Margot: A Novel (34 page)

the pen name my sister used for Peter’s mother in her diary.
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The name the entire world knows as that of Peter’s
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mother. Oh, the irony. For Peter to have found his fake-named
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mother, here in America. But Petra does not say her name is
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short for anything.
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“So who is this Pelt you know?” she asks me. “There aren’t
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too many of our family in Philadelphia, I’m afraid.”
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Of course not.

I take a sip of my lemonade. It is tart and sweet and curls
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against my tongue, which is parched from my walk in the
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early summer afternoon. “Peter,” I say, and my voice comes
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out in barely a whisper. “Peter Pelt.”
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I expect her face to turn, for her to smile, then laugh, and
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say,
Well, Margie, you have come to the right place.
I sit at the
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edge of my chair, half expecting him to walk in, home from
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work, any moment.
I’m home, darling,
he might call. And
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then, how will he react as he walks in, attaché tucked under
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his arm, pulling his hat from his curls, and seeing me, sitting
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there, in his kitchen?
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“Payter,” she says. “I don’t think I know of a Payter?”
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At first her words don’t register, because I am still imagin
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ing him, standing there at the cusp of the doorway. Tall and
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strong
and
handsome.
His
American-ness,
his
Gentile-ness,
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they will have aged him gracefully and perfectly. He will
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smile at me. He will forget all about his wife. He will turn
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and his eyes, blue as the sea, they will capture mine.
Margot.
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He will whisper my name, and it will become a summer
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breeze that dances so gently against my neck that my brain
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begins to tilt and whirl the way it once did in his room in the
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annex.
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“Pete?” I ask, clinging to the smallest iota of hope.
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“Nope,” she says. “It must be another Pelt clan entirely.”
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“P. Pelt,” I whisper.
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“Oh.” She looks at me funny, as if I have given away too
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much, because I remember my lie, that I noticed the word
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“Pelt” on the mailbox. “I’m P. Pelt,” she says. “Petra Pelt.”
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“And your husband?” I ask.
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She frowns. “We’re getting a divorce,” she says. “Pelt is my
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maiden name. I’ve gone back to it now. My husband is a Bell
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wether, nosebleed that he is.” She pauses and shakes her
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head. “Anyway, I’ve just moved in a few months ago, and I’ve
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listed the house and the phone with just my first initial
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because I don’t want the whole world to know I’m a woman
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living here, all alone with her baby.” She laughs nervously.
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“You won’t go and advertise this now, will you, Margie? My
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mother is convinced I’m practically inviting Jack the Ripper
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to come on in.” Petra’s green eyes are sad and tired, and I
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understand now that she is hiding too.
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“I just thought Peter would be here,” I whisper.
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She shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says. “What you see
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is what you get. It’s only me and Eleanor.”
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C
hapter
Fort
y-eight
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Back in my apartment, I take my sweater off. It is too
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hot for a sweater, and anyway, there is no one to see me now
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other than Katze.
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I lie on my blue couch, and Katze tumbles himself in my
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lap, kneading and kneading, unable to settle himself in one
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place. I think about Petra and Eleanor, about their lonely
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secret life on Olney Avenue. I promised Petra I would stop by
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soon, as she said she was in need of some girlfriends who did
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not know her in her life as Mrs. Bellwether. And though I can
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entirely understand the sentiment, I also know that I will not
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be finding myself at 2217 Olney Avenue anytime soon.
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Peter is dead. Like my sister is dead. I know it so solidly in
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my heart that it aches and falls and burns in my chest. Per
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haps I have always known it. But I hate to think that hope,
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which has for so long been the only thing I have had left, that
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it is also nothing but my enemy.
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Peter is dead, and I wonder even if he isn’t, if he is some
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where else, unlisted, or living under a different name, or still
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somewhere in Europe, or even if he had been there, Petra’s
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husband, would it be too late now? Whatever we had, we were
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teenagers then. Maybe we had nothing. Maybe we had every
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thing, but we were only teenagers. Before the war, I never
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even considered love, marriage. I was too busy with my stud
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ies. I was a child and I felt I had so much time for all that
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other stuff.
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I sigh and lean back against the couch, and run my hands
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across Katze’s warm orange fur. I want to know everything. I
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want to be able to understand everything, to decipher what is
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real and what is not. That is what I hate most about the after
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math of Hitler’s terrible regime, that everything that I have
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done and that has been done to me, I cannot recall it with the
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clarity in which I used to be able to recall school lessons. I
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had a photographic memory for trigonometry and Latin
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words, and yet there is a whole two-year period of my teenage
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life—maybe more—in which I find myself at a loss.
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The bare flesh of my arm burns into my blue velour couch,
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and I find myself turning my head to look at it now: my fore
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arm.
This is real,
I think, the way I so often have. This is the
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only thing I have left from that time that is completely real. It
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is undisputable evidence of what was done to me, how much
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was taken, who and what I used to be, where I came from.
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I think about what Bryda said earlier, that she knew of a
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doctor who could remove my tattoo. But even if it would
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mean no more sweaters, no more hiding, I know I would
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never have it erased. It is really the only thing that remains of
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Margot. The only thing I know to be true.
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I stare at the numbers now, and it surprises me the way
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they are still so bold, the way they are still right there, thick
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dark ink.
Nothing can’t mean something,
Mother said.
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I think about that morning in the camp. September 1944.
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A month from the annex, from Peter, from the way my sister
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said his name as the men in green carried us out. What had
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she been saying then, really? Had it been an accusation or a
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fantasy? Had seeing us there ruined her story or her reality?
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Peter. Peter van Pels. Peter Pelt.
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I do not love him,
my sister said.
It is not love.
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She was angry with me that morning, when the Green
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Police came. She did not talk to me in the truck. Our parents
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thought her silence was born from fear. I knew better.
Peter?
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The way she’d said his name, it was as if he’d betrayed her.
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We both had.
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But by the time we were dropped off the train in Aus
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chwitz, nearly a month later, her anger had passed. We clung
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to each other that morning, waiting, waiting, waiting in line,
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as the Polish woman screamed over and over again, so loud I
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thought her voice might break me.
Jestes diablem. Jestes dia-
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blem.
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“No,” I whispered to my sister then. “No, no, no.”
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“Shhh.” She clung to my hand. “Don’t listen to her, Mar
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got. Sing something happy in your head. Imagine a beautiful
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place, the sea. Swimming in the North Sea with Mother and
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Father and you and me.” She did not mention Peter, not ever
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again, after the annex. At the camp, she was my sister, my
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protector, my savior, and I was hers. Everything else fell away.
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My hands trembled against hers as we watched the Polish
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woman, as they held her down, tattooed her. “She’s so brave,”
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my sister said.
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And now I can envision this moment a different way than
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I so often have envisioned it. In my head, this way feels just
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as true.
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Is it possible I did not push my sister behind me, to protect
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her, to have her watch that it was not so bad? Is it possible I
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trembled, like the coward I always was and most certainly
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always have been?
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“I cannot be brave,” I whispered to her. “I am not brave.”
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“Yes,” she told me. “You are.”
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She stepped in front of me in line, and held out her arm
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to the officer, and she did not scream or even flinch as the
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tattoo singed her flesh.
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I see it there now, on my forearm: thick dark ink. And I
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squeeze my eyes shut tightly, trying to picture it there on my
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sister’s arm. She was one number higher than me. She stood
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right behind me.
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Or was she one number lower than me? Had she stood
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right in front of me?
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I push my brain to remember, the way the ink looked on
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her forearm as she lay there on the dirty ground in the camp,
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as she clung to my arm on the train. What was her number?
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It has been so long, I cannot see it. All I can see are her
almond eyes, the way they held me at the end on the train,
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begging me.
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Nothing can’t mean something,
Mother said.
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But if she is right, then what I am left with now, it is noth
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ing. It means nothing. It is almost as if Margot, she never
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even existed at all.
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Suddenly I notice the brewing darkness, and I push Katze
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from my lap and pull the Shabbat candle from beneath my
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kitchen sink. I set it on the counter, force the flame to rise
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and fall, and say my silent prayer.
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It’s not religion. It’s ritual.
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I could never be with someone who wasn’t Jewish,
Joshua
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said.
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I stare at my candle, watch it burn and flicker brightly, as
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if it is taunting the gloaming.
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“But it
is
religion,” I say to myself, out loud, my words
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hanging there in the air.
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C
hapter
Fort
y-nine
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Monday morning I sleep late, and it is a surprise to
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awake to a gentle summer breeze coming in through the
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slightly open window, blowing past the pale blue curtains Ilsa
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sewed for me just after I moved in here. The numbers on the
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clock read 9:17, but I have not slept well, my body, my brain
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restless and tumbling. In my dreams, baby Eleanor was cry
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ing for her father. Though not Peter, I thought as I awoke.
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Bellwether.
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I wonder what has transpired during Joshua’s weekend in
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Margate. Perhaps he has even asked Penny to marry him, and
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she will parade into the office this morning wanting to shove
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her diamond in my face. She and Shelby, they may even share
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a laugh and some bride’s notes, should Penny deem it accept
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able to behave in such a way with the girls in the office.
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Though I venture to say she will. That nothing will dampen
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the good mood that a diamond from Joshua will put her in.
I groan and pull the pillow over my head, willing sleep to
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find me again. But I know it will not. And though I have not
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decided, consciously, not to go to work today, I do not move
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to dress and get ready, and I know that I cannot go in. That I
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cannot face even the possibility of Penny and her diamond.
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Instead I get out of bed, pick up the phone, and dial Ilsa’s
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number.
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“My dear,” she says, upon hearing my voice. “What is it?
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What’s the matter?”
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It’s possible she can hear the way I’m breaking, just from
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my tone as I have said her name. Or it could be because she
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always seems to be so worried about me.
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“I think I quit my job,” I say.
And Peter’s dead,
I add to
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myself, in my head.
And I have nothing, no hope, left anymore.
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Not even Joshua.
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“Oh,” she says, and the word is weighted, as if she under
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stands there is more there than just a job. I wonder if she was
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able to intuit this much from our recent dinner, or if it is just
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a guess on her part, right now. “Well,” she says, “I’m coming
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into the city, then. We’ll have a girls’ day today.”
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“I don’t know if I’m up for it,” I say.
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“I’ll be there in an hour, my dear. Bertie is off today, and
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I’ll have him drop me at your place.”
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Then she hangs up, before I have any time to convince her
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otherwise.
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I sit there for a few moments, still holding the phone in my
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hand, wondering if Joshua might call to ask me when I will
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be in and why I am not at my desk. But then I suspect he
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won’t.
I could never be with someone who wasn’t a Jew,
he said.
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And didn’t that change everything? That he said it, what
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everyone else had already seen, that there was something else
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between us, more than just boss and secretary, but that what
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ever that something was, it was never going to turn into more.
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I think about Mother and Eduard, and I wonder what
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their life might have been like together once. If they shared a
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passion or if they held themselves back. But that was differ
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ent, anyway. Eduard really truly was not a Jew. Margie Frank
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lin, though, she is just a lie.
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I look at the number on my arm again, trace the digits
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with my finger. And then I go and dress in my green dress and
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pink sweater.
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Bertram honks the horn once as he pulls his Fairlane up by
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the sidewalk on Ludlow Street, and I watch out the window
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as Ilsa climbs out of the car. Her petite frame is wrapped in
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a deep green sundress, which I know will bring out the color
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of her eyes, when I am standing closer.
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I lock my apartment and walk outside to meet her, and as
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Bertram honks again, waves in my direction, and drives away,
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Ilsa wraps her tiny arms around me. “Oh, my dear,” she says.
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“Let’s walk to Wanamaker’s and look for some nice summer
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dresses, shall we?”
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I nod, and let her cling to my arm, the way Shelby always
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does. But in a way, I feel safer holding on to Ilsa. I am
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