Margot: A Novel (20 page)

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Joshua and I, we had a moment on the street this morning,
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and I am not ready to let that go, yet. “Mr. Rosenstein,” I say
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softly, “Miss Greenberg is here to see you about lunch.” I
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pretend to listen for a moment, and then I say, “Yes, yes. I see.
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I will tell her.” I hang up the phone, and my hands are trem
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bling as I turn to look at Penny. “I’m sorry,” I say, shrugging.
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“Oh.” She frowns and peers through the glass once again.
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Joshua is reading papers at his desk, and his brow is furrowed
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in concentration. He does not look up. “Well,” she says, “I
needed to see my father anyway.” She walks back toward the
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elevator, and as soon as the doors shut behind her, I hear
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Shelby whistle softly under her breath.
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“What was that, Margie?” she says.
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“What?” I ask, innocently enough, as if I have no idea of
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the lies she has just witnessed me speaking.
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“Oh, sweetie.” She shakes her head. “If you think a little
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faking out the intercom is going to stop her, you’ve got another
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thing coming.”
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“I have no idea what you mean,” I say. “Mr. Rosenstein has
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a very busy schedule today.”
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Shelby’s lips twitch into a smile. “And I didn’t even know
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you had it in you.”
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See, I am not a paragon of virtue. Really, I am not.
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After work, I watch the skies turn dark through the small
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square window behind my sofa. I should eat dinner, but I find
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myself sitting there, thinking about the way I deceived Penny,
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then about the pink Cadillac in Peter’s driveway. Then, inev
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itably, as always, my thoughts turn to my sister. I wonder if it
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was possible that she deceived me the way I deceived Penny.
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Or maybe, not her who deceived me, but Peter?
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In 1944, I became nocturnal, staying awake all night in
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Peter’s room, sleeping in the afternoons on the foldout cot in
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my parents’ room, letting the slow tick of Pim’s clock lull me
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to sleep.
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One afternoon I fell asleep, and I had a dream. Peter was
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there, and he was talking to me, whispering in my ear. Only
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then, Peter turned into my sister.
Don’t be such a ninny, Mar-
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got,
my sister was saying
. He could never love you.
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I awoke, and Pim’s clock said it was only 3 p.m., an hour
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when we were still supposed to be silent, to tiptoe in stock
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inged feet, to whisper. I found my diary beneath the sheets,
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and lay there and recorded my dream.
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And then I hid it again, and tiptoed up the stairs to Peter’s
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room. I would ask him, and he would remind me. In Peter’s
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voice, the future sounded certain, always. It became a way to
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survive, a way of making it through fear and hunger. In Peter’s
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voice, there was a future. What he said had to be the truth.
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I stopped near the entryway to his room when I heard the
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sound of a giggle. A stifled giggle, because it was 3 p.m., and
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we were supposed to be quiet. If we weren’t quiet, someone
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might hear us below, and then it would all be over.
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But there it was, a giggle nonetheless, and unmistakably
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hers, my sister’s. “Shhh . . .” I heard the sound of Peter’s voice.
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“They’ll hear us.”
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“So what?” my sister said. “So what if they do. Everyone
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already knows anyway,” she said.
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“Not everyone,” Peter said.
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Lying on my couch, in 1959, I’m not certain if this actually
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happened, or if it was all just part of my dream that after
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noon. Since I’ve read my sister’s book, my life in the annex
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has become blurry: what is real, and what was just a story?
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When we leave here, we will be married
, Peter whispered
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into my hair in the pitchest black of nights
. We will go together,
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to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America. City
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of Brotherly Love.

Even now I do not really believe that Peter’s words to me
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were a lie, any more than I thought they were in 1944.
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But sometimes I cannot tell what to believe. Sometimes, the
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only thing I’m sure is real is the thick dark ink on my arm, and
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that is only because it is permanent, inerasable, unchangeable.
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C
hapter
T
wenty-six
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Tonight when I go to sleep, it is only me and her in the
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dream. Me and my sister.
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We lie there in her room in the annex, writing in our dia
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ries. We are on the bed, our hips and shoulders touching, our
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elbows moving against each other as we scribble words across
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our pages. My sister holds her fountain pen to the page, but
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then stops writing and chews on the end, contemplating, her
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almond eyes wide.
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“What are you thinking?” I ask her.
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“I’m not in love with him,” she says. “It isn’t love.”
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“What do you mean?” I ask her.
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“I’m not in love with Joshua,” she says, and then I look at
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her again, and she is Penny. Penny is sitting there, on the bed,
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next to me, chewing on the end of the pen, dressed in her
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frivolous tomato dress.
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I awake and sit up startled, sweating. My sister and Penny.
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They are not the same. I loved my sister. I did.
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Though it is only 4 a.m., I know I will not find sleep again
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tonight. I get out of bed and pull my dog-eared copy of my
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sister’s book from the shelf. I have marked the page, the one
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where it is written, where my sister says it, that she doesn’t
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love him, that she is not in love with him. This is proof, I’ve
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told myself many times, that anything that might have hap
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pened between her and Peter, even later on, that it didn’t
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actually mean something.
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Nothing can’t mean something.
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I’m not in love with him.
In my head now I imagine her
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saying this to me. We lay together on the bed, hips touching,
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arms touching. I jumped a little when she said the words;
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then I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment,
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remembering the feel of Peter’s hand holding mine.
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“Who?” I asked her nonchalantly, pretending as if I didn’t
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know.
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“Peter,” she said, rolling her eyes at me, as if I were such a
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ninny that I could not even begin to understand the feelings
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of which she spoke.
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“Of course you’re not,” I told her. “You’re too young to be
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in love.”
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She chewed on the end of her fountain pen, thought about
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it for a moment, and then recorded something in her diary.
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But there is so, so much Peter in my sister’s diary. She
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knew so much about him, how he felt and how he talked, how
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he moved and how he breathed. What it was like to be there
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with him, in his room. This much, these details, they are not
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stories, and I have always told myself that she had to have
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taken them from me, from my diary, as if it were just a dress
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from my closet in the Merwedeplein that she was borrowing
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without even asking.
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Because in my diary, I wrote of the way Peter’s eyes looked
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as they gazed at me on the divan, washing past the moonlight,
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bluer than the sea. I wrote of the way he held on to me in the
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middle of the night when I forgot how to breathe, the way I
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remembered freedom when he spoke my name.
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With everything single part of my seventeen-year-old body
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and mind, I loved him. And I detailed all of it in my diary, so
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our story now, like my diary, is lost.
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Ch
apter
T
wenty-seven
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At my desk, a few hours later, I am still thinking
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about my sister, then about Penny in her tomato dress, saying
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that she and Joshua, they are not in love. I wonder if Penny
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really and truly does love Joshua? Or more importantly, does
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he love her? As his secretary, I know that it is not my place to
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care, but as his
friend,
I do not think that Penny is right for
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him. I feel that sense of emptiness in my belly, the ache I feel
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every time I think of her and Joshua together, and I swallow
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hard to try to force it away. He doesn’t love her, I tell myself.
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He is not in love with her. I cannot see it on his face, a gentle
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glow, the way I can see it on Shelby’s face.
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“Everything all right?” Shelby asks me, interrupting my
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thoughts. She is leaning across the desks, holding a paper in
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her hand in a particular way so the fluorescent light catches
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on her diamond and makes it sparkle. She looks awkward this
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way, and I think she is doing it just to display the diamond, if
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only to herself, a constant reminder that what she has wanted
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for so long, it is suddenly right there, in front of her. I hope
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that her marriage will be everything she thinks it will be, that
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Ron really and truly will be devoted to her.
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“Yes, fine,” I say. “What about you?” I ask her. “You are
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engaged to Ron, and you are happy that your spying has given
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you all the answers you need?”
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She shrugs, and holds her hand out to look at the diamond
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again, and the way she casts her eyes downward, just a little
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bit, I wonder if there is some doubt still, that it’s possible
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some of the excitement of the proposal has gently worn away
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and now there is the reality, which does not shine as bright.
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“He has asked me to marry him,” she says. “And really, it is
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everything I’ve ever wanted.”
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“But if there is a . . . hussy,” I whisper that last word across
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the desk. “It would be better to know now than later on.”
I do
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not love him,
my sister said. But in my head, I hear the sound
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of my sister’s giggle echoing from Peter’s room.
Shhh. Not
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everyone knows,
he whispered to her.
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Shelby shrugs and then says, “Don’t look now, Margie.”
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She gently yanks her head in the direction of the elevator.
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“But the queen bee is back.”
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I don’t look, though I feel a weight that is a little too heavy
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in my chest.
I do not love him.
“Hello, Margie.” The real
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sound of her voice startles me a little, clearer and higher than
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it sounded in my dream. I look up and force a smile.
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Penny is pink today, the color of the Cadillac. Her dress is
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more casual than usual and it narrows, like an hourglass,
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around her small waist, hugging perfectly to her large pointy
chest. She has forgone a hat, but her curls are still held back
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in a suspiciously perfect twist. “Josh is expecting me today,”
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she says.
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“I’ll buzz him,” I say, reaching for the phone.
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“No need.” She waves her hand and pushes past my desk,
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but then she stops and shoots me a look that tells me that she
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knows that yesterday I was lying to her, and also, it is saying,
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Do what you will, I am smarter, prettier, more charming . . .
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I nod, and she walks past me, into his office.
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A few minutes later, Joshua walks out, Penny draped on
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his arm. He stops for a moment by my desk and tips his hat.
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“I’m off to lunch, Margie.”
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“Okay,” I say.
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He smiles at me, and his gray-green eyes—they seem to
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be laughing, or dancing. They are alive with something, and
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the way they stare at me, it is like they are telling me a secret.
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He knows too what I did yesterday, and it amuses him.
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“Come on, Josh.” Penny tugs on his arm.
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“Back in an hour,” he says to me, tipping his hat again.
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“Sometimes, I’d like to punch her smug little face,” Shelby
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whispers, after the elevator doors have closed.
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“Shelby!” I say. But I cannot hold back a small laugh.
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“What?” She shrugs. “Don’t tell me you’re not thinking
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that exact same thing.”
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Ch
apter
Twent
y-eight
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A few days later, I am still having trouble sleeping,
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and instead of pacing my apartment or continuing to stare at
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the ceiling above my bed, I decide to leave for work early. By
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8 a.m., I am at my desk, before Shelby and Ezra or even
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Joshua have arrived for the day.
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Just after I sit down in my secretary’s chair, the elevator
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dings open, and Joshua steps off. Also early. I smile. He wears
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a navy suit today, with a red-and-navy-striped tie. He holds
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tight to his attaché, and when he notices me, he smiles his
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warm Joshua smile.
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“Margie,” he says. “Just the person I wanted to see.” He
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puts his hat on the rack by my desk and waves for me to fol
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low him into his office. “Come,” he says. “Let’s talk.”
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I nod, pleased that he has been wanting to see me, and
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that we are almost alone here. I stand up and walk into his
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office.
“Shut the door,” he says, “and have a seat.”
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I do.
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He sits down, folds his hands in front of him, his face seri
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ous. For a moment I worry that he might chastise me for lying
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to Penny the other day, but then he smiles again. “You’re
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working early today,” he says.
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I nod, but I do not tell him the reason, that I have been
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unable to find sleep, my brain tumbling with thoughts of him
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and Penny together, the pink Cadillac, Peter. Pim in Switzer
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land with his new wife. And then, somewhere in the darkest
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clutches of night, there is my sister, frail and reaching for me
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at the very end.
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Joshua clears his throat. “So I had another idea last night,”
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he says. I nod again. “Maybe an ad in the paper is too public
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for some. Maybe we should also approach these people where
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they feel more comfortable.”
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“Okay,” I say, but I am thinking that
these
people, they do
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not feel comfortable anywhere. That even your own skin, it is
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your enemy when it is marked, when you are nothing more,
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or perhaps nothing less, than a number. Or is that just how I
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feel? Bryda seems to have no qualms about it.
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“Let’s make up some flyers and take them to Beth Sha
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lom,” Joshua is saying.
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“Beth Shalom?” I repeat, though I feel as if I am choking
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on the words, and they refuse to form in my throat into some
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thing real.
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“Yeah, it’s a synagogue, close to Miss Korzynski’s part of
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town. A little bit of a poorer area with a lot of immigrants
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close by. And I’d be willing to bet a lot of the congregation
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