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strong in his dark brown suit, a near exact color match to his
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curls. For a moment I think about Peter, about whether he
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wears a suit to work now, like Joshua, and whether his shoul
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ders now are just as broad. And then I quickly look away from
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the window, from Joshua.
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“Perhaps you’re mistaken?” I murmur, and I notice now
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Shelby is chewing on her fingernails, the way she always does
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when she is distressed about something.
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She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “Peg saw him, on the
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way home from Casteel’s the other night. She said he was
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walking down Chestnut with some . . . hussy.” She bites her
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lip now, as if she is holding back tears.
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“I’m sorry,” I say. “But maybe it isn’t what you think?
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Sometimes things, people, they are not as they appear to be.”
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“What else could it be?” she asks.
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I shrug, because I honestly don’t know, though I also know

Shelby has sat across from me for three years, and she neither
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knows nor seems to suspect nearly anything real about me.
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She has an American blind trust in the people around her.
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“His sister?” I finally say.
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“He doesn’t have a sister.”
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“Cousin?” I ask. She shrugs. “Maybe you should just ask
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him?” I tell her, thinking how ironic it is that I am giving her
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advice about getting the truth.
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She considers it for a moment, as I find my eyes drawn
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back to Joshua again, through the glass. He hangs up the
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phone, moves toward the door, and I quickly avert my eyes
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and hands back to my typewriter.
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He walks out of his office, grabs his brown hat off the hat
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rack by my desk, and places it atop his chestnut curls in one
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swift motion. Shelby turns the music down so it is barely
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audible. “Don’t do that on my account,” Joshua says, smiling
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at me. I remember my image of Peter, broad-shouldered and in
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a suit, wondering if this might make me immune to Joshua’s
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smile now, but apparently it does not. I smile back. “Margie,”
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he says. “I have a new client coming in Monday afternoon,
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and I want you to sit in on the meeting.”
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“Me?” Though Joshua has encouraged me on the paralegal
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front, he has never offered me more than secretarial duties.
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“You speak Polish, right?”
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I nod, and my smile falls away in an instant as I swallow
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back the lie I tell everyone when they ask me about my accent.
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It is only a hint of an accent by now, but still, Americans seem
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to have the ability to detect even the slightest bit of foreign
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ness in a person. Yet, of course, they cannot tell the difference
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between German and Polish accents. And I cannot say the
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truth, that my accent is German. There is so much hatred still
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for Germans in America, especially among Jews.
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“It has been a long while,” I tell Joshua now. “I barely
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remember my Polish.”
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“That’s all right,” Joshua tells me. “She speaks English. But
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heavily accented. So I might need your help understanding.”
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I know many languages: French, Hebrew, German, Eng
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lish, Dutch. Some Latin. Polish is not one of them.
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“Well, have a nice weekend, ladies,” Joshua says, tipping
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his hat in my direction as he floats toward the elevator. The
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doors shut behind him. Shelby turns up her music, louder,
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and for a moment Frankie seems to be shouting at us.
Surely
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the things I ask can’t be too great a task . . .
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“Maybe you’re right,” I hear Shelby saying. “I should just
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ask Ron.”
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But now all my words are gone, and all I can do is sit there
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and cling tightly to my sweater against my chest.
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Chapter Eight
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The weekend passes in a blur of restless nights, as I
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pace my apartment, staring at my paralegal work without
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absorbing any of it, and folding and unfolding the yellow
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square from my satchel, though now I have memorized both
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the address and the number by heart.
P. Pelt. It cannot be him,
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I think, and yet, maybe it is. But Sunday afternoon I become
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more consumed with what is waiting for me at work on Mon
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day, and I find myself at the Free Public Library of Philadel
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phia, browsing through a Polish dictionary.
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I am quite good at learning. In the annex, through corre
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spondence, I learned English, French, Latin, mathematics,
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physics, literature, and English shorthand, which is some
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thing that helped me get the job with Joshua. And so I try to
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cram as much Polish into my brain as I can within the space
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of a few hours.
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But by Monday afternoon as I sit at my desk, nervously
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awaiting the Polish woman’s arrival, the only Polish words I
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can seem to remember are the two I have known for a very
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long time.
Jestes diablem.
You are the devil. They rattle in my
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brain, as if they are still being screamed there by an old and
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helpless woman. They will be useless words in whatever busi
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ness Joshua is conducting, I’m certain. But still, I cannot turn
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them off.
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Joshua is in his office, on the phone, and though I am sup
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posed to be typing addresses on billing envelopes and prepar
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ing his schedule for the rest of the week, I find myself,
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instead, furtively watching the elevator and nodding my head
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as Shelby wonders off and on if she
should
ask Ron about
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the hussy. They had such a nice weekend together, feeding
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the ducks in Fairmount Park and having a picnic. Maybe she
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shouldn’t . . . ?
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“I don’t know,” I murmur, wondering if Ron is anything
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like me, and if it will even matter if she asks or not, if he will
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dare tell her the truth. But maybe he will. If she asks enough,
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maybe he will be forced to.
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Lying can be a second skin, but when you are called out
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on a lie, it becomes all too easy for that skin to start to peel
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away. I have been called out before, in my life in America, but
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never here. Not with Shelby or Joshua. Before, it was my
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sponsor, Ilsa, as she looked over my shoulder when I filled out
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my job application.
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“You list Poland as your country of birth?” she asked. I
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nodded. “I thought you were born in Germany?”
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“I lived in Germany as a child,” I said, and that was not a
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lie. I
did
live in Germany as a child. Ilsa frowned, but she
didn’t question me any further. Even if she had, I would not
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have told her the truth, that I
was
born in Germany, but in my
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American life, I want nothing to do with Germany. And even
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though I lived there for many years, I did not dare write Hol
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land, for it is the country everyone most closely associates
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with my sister. I settled on Poland for my lie because it
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seemed a believable explanation for my accent. And I was
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there, once, a place west of Kraków. I did not know it at the
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time, but that is where I was. I died there. Afterward, I was
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born again. A new person. A Gentile.
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Jestes diablem.
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In my head now, these words, they drown out the sound
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of Shelby’s voice.
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Fifteen minutes past three, I watch her step off the elevator,
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cautiously, reading the signs above her as if she’s not quite
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sure she’s in the right place. True Americans, like Shelby and
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Joshua, always walk with a particular sense of confidence.
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This woman, I can tell, just from her walk, is not a born
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American. She is like me.
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I look at her carefully as she approaches my desk. I think
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she is older than me, though it is hard to tell. Her black hair
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is streaked with gray and pulled back into a tight bun at the
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nape of her neck. She wears a black half-sleeved dress and
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looks nothing in the slightest like the clients who usually step
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off the elevator, most of whom are men, dressed in richly
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layeredthree-piece
suits.
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“Czesc,”
I say to her.
Hello.
The Polish word, learned
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yesterday at the library, finds me again as she approaches
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my desk, and I smile in relief. My studies, they will not fail
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me, even if they were hastily done.
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She narrows her brown eyes at me. “Bryda Korzynski,” she
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says. “I speak English.” I nod. “I have appointment,” she tells me.
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“Have a seat.” I point to the chairs off to the side of my
07
desk. “I’ll buzz Mr. Rosenstein to let him know you’re here.”
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She turns, and when she does, I catch something by the
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lip of her sleeve, on her left forearm, just a trace of dark blue
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ink, the familiar echo of the letter
A
.
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I blink, and then the image, it is gone. The sleeve has gone
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back, and she is sitting in the chair across from my desk. I
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open my mouth, but then no sound comes out. Since coming
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to America, I have not seen a tattoo like this on anyone else,
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and the idea of it now, here, in the safety of the office where
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I work, it unnerves me. Perhaps it was something else, I tell
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myself. Perhaps the movie being so fresh, my thoughts of
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Poland, they are making me crazy, making me see things that
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aren’t even here.
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“Is there problem?” Bryda asks, frowning at me, and I real
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ize I am still staring.
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“No.” I quickly shake my head and depress the intercom
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button to let Joshua know she’s here.
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Inside Joshua’s office, Bryda Korzynski lifts up her sleeve and
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thrusts her arm in Joshua’s direction.
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I sit in a side chair, observing, as Joshua has asked, though
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