Margot: A Novel (6 page)

I am not sure if he asks me to interpret I will be able to speak
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at all. Not because of the Polish but because of the tattooed
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number, right there, on her arm, in Joshua’s face. I wasn’t
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mistaken.
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Joshua shakes his head. “Miss Korzynski, I’m so sorry. I
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can’t even imagine.” His face turns for a moment, darkens in
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a way I have rarely seen from him, and I think it’s because he
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is a Jew. I suppose that’s why Bryda is here in his office,
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thrusting her arm in his face. If I were her friend, I would tell
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her that American Jews are different, that they don’t under
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stand what it was like to wear a yellow star, to not be allowed
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to ride your bike or even the bus. They will think they under
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stand, because religion is religion, and Jews have always been
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a persecuted people. But you cannot understand what you
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cannot really imagine, and they cannot really imagine it. No
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matter how much they think they can or how many books
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they’ve read or movies they’ve seen. In America the Jews still
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prosper. They are lawyers with houses in Margate and also on
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the Main Line. I cannot bring myself to hate Joshua for this,
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though, as it is not his fault, where he was born, what he was
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born into.
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“So,” Joshua says, “let’s talk more about what we discussed
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on the phone. You said you have a Jewish problem that you
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want me to handle because I am a Jewish lawyer, right?”
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She nods and she thrusts her arm in his face again. “You
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see this? I already suffer at hands of Nazi. My mother, she
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gassed immediately after we arrive to Auschwitz. Dominik,
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my brother, he sent to work and he die in Mauthausen after
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death march. My father, he die of cholera in Neuengamme. I
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only one to survive it.”
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The names of the camps fall in my brain, in her thick Pol
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ish accent. Her words hurt; they are sharp. Needles. Mau
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thausen, where Peter was said to have died, and I think
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uneasily of the tiniest of squares that has sat in the bottom of
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my satchel for nearly a week now.
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I look up, and I realize Joshua has said something to me.
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“I’m sorry.” I shake my head and pull my sweater tighter
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around my body. “What did you say?”
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“I was telling Miss Korzynski that you are also from
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Poland. But you were lucky that you weren’t there, during the
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war, right?”
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I nod, hanging on to the lie. It was one of the first things
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he’d asked me, at my job interview, and I’d forced myself to
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smile then as I’d told Joshua I had gotten the American ver
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sion of wartime, like him.
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Bryda Korzynski stares at me, as if she can see through
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me. Her eyes are hard brown stones. I wrap my sweater
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tighter around my body.
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When she turns back to look at Joshua, I exhale, not even
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realizing I’ve been holding my breath. “Anyway,” she says, “the
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Nazi take everything from me. My family. My life. My coun
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try. I don’t even sleep without the nightmares anymore.” She
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pauses, and shakes her head, as if she’s thinking about them.
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The nightmares. I know them so well, the way screams torture
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you in the dark. Voices of your family crying for help you can
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not give. My sister holding on to my hand with all her remain
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ing strength. The sounds of gunshots breaking my ears.
“I’m very sorry,” Joshua says, “But I still don’t understand
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how I can help you.”
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“My boss is Nazi too,” she says. “And now after the war
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and now that Anne Frank movie so popular, everybody know
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you cannot be Nazi anymore. Not in America.”
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I bite my lip, drowning in the mention of my sister’s name,
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said correctly, in Bryda’s thick Polish accent. And then I won
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der if Bryda has missed the articles in the paper about the
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hatred against Jews in Philadelphia. And not just in 1954, but
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even still, now, my eyes catch on something, all too often.
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Swastikas painted on synagogues. This was the latest I’d
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seen, a few weeks earlier.
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“Your boss?” Joshua is saying now, and he frowns.
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“Mr. Robertson,” she says.
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“Robert Robertson?” Joshua raises his eyebrows. It is a
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name I recognize. Robert Robertson is a prominent local
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businessman who owns several clothing factories, and who
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has once or twice brought some business to the firm. “I don’t
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even think he’s German,” Joshua says kindly. I could not form
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the words to speak, to tell him that not all anti-Semites are
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German, even if I wanted to.
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She shakes her head. “My friend, she nice Christian girl.”
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“Like Miss Franklin here?” Joshua smiles in my direction,
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and Bryda narrows her eyes at me, so I am forced to look away.
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“Anyway,” she says. “She work same hours as me and make
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two dollar more a week.”
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“Has she worked there longer?” Joshua asks.
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Bryda shakes her head again. “No, I work there two year
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more than her.”
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“And you think this is because you’re a Jew?” Joshua asks.
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She nods. “All the Jews, we make less money. But every
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one afraid to complain. President say there hard times. Who
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else will hire us?”
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“I’m sorry,” Joshua says. “That’s really awful.”
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“You no be sorry, Mr. Rosenstein. You help me.” She
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pauses. “My English, it not so good. So maybe I confuse you
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little bit.”
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“I think I’m understanding you,” Joshua says. “You want
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your boss to pay you what he pays your friend.”
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“I want him to pay, yes,” she says. “But not just money.
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Understand what I say?”
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“I understand,” Joshua says. But I wonder if he really does.
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In German, the way to say it would be
Jedem das Seine
. But I
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am not exactly sure what the right word would be in Ameri
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can English.
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Bryda sighs. “For so many years I suffer as Jew. Why I still
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have to suffer, here, in America?”
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Joshua nods slowly. “Well, on your own I’m not sure we
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really have a case but . . .” He rubs his chin the way I’ve seen
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his father, Ezra, who has a thick white beard, do. Only Josh
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ua’s chin is smooth, like a boy’s. “If we get others. A group
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litigation.”
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Bryda frowns, clearly confused, but from my studying I
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know exactly what a group litigation is. But I cannot speak,
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even if I might want to. I am frozen, Bryda’s words about the
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suffering of Jews echoing in my head.
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“That means we’ll get other people from Robertson’s fac
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tories, like you, to join in on the suit,” Joshua explains. “If we
have more people, we’ll have more power to fight.” He rubs
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his chin again. “I’ll tell you what, let me talk this over with my
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father. His name is the one you see on the sign out front.” She
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nods. “And in the meantime, can you do something for me?
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Can you make a list of everyone you know who might be
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interested in joining you?”
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“Yes,” Bryda says, and her eyes follow Joshua’s face in the
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way mine so often do. Suddenly Joshua is her Jewish Ameri
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can hero.
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Chapter Nine
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Even after Bryda leaves the office, I cannot
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concentrate on my work because I cannot erase the image of
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her number, right there, so horrible and obvious, on her fore
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arm. I want to forget about it. But I cannot.
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I stare at my typewriter for a while after she leaves. I can
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not exactly remember the look of Bryda’s face. But the look of
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the numbers, the way they were preceded by a sharp dark
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blue
A
, I can remember without hesitation.
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I know it’s because I
was
in Poland during the war, just
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like Bryda. I did not want to be there; I did not really know it
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at the time. But I was.
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In 1944, Mother, my sister, and I waited in line after we
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were unloaded from the cargo train by thick black-booted
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men. They had pulled our arms, throwing us off the train as
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if we really were cargo, laughing, joking with one another in
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German as they did it, cigarettes hanging loosely from their
mouths, thick rings of smoke swirling above their heads.
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We’d just been transported from Westerbork camp in Hol
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land to Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland. It was the
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beginning of September, a month after we’d been ripped from
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the annex. The sun was shining. To walk in it, it actually still
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hurt my skin, as if its rays were overexposing me, after so
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much time hidden away.
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We stood in line, and I held on tightly to my sister with
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one hand, my mother, with the other. Mrs. van Pels was
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somewhere behind us.
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“We’ll be killed,” my sister whispered to me as we waited
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there for what felt like forever, the soles of our feet beginning
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to burn from standing still. It was warm outside, and we were
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sweating, thirsty. Even my sister’s whisper sounded hoarse.
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“Shhh,” I told her. “No, we will not.” I felt I was lying to
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her then, but it seemed a necessary lie. I was terrified she
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would hear the pounding of my own heart in my chest. “Just
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do what they tell you,” I whispered slowly. “Don’t struggle.”
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The woman in front of us in line was an older lady, older
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than Mother by twenty years at least, and her back was
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already hunched; her arms fell frail around her sides. The
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guards yelled at us in German to undress, and when she was
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naked, her flesh hung off her bones, loose, wrinkly. It seemed
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she was too old to be so naked.
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Then the guards came to shave us, and she began shout
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ing.
“Jestes diablem. Jestes diablem.”
She shouted it, over and
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over again. So loud, her voice hurt my ears.
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“You are the devil,” Mother whispered, translating. “It’s
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Polish.” Mother knew a little Polish from a childhood friend.
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