Margot: A Novel (8 page)

shot all of us.
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The noises stopped, and we waited in silence. I heard the
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tick of Pim’s clock. It was a tick that often could rock me to
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sleep, gentle and regular. We waited, perfectly still.
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Peter lowered the knife, and it was then my eyes grew
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focused enough in the dark to see he was shaking. “Margot,”
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he whispered. “Do you want to come up to my room?”
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Now my hand traces a circle on the phone dial, shaking, the
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way Peter was that night. I turn the numbers, one at a time,
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unsteadily going through each one, until all the numbers have
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been turned, and then I am waiting for the sound of ringing
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in my ear. I do not consider what I will say, other than hello.
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I do not consider that even if it is him, he might not remember me, the way I remember him. I shut off my brain and
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listen to the ringing. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
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“Hello,” a voice says on the other end of the line. It is high
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and sweet and mellow, the voice of a woman, not at all unlike
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the way I might imagine my sister’s voice to sound today, had
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she lived. “Hello,” she says again. “Anyone there?”
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Quickly, I press the button on the phone to disconnect
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the call.
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Chapter Eleven
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I often replay this fantasy in my American life, a
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story of my own, if you will. In my head I picture a sweet
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little American family living in a tidy tract house not too
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far from Ilsa in Levittown. They are Margie and Pete Pelt,
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who have two children, a girl named Edie and a boy named
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Herman, after Margot’s mother and Peter’s father. Margie
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worries about things like curtains and wallpaper for the chil
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dren’s rooms and Pete takes the train into the city, where
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he works.
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At night, Pete takes the train home again, and when he
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arrives, it is already dark and Margie has already tucked the
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children safely into their beds. She has a roast chicken wait
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ing in the oven and a candle lit on the table.
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Pete walks in the door, a brown suit coat hugging his
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broad shoulders. His eyes find Margie, right away, so blue,
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blue like the sea. Then he finds her mouth with his, and they
kiss, a long kiss that is still imbued with passion, even after
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so many years, so many secrets.
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“How was your day?” Margie asks.
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Pete takes off his coat and hat. “It was good,” he says. “Are
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the children asleep?”
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“Not yet,” she answers, and he smiles, a bright American
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smile, like Joshua’s, so that Margie cannot help but smile
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back. Then he rushes back to the children’s bedrooms to tuck
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them in and kiss them good night.
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Later, after dinner, when it seems the world is pitched
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with blackness, Margie and Pete crawl into their bed together
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and cling to each other. The moonlight shines in through the
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bedroom’s large picture window, just enough to illuminate
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Pete’s face as he kisses Margie good night and they both fall
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into a deep and dreamless slumber.
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I am thinking about this fantasy the next morning as I walk to
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work. Wondering about the woman’s voice who answered the
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phone last night. Maybe she was a housekeeper, I think. A
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friend. She cannot really be someone important, another
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woman who could slip right into my fantasy, just like that.
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Could she?
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When I arrive at work, Shelby is already there, sitting
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at her desk holding the phone to her ear, but she isn’t speaking
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into it. This is Shelby’s ruse, what she does when she wants to
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eavesdrop on something and doesn’t want anyone to know.
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“Good morning,” I say to her. She holds a finger to her lips,
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then points in the direction of Joshua’s office.
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I’m not trying to eavesdrop like Shelby, but I cannot help
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but hear Ezra Rosenstein’s booming voice, his words breaking
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like claps of thunder. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
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he says. “We don’t take clients who can’t pay our retainer . . .
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I don’t care. And I’ve played golf with Robertson before.”
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“So,” Joshua says. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t an anti
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Semite. Half the men at the club are.”
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I sigh, realizing they are arguing about Bryda. I slump
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down in my chair and lean my head on my arms against my
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desk, not even bothering to cling to Shelby’s ruse. I am
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exhausted this morning, barely having slept at all last night,
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my dreams filled with Bryda Korzynski, who morphed into
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the disembodied women’s voice on the other end of the tele
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phone line last night, who quickly morphed into Peter’s
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mother, Mrs. van Pels, yelling about having to sell her rabbit
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fur so the van Pelses would have the money to pay for food in
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the annex. “She’s so materialistic,” Peter told me once, hang
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ing his head in shame. He did not love his mother the way I
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loved mine, and for that reason, I always felt sorry for her,
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even if she was, as Peter said, materialistic.
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“She just wants to hold on to something
,
” I told him then.
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“Just one thing to remind her of who she used to be
.
”
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Now I think of her in the camp. She did not have her rab
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bit fur, then, of course. Neither did she seem to have her
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voice. She was so much smaller, naked and bald, her flesh
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pale as snow. Suddenly all she had—all we all had—was
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indelible ink.
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A badge of honor,
my sister said.
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Shelby hisses my name across the desk, and I lift my head.
“But she is one of our people,” I hear Joshua saying now,
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through the paper walls. Joshua’s words feel kind and stupid
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all at once, his thinking that his people and Bryda’s people are
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the same. Though underneath, really, are they so different?
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Joshua was luckier than Peter. Had Ezra Rosenstein practiced
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law in Germany, Joshua might have marched to his death in
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Mauthausen. The thought makes me cringe.
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“What are they arguing about?” Shelby whispers. I shrug,
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as if I am as stumped as she is. “I think the Zimmerman ver
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dict came back,” Shelby whispers. “But that doesn’t seem to
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be it.”
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I nod, guessing this probably means Joshua lost the case,
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and that Ezra’s anger over Bryda is really, doubly, anger about
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that.
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“Not everything is about money,” I hear Joshua saying
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now. His voice is softer than his father’s, but it’s louder than
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usual and infused with anger.
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The door flies open and Ezra storms out, slamming the
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door behind him hard enough for the wall by my desk to shake.
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I quickly pick up the phone, borrowing Shelby’s trick, but
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he doesn’t even glance my way on the way by.
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“Miss McKinney,” Ezra barks, and Shelby says a pretend
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good-bye into her pretend phone call. “Where’s my schedule
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for the day?”
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“I’ll have it right on your desk,” Shelby says quickly.
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Ezra Rosenstein is a businessman at heart, who does not
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seem to appreciate Joshua even though he is smart and kind
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and filled with goodness. I do not understand why Ezra can
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not look at him and see the wonderful man that I do, and for
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this reason, I hate Ezra, even though he’ll be the one keeping
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Bryda Korzynski away.
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After Shelby takes Ezra’s schedule into his office, I walk
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to the break room, pour Joshua a cup of coffee, black with
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two sugars, and bring it to his office.
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“Oh, Margie,” he says, taking the cup and having a sip.
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“You always know just what to do, don’t you?” He smiles and
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runs his hand through his curls.
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I nod and turn to leave, shining a bit with his compliment
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and keeping my hands taut at my side, but then Joshua invites
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me to have a seat across from his desk, so I do.
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He doesn’t say anything for a moment, so I say, “The Zim
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merman verdict came back?”
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He nods, then shrugs. “You can’t win them all.” He is in a
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black suit today, with a white shirt and straight black tie, and
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somehow, as I am sitting closer to him now, he appears smaller
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than when I watch him through the glass. Is it that the suit is
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too big, and he is like a boy trying on his father’s clothes, or
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that Ezra’s harsh words have somehow shrunk him?
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“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
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He shakes his head, opens his mouth to say something,
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and then, as if he has thought better of it, he takes a sip of his
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coffee. “Margie,” he says, when he is finished. “Can I ask you
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something?”
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“Of course.” I nod.
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“What did you think of Miss Korzynski yesterday?”
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“Me?” I fix my eyes on the bronze placard at the front of
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his large oak desk that reads
Joshua S. Rosenstein, Esquire.
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The
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stands for Samuel, I know, who was Ezra’s father, Josh
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ua’s grandfather, one of the original founders of this firm. For
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some reason, I think of Samuel in the Bible, the great uniter
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against the Philistines. But wasn’t it Joshua, in the Bible,
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who led the Israelites into the Promised Land? Or was that
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Peter? No, I remember. Peter was the fisherman, who for a
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moment walked on water, until he lost his faith and he began
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to sink.
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“Yes,” Joshua is saying now. “I’d like your opinion.”
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I don’t know why Joshua is suddenly so keen to have my
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opinion, but it could be because he knows I will not yell at
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him as his father just did. “Well,” I say, choosing my words
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very carefully. “Her story was very sad . . .” I have a but.
But,
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there are many people with sad stories,
I would say.
And they
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cannot all be helped
. My sister knew this about me, used to
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tease me about it even.
There is always a but with you, Mar-
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gola!
Joshua doesn’t know me well enough to ask, or if he
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does, he doesn’t actually want to hear it.
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“Yes,” he says. “It was very sad, wasn’t it? I should help her,
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shouldn’t I? I mean, I owe her something, don’t I?” He seems
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to be talking more to himself than to me.
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“Why is that?” I ask.
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“Because,” he says, but I know what he really means is
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because he is also a Jew but he hasn’t suffered for it, not the
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way that she has, or the way Margot had. Also, Joshua likes
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to help people. “Anyway.” He clears his throat. “Bring my
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