Margot: A Novel (22 page)

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“You want me to distribute these?” he asks me, letting the
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flyers drop to his desk.
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I nod, and somehow I explain to him about Joshua, about
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the lawsuit, about Bryda Korzynski. “She is missing a finger,”
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I hear myself saying, as if that means something. It does,
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though what I’m not sure. But I tell him this anyway, and he
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listens carefully.
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Rabbi Epstein listens the way a rabbi should. He nods his
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head, and he lets me talk. When I finish speaking he looks at
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the flyer again, creasing his brow in concentration so similar
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to the way Joshua always does. He pulls on the bottom of his
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beard a bit, just like Ezra. “And you are involved, in this case?”
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I shake my head. “I am just a secretary, for the lawyer,” I
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say. “I am just a messenger.” You cannot shoot the messenger,
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can you? Especially one cloaked so deeply in her second skin
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that her Jewishness has all but evaporated; this place is for
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eign to her.
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He nods. Maybe he believes me. Maybe he doesn’t. I don’t
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know if he cares. “I will hand these out on Saturday,” he says.
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“Thank you,” I say, and I open my mouth as if to say some
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thing else, but then I don’t.
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“There is more?” he asks, looking at me. His eyes are
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brown, like almonds, like my sister’s eyes, though not quite,
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because they are lacking the small green flecks hers had.
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They do not look through me, like Bryda’s did, but they look
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at me with the kind of shrill intensity that makes me want to
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tell him more.
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I had a sister,
I suddenly want to say.
I love her. I miss her.
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I writhe with guilt. You might have heard of her. She was a Jew,
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and now she is famous for it. I was a Jew once too.
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But what I say is this:
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“I have a question.” I’m not even sure why or how these
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words escape my lips, except they do, and before I can stop
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myself, I am asking him, “What would happen to a Jew who
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pretends not to be a Jew?”
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He raises his eyebrows. “What would happen?”
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I nod.
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“Well, this is America in 1959. Not Germany during the
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war. The Nazis are gone now.”
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Are they? Are they ever gone? I think about what Bryda
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said, that her boss, he is a Nazi. And I think about that gang
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of hoodlums beating up Jewish children, the swastikas still
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drawn on synagogues. The firebomb. At the thought, I feel
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myself sweating, I nod at the rabbi and move toward the door;
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my instinct to run is back.
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“Miss,” the rabbi calls after me, and I stop and turn and
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look at him again. “God knows,” he says. “You can’t hide
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from God.”
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Chapter Thirty
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I know that I should eat dinner, later, when I am back
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at my apartment and the skies are dark. I know that I should.
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That I should be hungry and want and enjoy food as I must
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have once, as a girl on the Merwedeplein. I am certain, I did.
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Mother’s chicken soup. I feel I craved it once, before the war.
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The scent of dill and carrots and chicken fat stewing for
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hours on the stove. Only now I can barely remember what it
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is like to enjoy the taste of something. Most of the time I eat
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because I know I have to.
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I am still thinking about the rabbi’s words, that God knows
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who is a Jew and who is not. If that is true, then does He also
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know what happened with my sister, what I did? I shake my
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head, because I am not sure that I believe that God knows
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anything anymore.
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But I think about Eduard’s words as we’d stood together
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by the destroyed Judischausen:
You are who you are
.
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Oh, Eduard. If only it were that simple now.
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I don’t think Eduard knew about the publication of my
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sister’s book before he died, and he certainly never knew what
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my American life would become, how really, truly, deeply I
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would continue to hide myself.
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You are who you are,
Eduard said.
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I was hiding that day when I showed up at his doorstep
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after the war. I was dressed in a nun’s habit, Brigitta’s idea—
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just in case.
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“Yes, Sister?” he’d said, staring at me then. Eduard was tall
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and handsome, with thick black hair, and he seemed
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unchanged by the war, except for the streaks of silver dancing
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just around the edges of his ears. “Can I help you?”
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I remembered the habit, and I shook my head. “I am not a
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sister,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat. For a
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moment I could not breathe. “I am Edith’s daughter,” I finally
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managed to say, and I was surprised by how small my own
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voice sounded.
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His green eyes curled in confusion, then, all at once, rec
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ognition. “Edith Hollander?” he said, referring to Mother by
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her maiden name. I nodded.
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“Annelies?” he asked first. I shook my head and told him
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my name. He raised his eyebrows, and I thought,
My sister
.
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She always was the memorable one.
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“You can stay here,” Eduard told me, after I told him about
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the Red Cross lists, the rest of my family. Eduard placed a
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large hand on the protruding bone that had once been my
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shoulder. His green eyes, they were rivers. “Really,” he said.
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“This can be your home. For as long as you like.”
I stayed for nearly six years. While Eduard was at work
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during the day, I read my way through the volumes that
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filled his library: mostly literature, written in English. The
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only German books were the classics, which were the
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only German books we’d allowed ourselves in the annex too.
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And I understood, for Eduard, who was not a Jew, that maybe
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this was his small act of rebellion. I spent afternoons in the
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sunlight and privacy of his backyard rose garden, perfecting
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my English, sometimes reading the English words aloud,
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practicing them in my voice. In the evenings Eduard ate a
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hearty supper, prepared by his housekeeper, while I would
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take a few bites. Like Ilsa, he urged me to eat more, but I
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could not.
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Sometimes I miss the simplicity of those days, the quiet
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ness of Eduard’s house in Frankfurt, before I came to the
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United States, before the book, before the sweater.
You are
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who you are,
Eduard said. Yes, living there with him, for that
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time, I was.
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The phone rings, and I jump. I am on the couch, stroking
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Katze, and I think it cannot be a member of the Beth Shalom
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congregation. Already. But of course, it is not. It is Ilsa again.
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“My dear,” she says, when I pick up, “you’re not in the
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middle of eating, are you?”
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“No,” I lie. “I’ve already finished.”
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She hesitates for a moment, and then she says, “You have
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been eating well, haven’t you?”
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“Of course,” I lie again.
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“Well, anyway, I just wanted to check up on you, see how
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things have been going this week.”
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“Fine,” I say, forcing the word from my lips in my perfect
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imitation of cheeriness.
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She hesitates for a moment. “Are you sure?” she says.
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“Because I have just had a feeling that something isn’t right
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with you.”
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“Oh, Ilsa.” I force myself to laugh and fight the image of
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Rabbi Epstein’s face, staring, staring, staring at me. Eduard’s
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strong voice, echoing in my head.
You are who you are.
“You
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really do worry too much.” I imagine Mother or my sister, if
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they were here. They too would say:
I can hear it in your voice.
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Something isn’t right. Stop being such a ninny. Stop lying to us,
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Margola.
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But Ilsa chuckles, and I picture her on the other end of the
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line, sitting in her country kitchen, tugging on her earlobe.
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“Bertie says I am a mother hen. And that I annoy you.” She
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pauses. “But it’s just, you know if you ever need anything.
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Anything at all, my dear.”
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“I know,” I tell her, and this much I do know. “Thank you.”
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“Did you decide on your car yet?”
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“My car?” I ask, not at all sure what she means at first.
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“Your pink Cadillac?”
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“Oh,” I say, “that. No, not yet.” I close my eyes, and I can
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see it again, in the drive at 2217. I have been too chicken to go
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back there again, too afraid of what and whom I might find.
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And besides, I have been consumed with Joshua and Penny,
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and this case.
This case.
The rabbi.
God knows.
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“Oh,” Ilsa says, “my dear, we have been thinking more
about our trip, and we think we might like to do a whole tour
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of Europe.”
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“How nice,” I murmur.
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“Bertie is going to call an agent to book us a package. Ger
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many, France, Switzerland—”
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“Switzerland?” I ask, and it is a word that barely forms in
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my throat before it wants to choke me there.
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“Yes, I have always wanted to see the Alps, my dear.”
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“The Alps,” I say. “Yes, of course.”
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“You will come with us, won’t you, my dear?”
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“I don’t think so,” I say slowly, trying not to let on to Ilsa
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that it is very hard for me now to breathe.
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“Well, at least give it some thought. I’m not going to let you
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off the hook that easily. I’d really love for you to come. Bertie
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and I both would.”
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Long after my phone call with Ilsa is finished, I find myself
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lying in bed, wide-awake, thinking again of the letter I have
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never written.
Switzerland,
I think.
My father.