Shelby and I sit at a low round table, just next to the
01
checkered dance floor, though it is too early now for anyone
02
to be on it, for the loud music to be playing, or even for
03
the place to be crowded. Only one other table is taken, on the
04
other side of the bar, with two girls looking not all that dis
05
similar to Shelby and me in their plain cotton dresses, so I
06
guess they work for rich men who leave early on Fridays too.
07
And there are a few young men sitting by the bar, dressed in
08
suits, who are either conducting a business meeting or pre
09
tending to, I think.
10
Shelby orders a vodka tonic, and I order a club soda with
11
a twist of lime. When our drinks arrive, I am surprised to find
12
myself mildly disappointed when I take a sip and it does not
13
burn my throat. Perhaps I should’ve ordered what Shelby is
14
having. Maybe next time I will.
15
“Okay, Margie,” Shelby says. “You know what I think?” I
16
shake my head. “I think it is time for us to find you a man.”
17
“A man?” I laugh a little, into my club soda.
18
“Yes,” she says. “Preferably a good-looking one with a
19
decent job.” She scans the room with her eyes.
20
“Oh, stop,” I say.
21
“You’re not getting any younger,” she tells me. “Before you
22
know it, you’ll be thirty, and being unmarried and thirty is
23
like death in this city. You may as well just buy a few cats and
24
call yourself a spinster.”
25
Really, I am thirty-three, but Shelby, like everyone else
26
who knows Margie Franklin, believes her to be twenty-seven.
27
So I don’t tell her now, of course, that I am already well past
S28
N29
01
thirty. “I don’t even want to get married,” I say instead. “And
02
I like cats.”
03
She gasps, as if I’ve just said something blasphemous. “Of
04
course you want to get married,” she says. “Don’t you want to
05
fall in love?”
06
“I’ve been in love,” I tell her.
07
“And not with Joshua.” She shakes her head. “That doesn’t
08
count.”
09
“I told you,” I say, biting back my annoyance. Though it is
10
not, truly, annoyance with her. At the moment I feel more
11
annoyed with Penny, with just the idea of her in her frivolous,
12
tomato-colored dress. “Nothing’s going on with me and
13
Joshua.” I pause. “And I wasn’t talking about Joshua.”
14
“So what’s his name?” she asks me.
15
“Peter,” I say, and I surprise myself with my honesty. But
16
in some instances, you are so hidden that even the truth is
17
safe. I know Shelby will never connect the pieces between
18
the movie she has seen and a Polish American girl named
19
Margie Franklin. She would never even imagine that my Pay
20
ter is the Peeter she saw on the silver screen, the Peter who
21
was kissing that Millie Perkins Shelby is so fond of.
22
“Peter,” she says, arching those eyebrows. “And where is
23
this Peter now?”
24
“I knew him when I was a girl.” Then I add, for good mea
25
sure, “In Poland.”
26
“Well, Margie,” she says, waving her hand in the air and
27
polishing off her drink. “That doesn’t even count. We need to
28S
get you an American man.”
29N
“That does count,” I insist. “And who knows,” I say, “per
01
haps now he is an American man.” I think of the tiny square,
02
folded, folded, folded again in the bottom of my satchel, the
03
mailbox reading
Pelt
.
04
“No,” she says. “I mean a real American man. How about
05
him?” She points to one of the men at the bar. He is tall with
06
wire glasses and the face of a boy, and he wears a brown suit
07
that swims on his lanky frame.
08
I shake my head. “I know you are trying to help,” I tell her.
09
“But really, Shelby. I’m not interested.” Then, to change the
10
subject, I quickly say, “Whatever happened with Ron and his
11
hussy? Did you ask him about her?”
12
“Shhh.” She leans into the table and looks around the
13
room to see if anyone has heard me. “You can’t just go shout
14
ing that word in public, Margie.”
15
I am not sure why not, as she was the one who used it first,
16
and in the office no less, but I offer an apologetic shrug, then
17
take another sip of my drink.
18
“Now don’t laugh at me,” she whispers, and leans in close,
19
as if she is about to reveal the grandest of secrets. I nod. “Last
20
Friday he said he was working late. So Peggy and I, well, Peg
21
did it actually, we tried to call the office to check if he was
22
there. But no one answers, right? Because it’s after hours. The
23
girls have all gone home.”
24
I nod and hang on to her words. “So then what did you
25
do?” I whisper back.
26
“Peg and I, we took the bus to his house, and the whole
27
house was dark, so we knew he wasn’t home. Then we waited
S28
N29
01
on the street, hiding behind the big oak tree when we saw
02
his car.”
03
“And . . . ?”
04
“And nothing.” She shrugs. “He got out by himself, carry
05
ing his attaché, and he walked into the house. He really was
06
working late, just like he said.”
07
I think about the fact that Shelby does not really know
08
where Ron was before he drove home, that he could have
09
been off with his hussy then, but I am not going to point this
10
out to her. “What about the huss—woman Peggy saw him
11
with before?”
12
Shelby shrugs and takes a sip of her drink. “Maybe it was
13
a mistake.” She rolls her eyes. “Peg is forever forgetting to put
14
her glasses on. Maybe she wasn’t wearing them, and it wasn’t
15
even Ron.”
16
“Maybe,” I say. I do not really believe that Peggy would’ve
17
made such a dramatic mistake. But then I remember the way
18
my own face changes in the mirror, without my glasses on.
19
The way I so easily see myself as a ghost.
20
“Now, enough about me,” Shelby says. “I’m serious about
21
finding you a man, Margie.” Her eyes scan the room once
22
more.
23
I finish my drink, and I stand up. “It is time for me to go
24
home,” I say.
25
“Oh, come on,” she says. “Don’t be like that. The night is
26
just getting started.”
27
I shake my head again. I want to leave plenty of time to
28S
make it home before nightfall.
29N
I have missed one Shabbat. It is not the end of the world, I
know it, but still the guilt bubbles up inside my chest when I
01
remember last Friday night, at O’Malley’s with Joshua. Father
02
was a liberal Jew and could care less about rituals. Mother,
03
however, she always believed. “Religion is breath, Margot,” she
04
told me once.
05
This was even after the yellow star, even after the word
06
Jood
became something dirty, something foreign. The yellow
07
star. The Star of David. The Star of Death.
08
Margie Franklin, she is a not a Jew. But every time I light
09
a candle and say a silent prayer as darkness breaks on Friday
10
night, it feels like a reminder of the person I once was, that
11
somewhere, deep underneath my sweater, my second skin,
12
my lies, she is still in there. Sometimes, in the wash of the
13
cool yellow flame, I can even hear the sound of my mother’s
14
voice, so close, it is almost as if she is still with me. “Religion
15
is breath,” Mother told me. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
S28
N29
01
02
03
04
Ch
apter
T
wenty-t
hree
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
Sometimes I wonder if Pete Pelt fears discovery, the
15
way I so often do. Does he keep his forearm covered, or does
16
he not let it bother him now, the way a true American, or my
17
sister, might?
18
In the annex, I asked him once, just before the end, how
19
we would do it. If we could really hide ourselves forever, even
20
after the war. “Two years has been so long,” I said. “And every
21
day, we are afraid.”
22
He’d shaken his head, and leaned in and kissed me on the
23
forehead. “Margot,” he said. “Hiding who you are, it’ll be so
24
much easier than hiding where you are.” He paused. “We will
25
be out in the open then, living life. Just different names,
26
that’s all. No longer Jews.”
27
“Can it really be that easy?” I asked him.
28S
“Yes,” he said. “It’s like an annex in your mind. And no one
29N
can unlock your mind.”
But what would Peter have said if I could’ve talked to him
01
after that morning, when the Green Police ripped us out of
02
the annex? Or after the war, after my father published my
03
sister’s diary for all the world to read, then see on the stage
04
and now the silver screen? Perhaps he would look me in the
05
eyes, and I would notice his eyes are darker than the sea,
06
black as night. Perhaps he would look at me and say that now
07
he understands, that you really cannot hide forever, even in
08
your mind. A hiding space can only remain secret for so long.
09
That always, eventually, you are discovered.
10
11
12
Sunday morning, I am still thinking about what Shelby said,
13
about how she and Peggy spied on Ron, and though I am
14
holding on to my paralegal studies and readying myself to
15
leave for Fairmount Park, I find myself walking in the other
16
direction, toward the city bus stop. I tuck my studies into my
17
satchel and board the bus toward Broad and Olney. I feel
18
guilty about pushing my studies aside once more, and I prom
19
ise myself again, double studying next week, or even triple, if
20
I must. But today I cannot shake Shelby’s plan from my mind.
21
I do not have to knock on the door,
I think
. I do not have to
22
be brave. I can just hide on the street and watch.
I will go, and
23
just like Shelby, I will spy from a distance.
24
25
26
On the bus, I close my eyes and lean my head against the
27
dirty window. I think about what I might see when I get to
S28
Peter’s house, what he might look like now, if I will even
N29
01
recognize him. I try to conjure up the fantasy image of him in
02
my head, the man I have envisioned, over and over again,
03
taking the train home from work, walking into our home in
04
Levittown. But now, as hard as I try, I can only picture Joshua.
05
Joshua.
Joshua, I remind myself, is in Margate, with Penny.
06
Then I hear my sister’s voice in my head, again, the way I
07
so often do.
08
“I could fancy Peter,” she is saying. She said this to me
09
once. We sat together on her bed, in the room she, by then,
10
shared with the dentist. We were both writing in our diaries,
11
and I put my pen down to look at her. Her almond eyes were
12
glossy, nearly feverish.
13
“But he loves me,” I said. Or maybe I didn’t say that.
14
Maybe I said, “That’s ridiculous.”
15
She shook her head. “His eyes are dreamy.”
16
“You should stay away from him,” I said. “Father won’t like
17
it.” But warnings, especially mine, bounced off my sister, as
18
if her glowing skin made her immune to them.
19
“Oh, don’t be such a paragon of virtue,” my sister said,
20
laughing a little.
21
22
23
I get off the bus and walk down Olney. The sun is warm
24
today, my sweater too hot, and I feel my core temperature
25
rising, my skin ready to burst, but I do not even push up my
26
sleeves. I have lived through worse than feeling a little hot,
27
haven’t I?
28S
I approach 2217 with care, whispering through the air,
29N
walking on my tiptoes so as not to be noticed, though the
early morning street is quiet, and I imagine most families in
01
these houses are still sleeping. But I am a spy this morning,
02
not
a paragon of virtue. A genuine Ethel Rosenberg, I think.
03
And I am trying to act the part, a thought which makes me
04
smile a little. Then something catches my eye, and I stop, and
05
my smile quickly fades away. Even from a few houses away, I
06
can see exactly what rests in the small drive at 2217.
07
There are two cars there, parked side by side: a black Volk
08
swagen Karmann Ghia convertible parked first, and then, right
09
next to it, there is a Cadillac, its sharklike fins, its powdery pink
10
color like silk, taunting me.
11
I have seen enough. I turn and run back toward the bus stop.
12
13
14
My heart rises and then falls against the rhythm of the city bus
15
that takes me back toward Market Street. A
pink
Cadillac. It
16
is a woman’s car, certainly. There can be no other explanation
17
for that, can there? And it would not be a housekeeper there,
18
this early on a Sunday morning, would it?
19
I hear my sister’s voice in my head again, though this time
20
it sounds like it did that very last morning, as she stood at the
21
doorway to Peter’s room. “Peter?” His name was a question.
22
I wanted to ask her then,
What, why?
23
But then there was a man grabbing on to my arm, twisting
24
it roughly, and pulling it against the coarse green flesh of his
25
uniform. He didn’t have to pull so hard. I would’ve walked. I
26
would’ve just gone with him. Just seeing them there, I already
27
knew we were defeated.
S28
“No,” my sister screamed. “I’m not leaving.” She dug her
N29
01
heels into the floor. She was holding it in her hands, the
02
orange-checkeredbook.
03
The man picked her up and flung her over his shoulder, so
04
hard that I gasped, afraid her neck might snap.
05
The book went flying across the room, landing somewhere
06
close to where Peter and I had spent the night on the divan.
07
My diary was hidden away, in between the layers of the cot
08
where I was supposed to sleep in my parents’ room.
09
10
11
Back in my apartment, I cannot shake the picture of the
12
driveway at 2217. But the farther away I am, the less certain I
13
become about exactly what it was that I saw. Some spy I am.
14
I can see now why Shelby convinced herself that Ron was not
15
off with his hussy while she and Peg were waiting behind the
16
oak tree. That was what she wanted to see, I suppose.
17
I lie on my blue couch with Katze and think about it. I
18
cannot imagine that my father would ever own a pink car, but
19
American men, who knows? And Pete Pelt, I am certain he
20
is a very American man. Joshua drives a blue car, and so does
21
Bertram, but I wonder if that is just by chance.
22
Just before dusk, I pick up the phone and dial Ilsa’s num
23
ber. “My dear,” she says immediately, “is everything all right?”
24
“Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
25
“You are never any bother,” she tells me.