“Not at all,” I say.
01
“I know Miss McKinney can be a bit of a gossip, and I
02
don’t want what we’re doing here to get back to my father. At
03
least until I have a plan.”
04
“Of course,” I say. I am surprised by the fact that he seems
05
to have some understanding of Shelby, but more, I am pleased
06
that he has used the word “we’re.” Joshua and I. We’re doing
07
something together. Then I remember what that thing is, and
08
I cling tighter to my sweater around my chest.
09
Isaac’s sits in a small glass-covered storefront, underneath
10
a low brick office building. Joshua pulls open the heavy glass
11
door and holds it back, motioning for me to pass in front of
12
him. “Order whatever you want,” he says as he strolls up to
13
the counter. “I’m buying.”
14
I order an apple and a cup of chicken soup, and I carry my
15
tray to a small table by the window, which is one of the only
16
ones still open. There are twenty or so tables crammed into
17
the small space, but most of them are already occupied by
18
men in dark-colored suits like Joshua’s. A haze of smoke
19
hangs in the air from their lunchtime cigarettes, but Joshua,
20
he does not smoke. Or at least, not at the office.
21
Joshua sits down across from me, so we’re facing one
22
another. It’s loud in here, men’s laughter bellowing across
23
the room, but when Joshua looks at me, I no longer hear it.
24
His eyes are a gray green, closer to the color of winter grass
25
than the sea. I spoon my soup carefully into my mouth
26
while Joshua takes a bite of his chopped liver, which looks
27
just the way Mother used to make it before the war, when
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01
there was still food to be had, and when everyone still had an
02
appetite.
03
“Are you sure that’s enough food, Margie?” Joshua asks,
04
looking at me, in between bites.
05
I nod. “Yes,” I say. Joshua raises his eyebrows, but then the
06
moment passes and he takes another bite. I could tell him
07
that once you have come close to starving, it still feels impos
08
sible to eat in abundance, these many years later, but of
09
course, I don’t. We weighed ourselves in the annex once, and
10
I was 132 pounds. After the camp, I was flesh and bone, and
11
now I am only marginally better. The last time I stepped on
12
the scale, at Ilsa’s urging, I was just around 110 pounds. But I
13
try to avoid weighing myself now, the same way I have stopped
14
checking my face in the mirror. Though my face is rounder
15
than my sister’s, my nose a bit wider, my eyes a bit more cir
16
cular, there is still something there that bears a similarity to
17
her. And without my glasses on, my face appears blurry in the
18
mirror, an apparition. My sister’s face staring back at me.
19
“So tell me,” Joshua is saying now. “How was Miss Korzyn
20
ski yesterday?”
21
I swallow some soup and will myself to also swallow away
22
the image of my sister’s ghost. But even as I put down my
23
spoon and pull the thin yellow paper with the two names on
24
it out of my satchel, her face stays in my mind.
Paragon of
25
virtue,
she whispers.
Living your great American life hiding in
26
your thick sweater
.
What do you think you’re doing here, now,
27
at lunch with your boss? And what of that other yellow paper
28S
folded in your satchel?
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I glance down to check that this yellow paper is the right
01
one before handing it across the table to Joshua. It is. He
02
takes it from me, and for just a second the tips of our fingers
03
touch before I pull back quickly. But Joshua seems not to
04
notice, as he is already staring at the paper and frowning.
05
“Two isn’t enough,” he says. I nod, because I have already
06
come to this realization myself. “We need fifty names. Maybe
07
a hundred.”
08
“A hundred?” I say, focusing my full attention on him now,
09
on the way he looks so different when he’s frowning, older,
10
more like Ezra. “I don’t think she’ll ever get you that many
11
names.”
12
“You may be right, Margie. And yet I know they’re out
13
there. Robertson has three factories in Philly and another
14
four across the river. And many of his workers are Jewish
15
immigrants, like Miss Korzynski.” He sighs. “I’m sorry I’ve
16
wasted your lunch hour with all this.”
17
“You haven’t,” I say. “I was glad to leave the office for a
18
little while.”
19
He nods. “You should leave the office more at lunch. It’s
20
good to get out of there sometimes.”
21
“Okay,” I say.
22
“Sometimes I think I’ll suffocate in that place.” He shakes
23
his head. “My father always seems to think greatness and
24
money are the same thing, but you know what I think great
25
ness is?”
26
“What?” I ask.
27
“Being brave, like Miss Korzynski. Doing something that
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01
no one else has dared to do before you. Finding something
02
that terrifies you and then doing it anyway. Does that make
03
sense, Margie?”
04
“Yes,” I say. “It does.”
05
I stare at Joshua, and for the moment before he stands, his
06
gray-green eyes flicker with something that I can’t exactly put
07
my finger on. And then, quickly, he smiles, and he is glowing
08
again, like the Joshua I am used to.
09
10
11
Peter’s eyes, they were a blue so deep, you might have thought
12
they were in a painting, a van Gogh or a Cézanne. His eyes
13
held onto me when we spoke.
14
At first, we shared lunch. Every day for a week. Or maybe
15
two. Time had an odd quality in the annex, hours into days,
16
days into weeks, weeks into months, then years. It was hard
17
to remember the days, to keep track.
18
But for some time, Peter and I sat on the divan tossing
19
bread crumbs at Mouschi and talking about the people we
20
knew from school, wondering what had happened to them.
21
Who had been taken? Who was in hiding? Later, when we
22
wanted to become a secret, Peter and I would be together
23
only at night, after everyone else was sleeping. But at first, we
24
shared bread and whispers as the sunlight poured in through
25
the high glass window in Peter’s room.
26
After that week, or maybe those two weeks, Mouschi
27
decided he liked me and came onto my lap, which Peter said
28S
was strange, because Mouschi normally only liked him and
29N
him only. “He knows that you are special,” Peter said as he
01
stroked back Mouschi’s fur. His hand bumped against my leg,
02
unintentionally, but it warmed my skin, even through the
03
cloth of my skirt.
04
“I can’t believe your parents let you bring your cat,” I said,
05
wondering what had become of our own poor Moortje. Had
06
the neighbors found her, or had she escaped and become one
07
of those fierce alley cats? Father had said bringing her was too
08
dangerous.
09
“They didn’t have a choice really,” he said. “I told them I
10
wasn’t coming here without him.”
11
“You did?” I stared at him, at the way his blue eyes held
12
steady. “Were you serious?” He nodded. “You were ready to
13
die for a cat?”
14
“It’s different for you,” he said. “You have a sister.”
15
“But you have your parents,” I pointed out. “They have to
16
mean more than a cat.”
17
He shook his head. “Nah, they probably would’ve left me
18
there and come into hiding without me. But they were too
19
busy worrying about themselves to argue with me over a cat.”
20
His voice sounded small as he said it, and watching the way
21
they alternated between yelling at him and ignoring him in
22
the annex, I was almost inclined to believe him.
23
He held on to me then, with his blue eyes, as if we were
24
the only two.
25
“Oh, Peter,” I said. “They wouldn’t have left you behind.
26
How could they have? You’re their son.” He shrugged, and I
27
reached my hand up to touch his cheek. It was smooth, a
S28
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01
boy’s cheek still, or perhaps an almost-man’s. “I would never
02
leave you behind,” I whispered.
03
He smiled at me and stroked Mouschi’s fur. His hand
04
grazed my thigh, and stayed there a second longer than if it
05
were an accident. “I know that,” he whispered back. “And I
06
would never leave you behind either.”
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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01
02
03
Chapter Sixteen
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
Joshua has an on-again, off-again girlfriend: Penny
14
Greenberg, daughter of Saul Greenberg, one of Ezra’s part
15
ners and another name on the law firm’s letterhead. Penny is
16
tiny, almost childlike, with thick black curly hair that tumbles
17
past her shoulders. She shows up at the office sometimes,
18
wearing elegant dresses that I imagine were intended for par
19
ties, not for every day or for work. Though I’m pretty sure
20
both that Penny doesn’t work and that she considers every day
21
a party.
22
Penny has been stopping by to see her father a lot lately,
23
but mainly I suspect she is at the office to see Joshua, using
24
her father as an excuse. I also suspect that she likes Joshua a
25
whole lot more than he likes her. More than once, Joshua has
26
asked me to lie about him being in a meeting or on an impor
27
tant phone call when she has shown up.
S28
This afternoon, though, she saunters in, draped in a dress
N29
01
the color of a ripe tomato, with a hat to match, her hair
02
twisted underneath in some kind of fashionable up-do that
03
seems impossible to create oneself. I wonder if she has paid
04
someone to do it for her.
05
“Hello, Margie,” she says. “Josh is expecting me.”
06
She walks past my desk, sashaying her hips. “Hold on a
07
second,” I call after her. “I’ll buzz him. He may be in the
08
middle of something.”
09
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”
10
I press the button on the phone to buzz him, but she is
11
already past me, in his office. She doesn’t shut the door all the
12
way behind her, and after a moment I hear the sound of her
13
giggle and Joshua’s ebullient laughter.
14
Five minutes later, he walks out with Penny draped on his
15
arm. “Margie,” he says to me, tipping his hat on the way past.
16
“I’m leaving for the day.”
17
“Okay,” I say.
18
He winks at me, and then he says, “Have a nice weekend.”
19
20
21
Shelby stops typing as soon as the elevator door shuts behind
22
Joshua and Penny.
23
“Now this,” she says, smirking, “is an interesting devel
24
opment.”
25
“What’s that?” I ask, finding nothing about Penny’s quick
26
escape with Joshua in the least bit interesting.
27
“I thought he didn’t go to Margate because he and his
28S
father are in a fight. But maybe he didn’t go because of her.”
29N
“Why would you say that?” I ask, my face turning red
thinking about how I considered our lunch might have been
01
the reason.
02
“His father is away for the weekend. They can have his
03
father’s big Main Line house all to themselves.”
04
“But Joshua has his own house,” I say. I have ridden the
05
bus past it before, a duplex near Broad and Olney, on a corner
06
filled with flower boxes, a location I find divine but that I
07
imagine feels way too bourgeois to Ezra Rosenstein.
08
Shelby waves a hand in the air. “But a girl like Penny. She’d
09
be impressed by the fancy house. Heck, I’d be impressed by
10
the fancy house.”
11
“You’d be impressed by anything.” I can’t stifle my
12
annoyance.
13
“I’m just saying,” she says. “The cat’s away, and the mice will
14
play.”
15
“That’s such a stupid expression,” I say. “It doesn’t even
16
make sense.”
17
She laughs. “Come on, Margie. It’s the weekend. Let’s get
18
out of here and get a drink.”
19
I shake my head, because even with all of Shelby’s talk
20
about Penny and Joshua, I am still thinking about what
21
Joshua said to me at lunch. That greatness is in bravery. Have
22
I forgotten how to be brave, even in the smallest way? Is that
23
why I hold so tightly to my sweater, my new name? Is that why
24
I have not written the letter to my father that I have com
25
posed in my head a thousand times? Why I have not tried to
26
find Peter, for so very long? Why I have tucked the woman’s
27
voice away, in the back of my head these past few days, denied
S28
it, excused it? Am I a coward now?
N29
01
“No,” I tell Shelby. “I can’t. I have something else I need
02
to do.”
03
“It’ll keep till Monday,” she says.
04
“No,” I say. “It won’t.”
05
06
07
I leave Shelby on Market Street and then walk in the opposite
08
direction from my apartment toward the bus stop at the cor
09
ners of Market and Seventeenth. After I turn the corner, out
10
of Shelby’s line of sight, I pull the tiniest of squares from my
11
satchel. I unfold it, read the address again, though I have
12
already committed it to memory:
P. Pelt, 2217 Olney Avenue,
13
Apartment 4A.
14
Once I am sitting on the bus, I still clutch tightly to the
15
fading scrap of paper. My fingers ache and tremble, and I do
16
not feel brave in the slightest.
17
When I first came to Philadelphia in 1953, I tried desper
18
ately to look for Peter. I called the operator every day from
19
Ilsa’s telephone and asked her for Peter Pelt. “No listings
20
under that name,” she always told me.
21
“Try van Pels,” I’d say, just in case he’d decided not to
22
change his name after all.
23
“No. No listing for that either.”
24
But then, nearly a year into my American life, I saw it for
25
the first time. My sister’s diary, in the window of Robin’s
26
Books. It caught my eye as I walked by, the echo of her face.
27
I walked past it, then slowed down, then stopped, then
28S
walked back, though I am not certain how my legs moved.
29N