Margot: A Novel (13 page)

They were numb, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I gasped
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at the air and reminded myself to inhale, exhale. My heart
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pounded so hard in my chest I thought it might explode.
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I stopped at the window, and pressed my nose against the
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glass. And there she was, preserved the way she’d been ten
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years earlier, maybe more, before she’d been stripped and
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shaved, tattooed, and broken.
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I walked inside the store, like walking inside a dream. The
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air was fog and silt and clung to my sweater. It was spring
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time, but I was shivering. Somewhere a bell clanged on the
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door. A man asked if he could help me. I pointed to the book,
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my sister’s face. Or I picked it up. I don’t remember paying for
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it, though I’m sure I did.
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The next thing I remember is being back in Levittown, at
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Ilsa’s house.
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I sat down in her front room, on a hard-backed chair, and
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I opened the book. It was nothing like the orange-checked
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book I’d seen my sister write in, so often, in the annex. It was
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a brighter orange, almost a red, and my sister’s name was
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written in big letters on the front. Such big letters. Her
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name—it was shouting at me.
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Dear Kitty.
The words swam across my eyes, as if I’d imag
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ined them there.
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“I’m calling my diary Kitty,” my sister told me, after she got
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the diary for her birthday.
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“Kitty?” I’d raised my eyebrows. “Do you want a friend or
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a pet?”
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“I’ll have you know that Kitty is a very American name.”
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I blinked and looked again.
Dear Kitty.
And then I
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screamed and dropped the book on the hardwood floor, where
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it landed with a terrifying thud.
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“Margie,” Ilsa said, running in. “You look like you’ve seen
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a ghost, my dear.”
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I nodded. But I couldn’t speak.
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She picked up the book, looked at the cover, and then
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handed it back to me. She clucked her tongue, the same way
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she had when she’d looked over my shoulder as I’d read the
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article about the Jewish children being attacked. “I’ve heard
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about this,” she said. She pulled over a chair and sat down
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next to me. “Maybe for you,” she said, “who lived through the
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war over there, it is better not to read these things.” Ilsa
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seemed to understand vaguely that wartime had been horrific
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for me, for Jews, in Europe, though she did not ever ask me
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for specifics. Not that I would have told her, even if she had.
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That afternoon, I simply closed the book in my lap and
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nodded.
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After Ilsa and her husband, Bertram, went to sleep that
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night, I traced the letters of my sister’s name with my fingers.
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Then, on the inside page, I did the same with my father’s.
My
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Pim,
I thought.
He is still alive.
I was flooded with joy,
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and then quickly, uneasiness.
He did this,
I thought. He
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published this.
For her
. And then I felt like I might vomit as
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I imagined it in my head again and again and again, like always:
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the last time I saw my sister, on the train. What I did to her.
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Maybe for you,
Ilsa said,
it is better not to read these things . . .
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But I took a deep breath and read the entire book from
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cover to cover that night. Twice.
According to the book, she was the one Peter kissed. She
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was the one Peter loved.
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For a long while after I found the published book, I did not
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try to find Peter.
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05
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I get off the bus at the corners of Olney and Broad streets, not
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too far from Joshua’s home, but far enough so I cannot see it
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from here. I think about what Shelby said, about Penny and
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Joshua spending the weekend at his father’s house, and I won
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der if she is right. The thought of it, the two of them together,
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annoys me. I know it shouldn’t, but it does. But I am not here
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for Joshua, I remind myself. I’m here for Peter. And in my
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mind I again conjure up the exact color of his eyes: deep and
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blue and clear as the sea. Then I walk down Olney for a little
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while, until the numbers turn into the 2000s.
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2217 Olney Avenue, Apartment 4A, is in a group of tiny
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brick connected houses. They are European in their styling,
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not even all that dissimilar from the outside of the Prinsen
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gracht. “I will never come back here,” Peter said to me as we
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lay there together on his divan. “After the war, we will go to
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Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. We will be different
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people, no longer Jews.”
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Peter promised me we would come here together, though
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once, when I asked him what if . . . ? What if we could not?
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What if we were captured? Separated? All things we did not
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like to speak of.
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“Shhh,” he’d whispered into my hair. “Do not worry so
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much. I will find you. I will always find you.”
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Peter said he would find me, and I do not think it would
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be hard to do this in Philadelphia, if he were looking. Margie
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Franklin’s phone number is listed, and there have been a few
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times when I have answered a call, only to hear the sound of
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heavy breathing on the other end, followed by a slow click.
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Always, a part of me has wondered if he is here, trying to find
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me, just like he said he would. But also, I understand now, I
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can find him. I could’ve found him all this time. And if not
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for my sister’s diary, I know I would’ve. Or at least, I would’ve
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been trying. Now I am ashamed that I have not. That I have
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been such a coward, for so very long.
Greatness is in bravery,
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Joshua told me.
Doing something that terrifies you.
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I walk up the cement steps to 4A, slowly. There are six
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steps, and I count them in my head, the numbers making an
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easy rhythm, calming my quickly beating heart.
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By the front door, there is a square green mailbox with one
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word painted on it:
Pelt
.
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I am in the right place.
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I take a deep breath and press my finger to the doorbell. I
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ring it once, and I wait. Then I ring it again, and I wait some
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more.
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I rap softly on the green door, and notice the paint is peel
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ing, in ripples.
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I do not hear footsteps or even see shadows moving against
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the curtains. Then I notice the drive is empty of cars.
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No one is home.
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Chapter Seventeen
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Back in my studio apartment, it is nearly dusk, but I do
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not move yet to get my candle from under the kitchen sink.
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Instead I sit at my tiny table, holding the thin yellow piece of
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paper in my hands, thinking about the word “Pelt” on the
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green square mailbox. The letters were black and thick, and
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just a little crooked. “Pelt
.
” It is real.
He
is real.
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Sitting there, I think about the last time I saw Peter, the
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morning the Green Police came for us. August 1944. Two
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years we had been in the annex by then. But the war would
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be over soon, we knew it. We crouched around the radio at
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night after dinner, and there was a burgeoning sense that
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things were beginning to go our way. Only two weeks earlier
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there’d been an attempt on Hitler’s life, and by a German
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count. We were not the only ones fed up with the war. “The
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tide is turning,” Father had said, smiling gently at Mother.
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Peter and I whispered about it at night in his room after
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everyone else was asleep. Each night, I waited in my parents’
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room until I heard the soft sound of Pim’s snore and Mother’s
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breath rattling in her chest, and then I would tiptoe, ever so
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carefully, up the stairs, to Peter’s.
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Once, all our talk about after the war had felt almost like
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talking about a story, something that could never happen to
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us. But by this point, it had begun to feel real, like the idea of
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the sun on our faces, the feel of August rain against my cheek.
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I would feel these things again. We both would.
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Peter and I had spent many nights whispering furtively in
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the dark about the future and what it might hold. But that
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night, what would be our last night in the annex, Peter lay
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waiting for me on the divan. I sat down next to him, and he
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pulled me close and put his finger to my lips before I could
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speak. “Let’s not talk tonight,” he whispered.
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I watched the turn of his face, his blue, blue eyes reflect
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ing in the sheerness of the moonlight as he traced his finger
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from my lips, slowly, across my cheek. And then he leaned in
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even closer and kissed me.
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I kissed him back, my lips moving against his as if they
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belonged there, as if we belonged like that, together. We held
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on tightly to each other as we kissed, and my hands trembled
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a little against the warmth of his back.
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“Tell me again,” I whispered. I could hear the sound of his
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breath moving against his chest, so close, it was almost as if
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it were my own. “Tell me what we’ll do when we leave here.”
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“We’ll move to America,” he whispered, tracing the outline
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of my cheekbone with his thumb. “Philadelphia. City of Broth
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erly Love. We’ll be married, and we will no longer be Jews.”
“You won’t forget about me,” I whispered.
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“Never,” he whispered back.
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And then, for the first time, there in Peter’s room, in the
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darkness, I actually fell asleep, Peter’s warm body tucked against
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the folds of mine, my hands still resting against his back.
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The next morning, just before the Green Police came, I
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awoke to the heavy sound of Peter’s door swinging open. My
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sister stood there, at the entrance to Peter’s room, her big
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brown eyes holding on to us like the eyes of a wounded ani
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mal. I expected her to yell at me, to gasp at our indecency, to
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call for Father. But she did none of those things. Instead her
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eyes turned to him.
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“Peter?” she said softly.
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Then the door by the staircase was breaking open, and
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Mrs. van Pels was screaming, louder than I’d ever heard her.
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“No,” she was screaming. “No. No.”
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Peter locked eyes with me. Blue, blue eyes like the sea.
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They were there, so close to mine I could touch them.
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And then they were gone.
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My phone rings, and the sound of it startles me. It barely ever
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rings, unless it is Ilsa calling to check up on me from time to
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time, but she would not call me on a Friday night. Ilsa does
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not know my true identity, but she knows more than anyone
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else in Philadelphia, that once I was a Jew, that on Friday
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nights I still light my Shabbat candle.
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“Hello,” I say, expecting a breath, followed by a click.
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Peter?
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