Margot: A Novel (32 page)

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Shelby nods and teases a Kent out of her pack. “She
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sounded pretty crazy. That accent and that creepy missing
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finger.” She holds the pack of Kents in my direction, just the
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way she always does. Nothing is different. Nothing has
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changed. I shake my head and then watch her light her smoke
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on fire. She takes a drag and blows smoke in my direction.
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“And what was she saying about you and Joshua? You being
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more than his secretary?”
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Her brown eyes pierce me as if they are expectant or even
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nervous. I realize she is much more interested in this than in
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the tattoo. Margie Franklin, of course, she would not be the
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kind of girl to have gotten a tattoo, or to have had one forced
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upon her. Gentile skin remained untouched, unblemished,
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during the war, unless a soldier got a tattoo by choice, and it
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would not even occur to Shelby that I might be anything
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other than a Gentile.
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“I don’t know,” I say. “Like I said, she’s crazy.” Of course,
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Shelby will believe this.
You are you
, she’d said to me.
Joshua
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could never look at you the way you look at him.
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“Is she the one Joshua and Ezra were fighting about?”
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Shelby asks. I nod, slowly, still finding it hard to breathe.
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“Well . . .” She waves her cigarette in the air, her diamond
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glinting off the fluorescent light. “Good riddance, then.”
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I hold my breath for a moment more, waiting for Shelby to
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understand that I am a liar, and I am a Jew. That I am marked
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and ruined. That my sweater covers only so much, and my
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lies, they cover the rest. But Shelby finishes her smoke and
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goes back to her typing, and doesn’t say another word about
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Bryda Korzynski. Shelby is so gullible; she believes every
word I say to her, as if it is so easy just to believe the best in
01
people. Ron could have a thousand hussies, I realize now, and
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she would not even believe it.
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04
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Charles Bakerfield walks out of Joshua’s office just before
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noon, and Joshua follows close behind him. Charles steps
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onto the elevator, and then Joshua taps his finger on my desk
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and grabs his brown hat from the rack. “Lunch,” he says,
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rather sternly.
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I am still having trouble breathing in the wake of Bryda’s
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accusations. Shelby may have bought my lies, ignored Bry
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da’s comment about the tattoo. But Joshua . . . what did he
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hear her say? What is he thinking now? We have barely spo
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ken since Ezra’s heart attack except for that one time in his
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office last week, and I cannot read the expression on his face
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now. Is it sadness, or is it anger? Or is it something else
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entirely?
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“Come on,” Joshua says gently now, his features softening,
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his gray-green eyes dancing across my face gently. “Let me
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buy you lunch, Margie. And we’ll talk.”
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I glance at Shelby, who has slowed her typing to watch my
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reaction. I can practically hear Bryda’s words reverberating in
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her brain:
more than a secretary
. I think Shelby has even for
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gotten already about any talk of a tattoo, and instead she is
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wondering exactly what it is Joshua and I have been doing at
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these lunches. I feel my cheeks turning red, but I shrug in her
27
direction and then grab my satchel and follow Joshua toward
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the elevator.
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⁰¹
* * *
02
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The air is sticky on Market Street; my sweater, stifling. I can
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hear the sound of my sister’s voice, though now it feels much
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like Bryda’s voice:
Why are you still punishing yourself for being
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a Jew? Here, in America?
And maybe that is exactly what I’m
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doing, punishing myself. Because I still deserve to be pun
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ished, don’t I, after what I have done?
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Hiding who you are, it will be so much easier than hiding
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where you are,
Peter said.
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Is that what he’s been doing, married to a redhead, with a
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baby whose name is devoid of meaning? Is it possible Peter is
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a father, a husband? That Peter stopped loving me? Or that
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he never even loved me at all?
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“Margie.” Joshua says my name as he holds open the heavy
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glass door to Isaac’s. “Please order more than an apple. Let me
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buy you a sandwich, at least?”
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“I’m not very hungry,” I say, and that is even more true
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today than usual because my stomach still feels the twists
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and turns of Bryda’s words. I am afraid any food I eat might
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come right back up.
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“Half a ham?” he pleads.
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“I don’t like ham,” I say, the way I always say it to Shelby.
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What is it with these Americans and their pork?
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“No ham,” he says, hesitating for a moment, as if the words
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mean something to him. And I wonder if he is connecting the
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pieces, Bryda’s words, in his head. “Turkey, then?”
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“I’m really not very hungry,” I say, but Joshua orders a half
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turkey and an apple for me, chopped liver for him, and then
we make our way to the table by the window.
Our usual table,
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I think. Though that almost feels silly. Joshua and I do not
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have a usual anything, do we?
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We sit down, and Joshua hands me the plate with the
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turkey. I take a bite, just to appease him. But I do not taste it.
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I chew and I chew and I chew, and it seems to take forever.
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“So what was Miss Korzynski yelling about?” Joshua asks,
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in between voracious bites of his chopped liver. Joshua eats
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like such a boy, the way Peter used to, as if every bite of food
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might be his last.
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“You didn’t hear?” I whisper, still hopeful, but knowing
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with the paper of the walls in the office, that is most likely
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impossible. Joshua heard.
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“I heard her say something about you overstepping your
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bounds as a secretary, and then her yelling at you about her
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tattoo. So I figured you told her, about our case, and she didn’t
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take it well.”
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I almost want to laugh at the way he has interpreted things,
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or cry. And now I wonder, how many times have I mistaken
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his conversation with Ezra through the paper-thin walls for
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something else? Angry words float across, but not the entire
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context? But now I do not even care; my body floods with
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relief. Joshua heard “tattoo” and assumed Bryda was talking of
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her own. Of course! That is the perfect lie, the perfect story.
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Why did I not think to tell Shelby that when she asked? It
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seems I should be better at lying, when I have been doing it
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for so very long now. But still, it is such an effort for me.
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“I’m sorry,” Joshua is saying now. “I should’ve been the one
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to tell her. I should’ve returned her calls. I’ve just been
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swamped.” He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe I
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can think of another lawyer to take her case . . . “
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“Maybe,” I say, but I wonder how many lawyers can there
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be in the city of Philadelphia who will be willing to fight a
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Jewish fight for no money?
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“It was going to be an impossible road,” he said. “Look, we
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barely had anyone signed on to the case.” I nod as I think he
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is trying to convince himself more than me. “Oh, and just so
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you know, I’ve called Rabbi Epstein to let him know we’re
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dropping the case. So if you get any more calls, you can tell
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them what you told Miss Korzynski, or you can just have
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them call me directly, and I’ll tell them.”
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I nod again, but I am thinking that he does not sound at
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all like the Joshua who once sat across this table from me, his
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voice thick with excitement as he spoke about bravery, or the
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Joshua who confessed his fear:
Until Jews are seen as equals, I
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worry it could happen again.
“Anyway,” he is saying now, “you
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did such a great job with this that I’d like you take a bigger
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role in Mr. Bakerfield’s case. I need someone to go and talk
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to a few character witnesses, Bakerfield’s friends, before the
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trial.”
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“And you want me to do it?” I ask. He nods. And I close
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my eyes. I picture the way Charles looked at me that day, near
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the bus stop, when he offered me a ride. What would he have
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done to me had I gotten in the car with him? Was he just
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being friendly, or was there something much more sinister
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going on? Either way, I cannot imagine taking the bus to
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these surely wealthy homes on the Main Line, Charles’s
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friends, asking these men to extol his virtues.
I look at Joshua. He stares at his food, so I cannot tell what
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it is he is thinking at this moment. Can this really be it, the
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reason why Joshua has asked me to lunch this morning—not
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because Bryda has revealed me, but because he wants to
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assign me more duties outside the secretarial realm? Cer
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tainly, he could’ve asked me this at the office, where Mr.
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Bakerfield’s case is no secret.
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Joshua looks up, and his gray-green eyes meet mine for a
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moment, but then they break, and he looks away, and he
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shakes his head a little bit.
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“Joshua,” I say. He looks back at me. His expression soft
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ens as he hears me say his first name, and I don’t correct
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myself this time.
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“What is it, Margie?” His voice is imbued with tenderness
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and hope and maybe a sense of loss, the sense that something
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is now missing from him that he is never sure he can get
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back. I know that feeling, so, so well. Joshua reaches across
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the table for my hand, and his touch, it makes my fingers
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tingle.
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“Are you really going to marry Penny?” I ask.
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“Penny?” He says her name like it is typing paper, flat and
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pale and blank. He pulls his hand away from mine and runs