Margot: A Novel (10 page)

worse, hidden from worse. So I breathe deeply, and I tell
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myself to stay.
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“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Joshua says. “But you understand
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how important this is, don’t you? Please, Margie. This is
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really a very big deal for me. And I need your help here.” His
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gray-green eyes, they plead with me in their softness. And I
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think guiltily of the way Bryda’s voice shook as she called her
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boss a Nazi. This is a good thing that Joshua is trying to do,
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an honorable thing. And what will Joshua think about me if I
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refuse to help him?
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“Okay,” I finally agree.
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“Thank you,” he says. I nod and stand. “And remember,”
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he says, before I open the door, “not a word to anyone.”
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“What was that all about?” Shelby whispers, when I’m back at
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my desk.
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“What?” I say, innocently enough.
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“I was watching through the glass. It looked . . . steamy.”
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“Steamy?” I say, my voice uneasy. I shake my head. “No. It
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was nothing, really.”
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“He didn’t tell you what they were fighting about, did he?
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Ezra’s still miffed about it.”
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“That’s not my place,” I say.
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She rolls her eyes at me. For a second I think she might
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call me a paragon of virtue. But then she says, “If you find
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out, you tell me. I’m dying to know.”
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“Of course,” I say. But Joshua needn’t worry. I am good at
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keeping secrets. I am wrapped in them now, the way I am
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wrapped in lies, like my sweater, clinging tightly to my skin,
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even on the hottest of days.
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When the big clock by the elevator strikes four o’clock, I lie
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to Shelby and tell her I have a doctor’s appointment and have
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to leave early.
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“Everything all right?” she asks. I nod and stare past her,
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in through the glass window by Joshua’s office. He has the
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phone slung between his shoulder and his ear, and his brow
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is ripe with concentration as he’s talking. He notices me gath
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ering my things, and he waves me toward the elevator and
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shoots me his uniquely Joshua smile. I smile back.
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But in the elevator, I am no longer smiling. I hold tightly
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to the yellow paper with Bryda’s address in my hand
. I can lie
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about this,
I think, the way I have lied about so much else
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already. I can tell Joshua I went and not go. I can crumple up
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the paper in my hand and walk my usual route down Market
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Street toward home.
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But I also know that Joshua is a meticulous lawyer, and
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that he will almost certainly follow up with Bryda with a
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phone call, and that tomorrow, also, he will expect a list of
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names and numbers from me.
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I have a choice, I think as the elevator doors open into the
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lobby and Henry tells me to have a good afternoon. I can do
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as Joshua asks. Or I can walk out the door of this office build
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ing and not come back. There would be other jobs, and there
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is always Ilsa’s house.
I think about the way Joshua just smiled at me, the way he
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is filled with so much goodness, and I know I will do what he
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asks. I do not want another job. And besides, I think as I step
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out onto the sidewalk, Ezra will never let Joshua take this any
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further.
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Chapter Fourteen
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I have to take two city buses to get to Bryda’s
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apartment, and the whole way there I think about what I
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will say to her. If she accuses me again, I will tell her that
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she knows nothing about me. I will be strong, and I will be
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firm, which are both things I am used to, and quite good at,
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being.
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I lean back against the hard bus seat, and take a few deep
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breaths. I am glad to be sitting now, because my legs they
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already feel unsteady.
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In Amsterdam, before we went into hiding, Jews were no
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longer allowed on buses, so we walked everywhere, even in
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the heat of the summer, even with packages to carry. We
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walked and we walked, our yellow star across our hearts, right
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there, like a target.
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In Philadelphia, it is easy to take a bus, and for this I am
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grateful. There are so many, you just have to read the map to
know which one and pay a little money to be able to navigate
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around the city.
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I have never been to Bryda’s part of town before, and as
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the bus pulls closer, I can see why. The buildings are shabby
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row houses with crumbling striped awnings and low brick
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apartments, flanked by beggars on the street. I think of
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Jodenbreestraat, the street in the center of Amsterdam where
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Jews lived, that began to crumble just before we went into
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hiding. So many Jews taken away. There was no one left to
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take care of the street any longer.
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As the bus comes to a stop, I look out the window and
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consider not getting off at all. There are beggars here too,
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even at the bus stop. I could stay on the bus until it loops back
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again closer to Center City, I think.
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But I find myself standing slowly, walking toward the door
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and then onto the street, where I find myself staring into the
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face of a wan beggar.
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She is a young girl, her hair pulled in a messy braid, her
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face streaked with dirt. She holds out a cup and looks at me
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with wounded brown eyes. She is too thin. Her dirty plaid
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dress falls over her.
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I reach into my satchel, pull out a shiny nickel, and drop
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it in her cup.
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Sometimes I am haunted by my sister’s eyes. It’s hard to
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remember them the way they were, when we were girls, living
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in the house on the Merwedeplein, or even when we lay
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next to each other quietly in the annex, writing in our diaries.
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I cannot remember their inflections of joy, or the way they
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darkened with jealousy when she asked if she could read my
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diary and she read how I felt about Peter, or even the way they
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fell when she cried, as she did so often. All I can remember
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is the way they looked, at the very end. She was skin and
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bones by then, her face barely even a shape, her eyes sunken
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and huge. They were brown, the color of almonds, with small
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green flecks. They were too big for her face. They begged me
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to help her.
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I try to shake the thought away as I walk to the stairwell
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in Bryda’s brick apartment building, then up three flights to
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her floor. The smell of garbage in the stairs overtakes me, a
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smell like rotting putrid rats, and I gag, because suddenly I
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am there, again, hauling trash with my sister. Her eyes. Like
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saucers. Begging me to carry her.
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I take a deep breath once I’m in the hallway, practicing in
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my head what I will say to Bryda, how I will keep the conver
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sation all business, only about Joshua. But the smell in the
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hallway is not much better than in the stairwell. The air is
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stagnant and I fight the urge to vomit as I wrap my sweater
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tighter around my chest.
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I reach my hand up to knock on her door. Apartment 3C in
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the north section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
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of America. It is a long way from Auschwitz, Poland. But as I
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knock, I understand, it is not as far as you might think.
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“You,” Bryda says, when she opens the door, her voice thick
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with disgust.
“Hello,” I say, as cordially as I can, given the circum
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stances, and then quickly spit out what I have just rehearsed
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in my head. “Mr. Rosenstein asked me to stop by and talk.
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Can I come in?” I don’t want to come in. Every bone in my
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body is telling me to run.
Run.
Take two buses back to Mar
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ket Street. Then run again, to my neighborhood, where the
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rats stay hidden—or at least Katze sometimes keeps them at
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bay when he feels like it, and the smells are of blooming
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spring flowers and taxicab fumes.
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She opens the door a little wider, and I step inside. The
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room is tidy, but smaller than mine by at least half, a little box
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room without a trace of a kitchen, only a hot plate on a table,
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next to a wooden chair. There is a cot in the corner, where I
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imagine she sleeps.
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Even in the annex, at the height of the war, we had more
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than this.
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“So,” Bryda says. “What you want?”
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Her hair has tumbled out of the bun, after what I imagine
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was a long day of sewing for her, and today she wears a blue
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Robertson’s Finery uniform, with a sleeve long enough to
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cover her number. For this, I am grateful. Though I notice the
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way
Robertson’s Finery
is stitched in yellow, just across her
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heart—it is so much like the color and placement of the yel
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low star we once wore.
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I clear my throat. “Mr. Rosenstein asked me to come over
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and visit with you and gather up the names and contact infor
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mation for any people you found to join you.”
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“Group litigation?” she says. I nod. “So he really do
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help me?”
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“Maybe,” I say, because I am still entirely unconvinced
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about Joshua’s being able to go anywhere with this case after
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the screaming match in his office with Ezra, and also because
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I don’t want to get Bryda’s hopes up. Perhaps she deserves a
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lot. The war is over; the Nazis are done. But it is still quite
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hard to be a Jew, even here, in America, and also to live
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openly without fear. I have considered before what might hap
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pen if I were to walk down Ludlow in the summer, wearing a
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sleeveless dress without my sweater, my Jewishness right
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there, so obvious, out in the open, for everyone to see. I imag
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ine the terrible way people might look at me, as if they knew
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everything.
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“I have two names,” I realize Bryda is saying now, and I
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swallow hard, trying to erase the bitter taste in my mouth that
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comes with fear. “I tell them to you, you write them down.”
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“Okay,” I say, pulling the yellow legal pad that I took from
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the supply closet at work out of my satchel.
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“I do not write anymore,” she says. She holds out her right
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hand, which I did not notice before is missing the forefinger.
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I turn away at the sight, not wanting to imagine how she
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received that horror. “It not what you think,” she says.
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“Okay,” I say again, because, of course, I am thinking it
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was the Nazis’ doing, that it happened in the camp. But I
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don’t ask her what really happened—I don’t want to know,
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and besides, I am suddenly having trouble speaking. Bile rises
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in my throat. The air is too warm; it’s suffocating, drowning
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me under the weight of my second skin, and the sweater. She
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tells me the names, and I scribble them quickly down.
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When I look up, she is staring directly at me, squinting
until she reminds me of a hawk, perched at the edge of a cliff,
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searching for prey. “What?” I finally say to her, and somehow
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I think I am able to disguise the fear in my voice as annoy