01
ways I was that girl too: that Jew trapped like a rat, deeply in
02
love, stolen away by the Green Police. That I
am
that girl.
03
That Jew.
04
About a year into my life in Philadelphia, I began to notice
05
articles in the
Inquirer
about terrible things that had been
06
done to Jews. A gang of hoodlums went after Jewish children
07
in a very “Jewish section of the city,” my sponsor, Ilsa,
08
informed me. Then a few weeks later, a flaming flare was
09
nailed to a house nearby, just because a Jewish woman was
10
thought to live there. With the flare, the Nazis left a message
11
that said
der Jude,
the German word for Jew, and
Deutschland
12
über alles.
13
Ilsa looked over my shoulder as I read the articles and
14
clucked her tongue. “It is terrible,” she said to me. “And with
15
the firebomb thrown into that synagogue last fall.”
16
“Firebomb in the synagogue?” I asked, the words feeling
17
like rubber on my tongue. Synagogues being bombed, in the
18
city of Philadelphia? Jewish children being attacked?
19
It was late spring 1954. The air had just begun to grow
20
warm and heavy. I put my sweater on. And I have worn it,
21
tightly, ever since.
22
23
24
25
26
27
28S
29N
01
02
03
Chapter Seven
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
“I think Ron has another girl on the side.” Shelby
14
whispers this to me, across the desks. It is Friday again, and by
15
now, I have almost forgotten about both her teary entrance on
16
Tuesday and her talk of the movie, which she has dropped in
17
favor of a new concern over Rock Hudson and Doris Day: are
18
they an item or no? Shelby believes they are, especially because
19
she saw the poster for their new movie,
Pillow Talk,
coming out
20
in the fall, and she thinks they just
look
like an item.
21
“A girl can always tell these things,” she told me as I’d nod
22
ded and half listened, thinking instead about the tiniest
23
square of paper still folded inside my satchel. It was one thing
24
to know Peter might be here, but another thing all together, to
25
actually call the number. After all this time.
26
Now Shelby’s voice has taken on an unusually serious
27
tone, and her normal smile is gone from her face as she men
S28
tions that she thinks Ron is not being faithful to her.
N29
01
“Why do you think that?” I ask her, looking up from my
02
typing.
03
“He’s been lying to me. Telling me he’s working late, when
04
really he’s not,” Shelby says.
05
This Friday morning Joshua has come in for a few hours
06
before heading to Margate, but Ezra is already gone and
07
Joshua doesn’t mind when Shelby plays her radio softly. I hear
08
the strains of Mr. Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” floating across the
09
desks. Frankie croons, and I glance through the glass window
10
at Joshua, who is talking on the phone and scribbling some
11
thing at his desk. He runs his fingers through his chestnut
12
curls and smiles as he says something to the caller. He is
13
hunched over his desk, but still, his shoulders look wide and
14
strong in his dark brown suit, a near exact color match to his
15
curls. For a moment I think about Peter, about whether he
16
wears a suit to work now, like Joshua, and whether his shoul
17
ders now are just as broad. And then I quickly look away from
18
the window, from Joshua.
19
“Perhaps you’re mistaken?” I murmur, and I notice now
20
Shelby is chewing on her fingernails, the way she always does
21
when she is distressed about something.
22
She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “Peg saw him, on the
23
way home from Casteel’s the other night. She said he was
24
walking down Chestnut with some . . . hussy.” She bites her
25
lip now, as if she is holding back tears.
26
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But maybe it isn’t what you think?
27
Sometimes things, people, they are not as they appear to be.”
28S
“What else could it be?” she asks.
29N
I shrug, because I honestly don’t know, though I also know
Shelby has sat across from me for three years, and she neither
01
knows nor seems to suspect nearly anything real about me.
02
She has an American blind trust in the people around her.
03
“His sister?” I finally say.
04
“He doesn’t have a sister.”
05
“Cousin?” I ask. She shrugs. “Maybe you should just ask
06
him?” I tell her, thinking how ironic it is that I am giving her
07
advice about getting the truth.
08
She considers it for a moment, as I find my eyes drawn
09
back to Joshua again, through the glass. He hangs up the
10
phone, moves toward the door, and I quickly avert my eyes
11
and hands back to my typewriter.
12
He walks out of his office, grabs his brown hat off the hat
13
rack by my desk, and places it atop his chestnut curls in one
14
swift motion. Shelby turns the music down so it is barely
15
audible. “Don’t do that on my account,” Joshua says, smiling
16
at me. I remember my image of Peter, broad-shouldered and in
17
a suit, wondering if this might make me immune to Joshua’s
18
smile now, but apparently it does not. I smile back. “Margie,”
19
he says. “I have a new client coming in Monday afternoon,
20
and I want you to sit in on the meeting.”
21
“Me?” Though Joshua has encouraged me on the paralegal
22
front, he has never offered me more than secretarial duties.
23
“You speak Polish, right?”
24
I nod, and my smile falls away in an instant as I swallow
25
back the lie I tell everyone when they ask me about my accent.
26
It is only a hint of an accent by now, but still, Americans seem
27
to have the ability to detect even the slightest bit of foreign
S28
ness in a person. Yet, of course, they cannot tell the difference
N29
01
between German and Polish accents. And I cannot say the
02
truth, that my accent is German. There is so much hatred still
03
for Germans in America, especially among Jews.
04
“It has been a long while,” I tell Joshua now. “I barely
05
remember my Polish.”
06
“That’s all right,” Joshua tells me. “She speaks English. But
07
heavily accented. So I might need your help understanding.”
08
I know many languages: French, Hebrew, German, Eng
09
lish, Dutch. Some Latin. Polish is not one of them.
10
“Well, have a nice weekend, ladies,” Joshua says, tipping
11
his hat in my direction as he floats toward the elevator. The
12
doors shut behind him. Shelby turns up her music, louder,
13
and for a moment Frankie seems to be shouting at us.
Surely
14
the things I ask can’t be too great a task . . .
15
“Maybe you’re right,” I hear Shelby saying. “I should just
16
ask Ron.”
17
But now all my words are gone, and all I can do is sit there
18
and cling tightly to my sweater against my chest.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28S
29N
01
02
03
Chapter Eight
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
The weekend passes in a blur of restless nights, as I
14
pace my apartment, staring at my paralegal work without
15
absorbing any of it, and folding and unfolding the yellow
16
square from my satchel, though now I have memorized both
17
the address and the number by heart.
P. Pelt. It cannot be him,
18
I think, and yet, maybe it is. But Sunday afternoon I become
19
more consumed with what is waiting for me at work on Mon
20
day, and I find myself at the Free Public Library of Philadel
21
phia, browsing through a Polish dictionary.
22
I am quite good at learning. In the annex, through corre
23
spondence, I learned English, French, Latin, mathematics,
24
physics, literature, and English shorthand, which is some
25
thing that helped me get the job with Joshua. And so I try to
26
cram as much Polish into my brain as I can within the space
27
of a few hours.
S28
But by Monday afternoon as I sit at my desk, nervously
N29
01
awaiting the Polish woman’s arrival, the only Polish words I
02
can seem to remember are the two I have known for a very
03
long time.
Jestes diablem.
You are the devil. They rattle in my
04
brain, as if they are still being screamed there by an old and
05
helpless woman. They will be useless words in whatever busi
06
ness Joshua is conducting, I’m certain. But still, I cannot turn
07
them off.
08
Joshua is in his office, on the phone, and though I am sup
09
posed to be typing addresses on billing envelopes and prepar
10
ing his schedule for the rest of the week, I find myself,
11
instead, furtively watching the elevator and nodding my head
12
as Shelby wonders off and on if she
should
ask Ron about
13
the hussy. They had such a nice weekend together, feeding
14
the ducks in Fairmount Park and having a picnic. Maybe she
15
shouldn’t . . . ?
16
“I don’t know,” I murmur, wondering if Ron is anything
17
like me, and if it will even matter if she asks or not, if he will
18
dare tell her the truth. But maybe he will. If she asks enough,
19
maybe he will be forced to.
20
Lying can be a second skin, but when you are called out
21
on a lie, it becomes all too easy for that skin to start to peel
22
away. I have been called out before, in my life in America, but
23
never here. Not with Shelby or Joshua. Before, it was my
24
sponsor, Ilsa, as she looked over my shoulder when I filled out
25
my job application.
26
“You list Poland as your country of birth?” she asked. I
27
nodded. “I thought you were born in Germany?”
28S
“I lived in Germany as a child,” I said, and that was not a
29N
lie. I
did
live in Germany as a child. Ilsa frowned, but she
didn’t question me any further. Even if she had, I would not
01
have told her the truth, that I
was
born in Germany, but in my
02
American life, I want nothing to do with Germany. And even
03
though I lived there for many years, I did not dare write Hol
04
land, for it is the country everyone most closely associates
05
with my sister. I settled on Poland for my lie because it
06
seemed a believable explanation for my accent. And I was
07
there, once, a place west of Kraków. I did not know it at the
08
time, but that is where I was. I died there. Afterward, I was
09
born again. A new person. A Gentile.
10
Jestes diablem.
11
In my head now, these words, they drown out the sound
12
of Shelby’s voice.
13
14
15
Fifteen minutes past three, I watch her step off the elevator,
16
cautiously, reading the signs above her as if she’s not quite
17
sure she’s in the right place. True Americans, like Shelby and
18
Joshua, always walk with a particular sense of confidence.
19
This woman, I can tell, just from her walk, is not a born
20
American. She is like me.
21
I look at her carefully as she approaches my desk. I think
22
she is older than me, though it is hard to tell. Her black hair
23
is streaked with gray and pulled back into a tight bun at the
24
nape of her neck. She wears a black half-sleeved dress and
25
looks nothing in the slightest like the clients who usually step
26
off the elevator, most of whom are men, dressed in richly
27
layeredthree-piece
suits.
S28
“Czesc,”
I say to her.
Hello.
The Polish word, learned
N29
01
yesterday at the library, finds me again as she approaches
02
my desk, and I smile in relief. My studies, they will not fail
03
me, even if they were hastily done.
04
She narrows her brown eyes at me. “Bryda Korzynski,” she
05
says. “I speak English.” I nod. “I have appointment,” she tells me.
06
“Have a seat.” I point to the chairs off to the side of my
07
desk. “I’ll buzz Mr. Rosenstein to let him know you’re here.”
08
She turns, and when she does, I catch something by the
09
lip of her sleeve, on her left forearm, just a trace of dark blue
10
ink, the familiar echo of the letter
A
.
11
I blink, and then the image, it is gone. The sleeve has gone
12
back, and she is sitting in the chair across from my desk. I
13
open my mouth, but then no sound comes out. Since coming
14
to America, I have not seen a tattoo like this on anyone else,
15
and the idea of it now, here, in the safety of the office where
16
I work, it unnerves me. Perhaps it was something else, I tell
17
myself. Perhaps the movie being so fresh, my thoughts of
18
Poland, they are making me crazy, making me see things that
19
aren’t even here.
20
“Is there problem?” Bryda asks, frowning at me, and I real
21
ize I am still staring.
22
“No.” I quickly shake my head and depress the intercom
23
button to let Joshua know she’s here.
24
25
26
Inside Joshua’s office, Bryda Korzynski lifts up her sleeve and
27
thrusts her arm in Joshua’s direction.
28S
I sit in a side chair, observing, as Joshua has asked, though
29N