Margot: A Novel (28 page)

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ach turns, and I look back, to focus on Peg, who is tall and
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serious and confident in her starched white nurse’s uniform
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and pointed hat, and who walks quickly in circles behind the
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station, grabbing charts from a large white filing cabinet.
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Shelby lets go of my arm and runs to her sister, and Peg
turns, reaches across the desk, and wraps Shelby in a hug. I
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struggle to breathe for a moment as I am standing there by
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myself, watching them.
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Peg points to the elevator, Shelby nods, and then she is
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back at my side. “Come on,” she says.
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“What did Peggy say?” I ask.
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“He’s up in critical care. They think it was a massive heart
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attack.”
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I think of Joshua, and I am overcome by sadness.
Is that all
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you are,
he’d yelled at his father this morning,
my boss?
Of
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course, that wasn’t all he was. Joshua knew it then, and even
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more, I am sure, he knows it now.
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“But he’s still alive,” Shelby is saying now as the elevator
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rises, her voice hopeful.
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The elevator doors open, and I see, right away, a small
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crowd of them, huddled together in the blue waiting area. My
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eyes falls immediately on Mrs. Greenberg, Penny’s mother,
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whom I have seen from time to time around the office. She is
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a large woman, tall and big-boned, and has never struck me
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as the least bit graceful, as her daughter is, though now her
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spine is hunched, her expression pale blank. She wears a
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green hat and clutches a pile of tissues in her hands, and she
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holds on to her husband with one arm, Joshua with the other.
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My heart bursts to look at Joshua, and I hold tightly to
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Shelby’s hand, holding myself back. After a moment he looks
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up, and he catches my eyes. His gray-green eyes are red
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rimmed with sorrow, and they are lacking their usual light. I
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let go of Shelby’s hand to wave, and he waves back and shoots
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me a meager smile.
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Joshua turns, whispers something to Penny’s mother,
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stands up, and then he is walking toward me. His smile is
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even and somber and strong, and his eyes they are speaking
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to me, as if suddenly I am the only one. I am the only one who
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can understand him. And I can. I can.
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“Josh, honey.” I hear her voice from somewhere not too far
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behind me, and I startle. It is shrill and wily and I have the
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urge to cover my ears, to keep it from hurting me. “I brought
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back coffee for everyone.”
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I turn, and Penny stands there, pure as snow in a white
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tapered dress cinched at the waist with a snakelike navy-blue
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belt. Our eyes meet for a second, and then Penny looks away
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quickly. “How sweet,” she murmurs, walking past me and
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handing the coffee tray to Joshua. “The girls from the office
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came down.” She leans up and kisses him purposefully on the
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cheek, her pink lips, as if she is marking him, right there, like
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that.
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“Thanks for the coffee, Pen,” I hear Joshua say, and I can
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not look anymore. I cannot stand there and watch while he
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kisses her back.
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“I have to go,’ I whisper to Shelby.
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“Margie,” she says. “Wait, don’t leave me here all alone.”
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But she is not all alone. Her sister is just downstairs.
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I let go of Shelby’s hand, and I do not wait for the elevator.
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I pull open the door to the stairwell and run, quickly, down
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the three flights.
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The early May sunshine hits my face, warm, nearly
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too warm for springtime. It is almost summer now, my favor
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ite season once, when I was not afraid to bare my skin and
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jump into the Baltic Sea or the IJsselmeer, where the water
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was crisp and blue. We missed experiencing one full summer
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while stuck in the annex and two halves. Also, two springs
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gone, just like that. As a girl, I used to love all the things
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spring and summer: the feel of water and sunshine against my
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skin. But I do not like the summertime in Philadelphia, the
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way the heat makes lying even more oppressive, makes my
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secret an even bigger burden to bear.
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May used to be a month of promise: the end of school was
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so near, the sweetness of summer and all the freedom that
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came with it. May is also Pim’s birthday month, and even
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now, every year as the date approaches, May 12, I still think
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of him, getting one year older. This year, he will be turning
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seventy.
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In May of 1944, Pim was turning fifty-five. He was still
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young enough to be our Pim, but almost old enough to be
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something else. He was graying then, but just around the
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temples. Now I wonder if he is completely gray, looking more
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like a grandfather than a father, though he cannot be a grand
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father without me and my sister, a thought which makes me
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desperately sad.
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“I know!” my sister said in 1944, the week before his birth
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day, as we lay one midafternoon in her room. Her voice was
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just a little too loud. I shushed her, and she rolled her eyes at
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me. She was next to me on the bed, her hip folded easily
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against my own. “We should write Pim a poem for his birth
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day this year.” She spoke a bit softer.
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I looked up from my diary and nodded in agreement. Yes,
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that was just the kind of thing Pim would love. Maybe it
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would even cheer him up, make his birthday something spe
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cial despite our being trapped. We were rats, and we were
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Jews. But we still celebrated things. Miep brought flowers
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and cake and we lit the menorah for Hanukkah. “We should
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write it in English,” I told her. “Show him how far we’ve come
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in our studies.”
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“How far you’ve come, you mean,” she said.
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“You know some English now too,” I told her, and she
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rolled her eyes again. “And Pim will be so happy to see we
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have learned something while we’ve been here. Like two pres
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ents in one.”
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Pim, Pim, you do not dim
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Even sometimes when things look grim
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Your smile is wide and your hair is trim
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And we think we are not on a whim
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Or even out there on a limb
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To say we love you, our darling Pim!
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We chanted it to him, like a song, on the night of his
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birthday. May of 1944, and so many Allied bombings in
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Europe that surely, the war was almost over. Pim would not
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spend another birthday in the annex. None of us would.
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Mother smiled wide that night, and Pim laughed and
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hugged us both close to his chest. “My girls.” He shook his
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head. “What good English.” He kissed each of us on the top
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of our heads, twice. “I will cherish this,” he said. “Forever.”
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Even now, the words, t
, ,t
hey play in my head from time to
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time. A silly, stupid child’s rhyme. The paper we wrote them
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on, I’m sure it was destroyed so very long ago. But I wonder if
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sometimes the words, they still play themselves in my father’s
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mind too.
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After I leave the hospital, I take the bus back to Market Street
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and then I find myself wandering, almost aimlessly, on the
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street, hearing the words from Pim’s birthday song in my
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head. I am not lost, but I am without direction, and even
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though they sound the same, they are not. It’s just that now
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I’m not sure exactly where I’m headed. Not back to work. Not
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now, because what is there, waiting for me? Not home, not in
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the middle of the day, when all I have there is Katze.
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I cross the street, and then I see it there, the way I have
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before. I wonder if my feet took me here on purpose, over
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taken by homesickness that I can never get through no matter
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how much I think I can, or might want to. It is always lurking
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there, just beyond the surface. Even in the Jewish law firm.
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Especially in the Jewish law firm.
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The letters up in front of me, they gleam a putrid red on
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the marquee, the color once, of the swastikas defiling the
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broken wall of Judischausen. They assault me, but still I stop
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there, and I stare at them. Bright red letters:
The Diary of
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Anne Frank. Introducing: Millie Perkins. Starring: Shelley
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Winters.
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I buy a ticket, and I walk inside the theater.
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It is cold inside the theater, and suddenly I am
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hungry. So hungry that my stomach hurts and rumbles, and
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I cannot remember exactly the last time I have eaten some
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thing whole. I buy some popcorn at the concession stand in
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the lobby and find myself a seat inside the wide empty the
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ater. It is empty, of course, because it is the middle of the day,
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and people are working, and so many people have already
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seen this movie. And I imagine it is not the kind of movie you
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would come back to see twice.
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I take a seat in the last row, quite close to the exit, and
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where I can see everyone else who might come into the theater.
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It is cold, and I pull my black sweater tight across my
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chest, hanging on to my arms to warm up before digging my
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hand into the carton of popcorn. The corn is warm and salty
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and buttery, and I chew it, and I chew it. My chewing is loud,
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though, of course, there is no one else here to complain.
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The lights dim, and the curtain falls. The screen is black
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at first, and there is an overture, the heavy sound of trumpets,
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then strings, that I imagine the director felt was both serious
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and emotional all at once. Oh, the drama—the overture seems
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to go on forever. I wish the movie would just start already.
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Finally, there is picture. A sea of clouds, awash with
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seagulls as the actors’ names play across the screen, the
i
in
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Millie’s name dotted with an upside-down teardrop. I roll my
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eyes, just the way my sister always did. There is a note that
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scenes were filmed in the annex thanks to the city of Amster
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dam, and something clenches in my chest so hard I cannot
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breathe. I am not prepared for this part, to see it again. I did
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not know they filmed there, at the actual spot where we once
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lived.
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The movie begins: a man is standing there on the Prinsen
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gracht. Oh, the Prinsengracht. Just the way it was, just the
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way I remember. The canal, then the street right beside it
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with the beautiful, old, linked, brick, multistoried buildings.
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I reach my hand out, as if the Prinsengracht is close enough
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for me to touch it.
Home.
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Up on the big screen, the man turns, and I realize he is
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supposed to be Pim, returned from the war. He bears a like
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ness to Pim, but only distantly, some long-lost cousin we
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never even knew. The man enters the office, then climbs the
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steps to the annex, and he wraps himself in a scarf he finds—
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whose it is supposed to be I am not sure. Mother’s, maybe?
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Though she had nothing of the sort. Then the woman who is
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supposed to be Miep enters, reaches for a book on some sort
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