Margot: A Novel (15 page)

the factory or something that happened to her as a child, in
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Poland.
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“I can’t give her back her finger, or her family. But she
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should be treated the right way, in America, after all.” He
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pauses. “You know what scares me the most?”
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“What?” I whisper.
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“That people will forget, and it will happen again. Another
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Hitler, more camps. If Jews aren’t seen as equal, then when
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will it ever stop?” Something clenches hard in my chest, so
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hard that for a moment I cannot breathe. What if Joshua’s
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right? What if it could happen to me again?
But Margie Frank-
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lin is not a Jew,
I remind myself.
And it could not in happen
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America. Maybe a few terrible incidents, but not another Hitler.
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More camps.
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We stop at the entrance to my building, and I turn and
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look at Joshua. In the soft shadow of the moonlight, he tilts
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his head, and he looks younger than he does at work, sitting
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there at his desk, his brow stretched with concentration. Now
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I can see Joshua as a younger man, a teenager, like the Peter
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I remember. He is vulnerable, in the moonlight, pondering
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about the fate of humanity. I want to reach up and touch his
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cheek, but I clasp my hands together, not only because Joshua
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might think it strange if I touched him, but also because the
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feeling of Peter and me there, that last night on the divan, it
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so fresh in my mind now. It feels wrong that I should like
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Joshua so much. A betrayal.
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Joshua lets go of my arm, and he looks at me. I blink, until
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Peter’s face disappears. In the moonlight Joshua’s gray-green
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eyes take on a yellowish cast.
You know what scares me
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most
. . .
When will it ever stop?
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“Okay,” I say to him now.
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“Okay?”
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“I will help you.”
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He smiles at me and puts his hand on my shoulder, a ges
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ture of kindness, or maybe it is just to make sure I am steady
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on my feet. We are standing close now, close enough that I
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could feel his breath almost against my cheek as he spoke.
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His eyes trace my face, as if he is seeing something the way
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he did that day in January when Alaska became a state and
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he invited me for a drink.
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He begins to say something else, then stops and hesitates
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for a moment, and he takes a step back.
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“What is it?” I ask.
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“I was just thinking I could walk you up, say hi to Mr.
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Katz.” My heart pounds so hard and loud in my chest that I
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am certain that Joshua can hear it, or possibly even see it puls
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ing through my sweater. Joshua wants to walk up, come inside
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my apartment? I try to remember if I put the yellow paper back
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in my satchel, my sister’s book back on the shelf, my pile of
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freshly laundered sweaters back in the drawer . . . “But it’s get
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ting late,” Joshua says. He shrugs. “I probably shouldn’t.”
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“Another time,” I say, and the boldness of my words sur
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prises me.
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“Another time,” he repeats. He smiles at me, and takes
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another step back, so he is walking away now, slowly, but
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away nonetheless. I turn to walk into my building. “Margie,”
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he calls out, and his voice echoes against the empty night
sidewalk. I turn back around to look at him. “I’m lucky to have
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you, you know that?”
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He smiles at me, and waves and then he turns and takes
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off walking quickly back toward Sixteenth Street as I walk
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inside,
stilllight-headed.
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Chapter Nineteen
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When I first came to work for Joshua in January of
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1956, I did not realize he was the kind of lawyer who defends
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criminals, or that later on he would become the kind of
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lawyer who would convince me to help him with a case like
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Bryda’s.
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I’m thinking about this Monday morning as Joshua’s new
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client, Charles Bakerfield, a rich man accused of killing his
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wife, is sitting in the chair by my desk, waiting for Joshua to
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arrive for their ten o’clock appointment. Charles is tall, with
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green eyes that chill me a little when he stares at me too hard
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as I am typing.
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Joshua is running late this morning. At five minutes to ten,
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he has not even stepped foot in the office yet, and I am filled
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with a nervous sort of anticipation, not only because of
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Charles Bakerfield’s intense stare, but also at the thought of
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seeing Joshua again, this morning.
I’m lucky to you have you,
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you know that, Margie.
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I’m lucky to be here,
I think.
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I saw Joshua’s advertisement in the
Inquirer
for a legal sec
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retary the week before Christmas, 1955, over a lunch with Ilsa
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of ginger tea and ham sandwiches, in which I’d cautiously
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removed the ham and eaten only the bread and cheese. Just
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before lunch, I had helped Ilsa string garlands and tinsel
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around the thick evergreen tree that rested in front of their
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fireplace, where Ilsa had hung an extra stocking, just for me.
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Ilsa had asked me to climb the ladder and place the yellow
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star on top of the tree. Not the Star of David. The Star of
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Death. But a star that seemed all wrong, so unfamiliar that to
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me, it barely looked like a star at all.
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“After lunch, we’ll unpack the baby Jesus,” Ilsa said to me
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as she chewed delicately on her ham. My days with Ilsa were
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spent alongside her as she shopped and decorated. She taught
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me to sew curtains and make dolls. She consulted me on mat
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ters of color and materials, dinner recipes and grocery lists. I
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knew she was trying so hard to be kind, to include me in her
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life, so I would never tell her that decorating made my brain
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feel dull, that her ham and her baby Jesus and her star, they
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all made me feel more than a little uneasy, even if I had
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already told her that I no longer planned on being Jewish in
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America.
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Then I saw it, there in the paper, Joshua’s notice:
Rosen-
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stein, Greenberg and Moscowitz.
Their Jewishness, it was right
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there, so obvious.
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I couldn’t help it. I had to apply. There is this wayward sort
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of homesickness that eats Margie Franklin, the Gentile, at
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her core. In the law office often, even now, it is the place
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where I feel most at home.
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Joshua arrives promptly at ten and ushers Charles Bakerfield
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right back into his office. He runs in quickly, without even so
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much a glance at me, and I am overcome with a sense of
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disappointment. I’m not sure what I was expecting, really, but
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it wasn’t that.
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I watch them now through the glass window, Joshua and
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Charles. Charles seems much taller than Joshua even just
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sitting across the desk from him. It’s possible Charles is inno
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cent, though more likely, I think, he is not. The majority of
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the law firm’s clients are not who I would count among the
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good people of the world, but the ones who are accused mur
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derers, they make me the most uneasy. Shelby says that
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someone has to defend them, that it is only fair and right
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under American law that a person is innocent until proven
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guilty, but still, I wish it didn’t have to be Joshua.
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This is a case Ezra has insisted Joshua take on. Shelby and
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I had listened last week as Ezra had yelled at Joshua about it
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through the paper walls, talking about redemption and bring
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ing in some money for the firm. Joshua either hadn’t responded
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to Ezra’s rant, or had kept his voice low enough so Shelby and
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I hadn’t heard his reply.
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So I suppose I can understand it, then, why Joshua wants
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to help Bryda so badly. Why he is asking so much of me, more
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than he knows.
Money is not greatness,
he told me.
Bravery is
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greatness.
Still, sitting there at my desk, watching the two of
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them through the glass, watching Joshua pull at the nonexis
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tent beard on his chin, I realize that helping Joshua with
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Bryda’s case, it will not be the same at all as helping him type
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notes and compile documents for a trial, not even a murder
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trial.
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This will be no different,
I tell myself.
No different from all
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the other lies I’ve told.
Yet somehow it feels different.
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Joshua’s meeting lasts nearly two hours, and when Charles
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Bakerfield exits, with an almost eerily contemptuous nod in
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my direction, Joshua walks out of his office right behind,
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looking browbeaten.
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“Lunch?” he says to me, quietly, tapping the corner of my
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metal desk with his forefinger. He grabs his hat from the rack,
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and tosses it atop his curls.
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Shelby stops typing, and her jaw nearly plummets to the
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floor. I can almost see the wheels of her brain turning, won
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dering about his weekend with Penny, and about the fact that
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Joshua and I went to lunch together on Friday. And she does
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not even know about the drink on Friday night. I think again
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about him standing there, on Ludlow Street, the way his voice
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floated and his eyes traced my face, and I have the strangest
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feeling that we share something now, something more than
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work, a thought which makes me smile.
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Joshua turns and looks at Shelby, and she nods at him and
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continues her typing. I stand up, grab my satchel, and follow
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him to the elevator.
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“You have to eat more than an apple and a cup of soup,”
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Joshua says as we stand in line at Isaac’s counter. “Really,
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don’t be shy about it, Margie.”
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“I’m not a big lunch person,” I say. Or dinner. Or breakfast.
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“All right.” Joshua shrugs. “As long as it’s not on my account.”
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I shake my head. “But really, Margie, you’re thin as a bird. I
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worry about you, and I say that as a friend not as your boss.”
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“I’m fine,” I say, because lies, they are so easy now. And
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really, what I’m thinking about is that Joshua has called me a
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friend, that my thought back in the office was right: somehow
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we are connected now, more than we were. Bryda Korzynski,
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her case, it has made Joshua begin to see me.
I’m lucky to have
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you, Margie.
This is a thought that both thrills and terrifies me.
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“So I wanted to tell you what I’ve done,” Joshua says, after
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we are seated at the same table by the window. I gnaw care
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fully on my apple. I nod, and he continues. “I stopped at the
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Inquirer
offices this morning before work. That’s why I was so
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late. Anyway, the ad will begin running tomorrow. It has your
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phone number, with a note to call between the hours of five
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and six only. This way, it will only be an extra hour you will
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be bothered with work, and you can leave a little early to
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make it home by five, all right?”
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“All right,” I say, though secretly, I am already hoping that
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no one calls. I think Joshua is overestimating. He does not
really understand it, as much as he may want to, the contin
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ued need to hide and to stay hidden. Bryda Korzynski cannot
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be the only one who feels she deserves more than she is get
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ting at the factory, but how many others will truly come for
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ward to complain openly as she has done?
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“Let’s have lunch again at the end of the week, and you
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bring the list of callers with you. Then we’ll see where we are.”
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“Okay,” I say. His eyes seem greener in the daylight, and
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because we are sitting by the large picture window, sunlight
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streams past me and onto his face. I smile at him.
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But he shakes his head, as if his mind is off somewhere
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else, perhaps contemplating the fate of humanity once more.
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“You know that man who was in my office all morning?”
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he finally says. I nod. “He’s guilty as sin,” Joshua whispers.
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“And I’m going to keep him out of jail.”
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“That’s your job,” I tell him, though it seems little conso
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lation.
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“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is thick with something I
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don’t recognize from him. Joshua, whose voice is usually so
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easy, so filled with that American happiness. Now there is a
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layer of something like gloom, or sadness. “That’s my job,” he
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repeats, and then I realize what it is. Joshua is bitter. Joshua
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dislikes his job.
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How is it that I have worked for him for three years, this
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whole time, watching him through the glass by his office door
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as his brow furrowed in concentration, his gray-green eyes
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dancing with laughter, and I have not understood before now,
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how unhappy Joshua is with his work?
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Maybe Joshua is as good at lying as I am.
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