01
“Margie. It’s Joshua Rosenstein.” My mouth is open, but I
02
have nothing to say. “I hate to bother you, at home like this on
03
a Friday night. I called the office first but you’d already left.”
04
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I finished my work before leaving.”
05
“Oh, no. Don’t worry about that. It’s just . . . I had an idea.
06
About Miss Korzynski’s case, but I need your help.”
07
“My help?” I know I sound like an idiot, but I am still
08
dazed by the fact that Joshua is calling me, at home, asking
09
me to help him.
10
“Are you free now? Can we meet for a drink and we’ll
11
discuss it?”
12
“A drink?” I say, compounding my idiocy. I am wondering
13
what has happened to Penny, or why Joshua can’t tell me his
14
plan on the phone, but of course I don’t have the courage to
15
ask him any of that. I stare at my unlit candle, at the skies
16
darkening outside of my window. Joshua is a liberal Jew, and
17
I’m sure he does not observe the Shabbat. Margie Franklin is
18
not a Jew either, I remind myself. And Margot, who is a Jew?
19
She is dead. I stare once more at the piece of paper in my
20
hand.
Peter Pelt.
“Of course,” I finally say. “Of course I can
21
meet you.”
22
23
24
O’Malley’s, the bar where Joshua has asked me to meet him,
25
is back on Sixteenth Street, near the office, and I walk out of
26
my apartment building and head in that direction. It is dark
27
outside now, and the streets are quieter than during the day,
28S
or the five o’clock hour when everyone is bustling home.
29N
It occurs to me that it might not be safe for a woman, even
a Gentile one, to walk on Ludlow Street after dark, all alone.
01
I do not usually go out after dark. Never on a Friday.
02
I hear the sound of footsteps behind me. They are heavy,
03
the gait of boots. Surely, NSB footsteps. The Green Police.
04
I cannot help it. I quicken my pace, until I am almost
05
running.
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
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18
19
20
21
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S28
N29
01
02
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04
Chapter Eighteen
05
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07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
Joshua is already at O’Malley’s when I arrive, and I
15
spot him sitting on a bar stool by the long rectangular bar in
16
the back. The place is small and dim inside, with high-topped
17
tables filled with businessmen in suits and their dates dressed
18
in shiny full dresses, all of which block my path to Joshua. I
19
look around and I realize that this is not the kind of bar I’ve
20
been to before with Shelby and Ron, where the men and
21
women dance too close and holler on a checkered floor after
22
everyone has had one too many drinks. Of course, I only
23
watched in those bars. But here, in O’Malley’s, I feel even
24
more out of place, in my plain gray cotton work dress, covered
25
with a simple navy sweater.
26
I make my way through the haze of smoke, well-dressed
27
bodies, and the bright sound of laughter. The stool next to
28S
Joshua is one of the only empty seats in the bar, and I realize,
29N
staring at it for a moment, that it is meant for me, that maybe
01
he has saved it for me.
02
“Hello,” I say, sitting down next to him.
03
“Margie.” He smiles, and I smile back, suddenly so happy
04
that he called, that I am sitting here next to him. Then I think
05
uneasily about the green mailbox on Olney Avenue, and I feel
06
a tiny surge of guilt. “Can I buy you a drink?” Joshua asks. His
07
drink is in a half-size glass: something brown that he takes a
08
sip of, grimaces, and then takes another, bigger sip.
09
“No thank you,” I say. “I don’t really drink much.” Or at all.
10
“How about a club soda, then, with a twist of lime?”
11
“Okay,” I say, and he beckons to the young man in the
12
white-collared shirt and red bow tie who is standing behind
13
the counter. Joshua orders my drink, and then he turns back
14
to look at me. He is still dressed in his work suit, but his black
15
tie is loose around his collar and the top button of his shirt is
16
undone.
17
“So it’s official,” he says. He takes another swig of his
18
drink and smiles again. “I must be the world’s worst boss,
19
dragging you out here on a Friday night.”
20
“No, you’re not,” I say.
21
“After I called you, it occurred to me that you might have
22
had another . . . obligation. “
23
I shake my head. “I don’t mind, really.”
24
“Really?”
25
I nod. I do not let myself think about the Shabbat, the
26
unlit candle in my apartment. I do not let myself think about
27
Bryda Korzynski, or even the crooked black letters on the Pelt
S28
N29
01
mailbox again. Instead I think that Joshua is close enough to
02
me that if I swing my stool, just a little, our knees might
03
touch, and that his arm rests easily across the bar counter,
04
just inches from my own. “You’re working on a Friday night
05
too,” I say timidly. “I thought you had a date.”
06
“Oh, that,” he says. “Penny and I just went to see a movie.
07
Diary of Anne Frank.
Have you seen it?” I shake my head and
08
hold my breath. “Penny thought we should go together.” He
09
doesn’t elaborate on why, and I’m not sure whether it’s because
10
Penny is his girlfriend again or because they are both Jews. I
11
don’t ask.
12
“Did you like it?” I ask instead, though I regret the ques
13
tion as soon as I say the words. The bartender sets my drink
14
down on a small square napkin in front of me, and I pick it
15
up and take a sip. The club soda burns my throat, and I won
16
der if it is not club soda at all, but a clear alcohol the bar
17
tender poured by mistake. It makes my head warm, but it’s a
18
feeling that I like, so I drink a little more.
19
“It’s not really a movie you can like, is it?” Joshua is saying.
20
“It’s more like school. Where you know you have to go and
21
learn. Or going to the doctor. You know it’s good for you. That
22
you
should
do it. But you don’t exactly enjoy it.”
23
“I guess so,” I murmur. But then, I always quite enjoyed
24
school. I was a star pupil at the Jewish Lyceum. It is hard for
25
me to consider what I might have done, had we continued our
26
lives in Amsterdam, had I been able to go on to college.
27
“It does make you stop and think,” he’s saying now. “How
28S
your life might have been different had you been born some
29N
where else in the world.” He pauses and finishes off his drink.
“My father would’ve been the type to take us in hiding.
01
Although,” he adds, “it would’ve been someplace we wouldn’t
02
have been found, I’m sure. He’d be very good at hiding, at
03
pretending not to be a Jew.”
04
I nod, though I begin to feel annoyed with Joshua for the
05
first time. I know he cannot help it that he is an American
06
Jew, that he cannot really understand the way it was. I am sure
07
already, from Shelby’s description, that the movie has put a
08
glamorous sheen of Hollywood on all our experience. Maybe
09
it made Father look weak, the annex cozy, though none of that
10
is true, of course. But then again, how is Joshua to know?
11
“Anyway,” Joshua says, “it just made me think more about
12
Miss Korzynski, and how I really do want to help her. So I
13
had an idea.” I take another, bigger swallow of my drink, and
14
though I am now fully convinced it is not club soda, I don’t
15
care.
Who’s a paragon of virtue now?
I think, inching myself
16
just a little bit closer to Joshua so I am almost close enough
17
for him to whisper, even in the crowded bar. “This is what we
18
can do,” Joshua is saying. His breath is warm, and it brushes
19
against my cheek as he speaks. “I want to put an ad in the
20
Inquirer
. We’ll ask people to call us to join the suit. This way,
21
we can collect a group of them, without Miss Korzynski hav
22
ing to do all the work, and this way we can reach all of the
23
factories. Make sense?” I nod slowly, even though Joshua’s
24
words, and his face, are swimming before me. “But I can’t put
25
the law office’s name or number or even my own in the ad.
26
My father will know. Once we have the suit together, I’ll tell
27
him. I’ll show him, how important this is, but until then we
S28
need to work furtively.”
N29
01
I finish off my drink, and my stomach turns. Joshua’s gray
02
green eyes go in blurry swirls, around and around.
03
“So, Margie, what I want to do is this. We’ll put an ad in
04
the
Inquirer
that says something to the effect of: ‘Jews who
05
work for Robertson’s unite against anti-Semitism
.
’ And then
06
we’ll put your number underneath it. The people will call you,
07
at home; you’ll take down their names, numbers, information,
08
and then bring them to me.” Joshua pauses, and stares at me. “I
09
know it’s a lot to ask,” he says. “So I’ll pay you extra. Five dol
10
lars more a week.”
11
I cannot imagine it, listening to their surely sad stories of
12
being a Jew and being punished for it. Or even, other Brydas
13
yelling at me through the phone, calling me a liar. Joshua’s
14
face swims in front of me, his eyes swirl faster, until I am not
15
sure anymore whether they are green or blue, whether it is
16
him or Peter sitting there, asking something impossible of me.
17
Peter van Pels. Peter Pelt. 2217 Olney Avenue . . .
18
“Okay,” he says. “Seven dollars more a week.”
19
I think about the way I felt, there in the annex, lying on the
20
divan, kissing Peter, the way I wanted to be close to him. I hear
21
my mother’s voice, my sister’s, the voice of the girl I was before
22
the annex.
What are you doing, Margot, paragon of virtue?
23
“I don’t know, Peter,” I say now, only maybe I don’t say
24
Peter’s name. Maybe I just think it.
25
“Margie.” I hear Joshua’s voice, although it sounds like it is
26
coming from somewhere very far away, not right next to me.
27
“Your face is so red. Are you feeling okay . . . ? Are you too
28S
warm?”
29N
I shake my head, even though I feel myself falling just a
little bit off the side of the bar stool, and then I feel Joshua’s
01
hands, steadying me, tugging at the sleeves of my sweater.
02
03
04
Peter’s eyes were blue, like the sea. So blue that they made
05
me remember swimming and sky. They held me; they swal
06
lowed me; they kept me alive.
07
“Margot,” Peter whispered in my ear. “It’s like you and I
08
are the only two people here,”
09
I knew what he meant. There was nothing else but me and
10
him, in the middle of the quiet night, in the darkness. We
11
were no longer trapped rats there, hiding, terrified for our
12
lives.
13
We were alone, but we were together. Some nights, I
14
wished we would be able to stay there, in the annex, forever.
15
“Who’s Peter?” Joshua asks me now. We are standing on
16
the sidewalk, in front of O’Malley’s, and after the noise of the
17
bar, the quiet is almost alarming. Joshua is still holding on to
18
my arm, steadying me with his large hands. “Would you like
19
me to call him for you?” he’s asking now.
20
“Peter?” I say, and I realize I must have actually said his
21
name, inside the bar, when I was thinking it. I shake my
22
head. Then I say, “I don’t think that was a club soda.”
23
He nods. I notice the sleeves of my black sweater are
24
pushed up slightly, and I tug at them quickly, to pull them
25
back down. “I thought you were going to pass out,” Joshua
26
says. “Come on.” He tugs gently on my arm. “Let me walk you
27
home.”
S28
“You don’t have to,” I say meekly.
N29
01
“Yes,” he says, and his voice is curling with what sounds
02
like guilt. “I do.”
03
04
05
Joshua is still holding on to my arm as we walk down South
06
Sixteenth, and then Ludlow. For a moment I pretend that it
07
is because he wants to touch me, not because he thinks he
08
needs to hold me up. The air is cooler now, and it calms my
09
cheeks. I inhale deeply, taking in the scent of a Friday night
10
outdoors. On Ludlow Street, that scent is roses, city bus
11
exhaust, a hint of garbage, and something else, a little sweeter,
12
that I think is Joshua’s cologne because it is slightly familiar,
13
something I have smelled before.
14
“Margie,” Joshua says. “I hope I didn’t upset you, with my
15
idea.”
16
I don’t say anything because, for once, I am not sure how
17
to lie without also telling the truth.
18
“I just want you to understand, how important this is to
19
me. Being a Jew.” I think about the fact that Ezra, he is also
20
a Jew and does not feel compelled to help. I wonder if it is not
21
just a money thing, but also a matter of his reputation. Though
22
the partners at the firm are all Jews, many of the clients are
23
wealthy businessmen who are not. “I cannot imagine what it
24
must have been like,” Joshua is saying now. “To have been
25
treated like that, tortured, and then even now . . .” He pauses.
26
“Did you notice Miss Korzynski is missing a finger?”
27
I nod, but I remember what she said:
It’s not what you
28S
think.
Maybe it wasn’t the war. Maybe it was an accident in
29N