Margot

by Jillian Cantor

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “You are never any bother,” she tells me.

  “I was just wondering,” I say. “Would Bertram ever drive a pink Cadillac?”

  “A pink Cadillac?” She laughs. “Oh, my dear, if you are thinking of buying a car, take Bertram with you. Do not try to bargain with the salesman on your own.”

  “Okay,” I say, letting her believe that is why I’m asking, because it’s easier that way. “But a pink Cadillac,” I press. “Is that a man’s car or a woman’s car?”

  “Well . . .” She thinks about it for a moment. “It’s more for a woman, I suppose. But certainly, Elvis is all man, and he drives one.”

  “Elvis Presley?” I ask.

  “Yes, my dear. The one and only.”

  I cannot imagine the American Pete Pelt being anything like Elvis Presley, swaying his hips to rock-and-roll music, but it is possible that he might drive such a car, nonetheless. Maybe he got it at a very reasonable price and could not pass up the deal?

  “My dear,” Ilsa says, her voice catching for just a moment in her throat. “How is your secret case going?”

  “Oh, that,” I tell her, thinking of Gustav Grossman calling me early in the morning last week, sounding so lonely, making me feel so lonely, in return. In addition to him, I have received two women callers, both in the evenings, both offering me not much more than names and contact information. “It is really not such a big deal.”

  “Are you sure?” she says. I nod, forgetting that she cannot see me. “And there is nothing else?” she asks.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else that is bothering you?”

  I sigh, sorry that I called. I should’ve asked Shelby about the car in the morning. “No, Ilsa,” I say. “Nothing else is bothering me.”

  “But you know if there is,” she says, “you can tell me. I will help you.”

  “Of course,” I tell her. “Of course I know that.”

  But I will not tell Ilsa anything else, no matter how much I love her. I will not tell her anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I WALK OUTSIDE TO GO TO WORK, I am surprised to find Joshua waiting for me outside my apartment. He is sitting on the bench out front, reading the Inquirer. All my worries about the pink Cadillac, Ilsa’s questions, and even Joshua’s weekend with Penny, they disappear for a moment. And I smile at how comfortable he looks sitting there.

  “Good morning,” I say, and he lowers the paper and smiles back. His gray-green eyes look bright in the early-morning sunlight and his face is a little red. I wonder how long he has been outside, waiting for me.

  “Come,” he says, standing. “Let’s walk to work together. So we can talk.”

  I nod, and we quickly fall into step. I watch the shadow of our feet, moving together down Ludlow Street—his long strides, my short ones.

  “Sorry about Friday,” he says. “My father.” He shrugs. “Do you get along with your father, Margie?”

  “My father is dead,” I say, the lie falling out so fast, so easy, that it doesn’t even feel like a lie. What would Joshua say if he knew? If I were to tell him about all the letters in my head, never written? The great wide ocean separating us now, the great wide weight of lies.

  “Oh.” Joshua’s face falls, and my body floods with guilt. But it is not a complete lie to say my father is dead, is it? After all, he is a different person now too. Husband to a new woman. Resident of a new country. Now-famous editor of my sister’s book, carrier of her indelible legacy. “I’m so sorry, Margie,” Joshua says. “I didn’t know.”

  I nod, trying to think of a way to quickly change the topic, to steer the conversation away from my father. “I was always closer to my mother,” I tell him.

  “And your mother,” Joshua asks. “She’s still living?” The image of her comes to me, suddenly, like a heavy brick falling upon and crushing my chest. She is a sack of bones and loose flesh, whispering her plan to me with a feverish urgency. I shake my head and bite my lip to keep a sound from escaping: a confession, or a scream. I’m not exactly sure which one.

  Joshua stops for a moment and puts his hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t know,” he says again, as if he should’ve, as if he might expect himself to know things about me, real things. “I’m so sorry,” he says again. His voice is soft, and I feel his gray-green eyes on my face. The skin of my cheeks feels warm, flushed.

  “Thank you,” I say. “But they’ve been dead for many years now. I’m used to it.”

  “Any brothers or sisters?” he asks.

  I shake my head, and my brain wants my lips to tell him about my sister, that she existed once, and not as some made-up character but as a real living, breathing, annoying, and lovable person. Three years younger than me, I would say. I loved her and I resented her. I failed her and I miss her. She died too young. She was murdered. I writhe in guilt. But my mouth says nothing.

  Joshua opens his mouth, as if he is about to ask me more, as if he senses now there is so much more for me to say. His eyes hold on to me, with such intensity it is almost as if I can hear his thoughts: How did they die? How is it you are all alone now? I plead with him in my head not to ask these questions. And after a moment he nods, as if he understands, without me even having to say, that this is a subject about which I cannot speak. He moves his hand from my shoulder, and we start walking again, up Sixteenth Street. Matching strides. The space on my shoulder, where he touched, still feels warm, as if it’s glowing, like candlelight.

  “My father is all I have left, you know,” he finally says. “My mother passed almost four years ago, this summer.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry,” I murmur. He nods, and his eyes search the ground, as if he has lost something along the tops of his shiny black shoes. I think about how Shelby always says Ezra was much nicer to Joshua before Joshua’s mother died. “You were closer to her?” I ask him.

  He nods again. “She never thought I would be a lawyer. She’d tease me, say I was much too kind and honorable for that. She told me that one day I’d meet a nice girl and move out to the country and realize how silly the law was.”

  “But you didn’t?” I say.

  “No.” He smiles. “I love the law. Not my father’s law necessarily, but . . .” He shrugs and raises his palms in the air. We walk for a moment, not saying anything, and then he says, “She was incurable. Cancer. The hospital told us and then sent her home to die. My father has never been the same since.”

  I surprise myself now by reaching up and putting my hand on his shoulder, but I cannot stop it from moving there. He stops walking, turns, and looks at me, his eyes now filled with sorrow. “What about you?” I whisper. “Have you been the same?”

  “Watching her die. It was . . . indescribable. She used to be this really vibrant woman. Heading up the Children’s Hospital charity, always raising money for the less fortunate, and running the house and laughing. She had the most incredible laugh. It lit our house up.” He pauses. “Then the cancer made her shrink. It took everything, even her laugh. Especially her laugh.”

  I close my eyes, and I can see my mother again and my sister now too, both their bodies, loose flesh and limbs, lying next to me in the darkness at night at the camp. Fleas were jumping off them like sparks, and yet they were too frail to slap them away. My sister moaned in her sleep; everything, every bit of life, had been taken from her.

  “Ah,” Joshua says as we turn onto Market Street. “Not the way I intended for us to start our Monday morning. I’m sorry.”

  “But it is impossible to forget, isn’t it?” I say.

  “Impossible,” he echoes. We walk in step, past the glass front of Isaac’s. “Anyway,” he says, “the reason I was waiting for you is that I was wanting to hear all about your phone calls.”

  I blink and try to push the imag
es of my sister and Mother away. Only, they stick there, in my head. They never go away, no matter how much I will them to.

  “How many have you gotten?” Joshua asks, and then I remember, he is still walking here next to me, wanting to know about his case.

  “Only three so far,” I say.

  “Three?” Joshua’s voice turns in disbelief. “But I don’t understand it. Is it that they’re not reading the paper?”

  “Maybe,” I say softly, “it is that they’re still hiding.”

  He raises his eyebrows, as if I’ve confused him, and then I know it: I’ve said too much. I’d opened myself for a moment, and then I’d forgotten to close back up again. I swallow back the taste of bile in my throat. “I mean, I—I am guessing,” I stammer. “But perhaps these people, if they are immigrant Jews like Bryda Korzynski, they are used to living in fear. Used to hiding. Perhaps they are not ready to announce themselves, just like that.”

  “Hmm.” Joshua strokes his beardless chin. “Maybe you’re right and they are worried about losing their jobs.” That was not exactly what I meant, but that could be the reason too.

  We have stopped at the entrance to the office building, and Joshua holds the large glass door open for me to go inside. We ride the elevator together, not saying anything else, and then Joshua leaves me at my desk with this: “Let me think on this some more, okay?” he says. “We’ll talk later.”

  I nod. Charles Bakerfield, the wife killer, is already waiting for his nine A.M. appointment with Joshua. He sits in a chair by my desk, and once Joshua walks into his office, Charles looks at me and smiles a little.

  “He’ll be ready for you in just a moment,” I say.

  I sit down and start typing, but even after Charles goes into Joshua’s office, I can’t seem to shake the sensation of his wild eyes on my face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SHELBY BOUNCES OFF THE ELEVATOR AT FIVE MINUTES AFTER nine, and just by looking at her, I can tell something is different. Her cheeks are flushed, and her pink lips break into a wide toothy smile when she sees me. I don’t even have time to ask her what is going on before she is standing there, next to my desk, shoving her left hand in front of my face.

  There it is, a small but sparkling round diamond set in gold. Ron has actually, finally, asked her to marry him. Even before there was any mention of a hussy, Ron always struck me as the kind of man who would marry a calmer girl, like Peggy, though Shelby always insisted there would be a ring. And there it is, hanging in front of my face.

  “Congratulations.” I smile at her, and she laughs and bounces to her chair. I cannot help but wonder if the owner of the pink Cadillac is a woman and also Peter’s wife now, and if she too is flashing a diamond much like Shelby’s to her friends. The thought tightens in my chest. Is it possible that he has come here to Philadelphia, just as he said, and that he has married someone else?

  I glance through the glass of Joshua’s office, and I can see Joshua and Charles exchanging papers and words across Joshua’s desk. Guilty as sin, Joshua had said. I love the law. Not my father’s law . . .

  Even with his head bent over his desk, speaking to a murderer, the sight of Joshua makes me smile. I think of him this morning, sitting on the bench outside my apartment building, reading the paper. The way his hand held gently on to my shoulder. And then I think, Yes, it is possible. In all this time, Peter could’ve fallen in love with someone else.

  “Oh, Margie,” Shelby is whispering across the desks now, and I turn my attention back to her. “The whole thing was so romantic. He took me to dinner at the Four Seasons on Saturday, and he had the ring hidden in a piece of chocolate cake. I nearly swallowed it!” She laughs, and the image of her choking on a ring does not seem at all romantic to me, but I suppose it is an American romance, one I cannot exactly understand.

  I nod. “I’m so happy for you,” I say. And I am. I wonder again about Ron’s hussy, but I am not going to bring that up to Shelby now, when she shines in her happiness. After all, she seems to have satisfied herself, with her spying. I wish that I could’ve done the same.

  “You’ll be in the wedding, won’t you?” Shelby is asking me now. “Peggy’s going to be maid of honor, of course, but you’ll have to be a bridesmaid.”

  I imagine that Shelby will most likely get married in the summer, outdoors, in a flower garden, because that is how I imagine American weddings. She will want to dress me in pink silk or taffeta, in a dress with no sleeves. She will not allow a sweater, even if I claim I am cold.

  “Oh, please say yes,” she says.

  “Of course,” I tell her, and I smile, though already I am wondering how I will possibly be able to be in her wedding without baring my arm, my soul. I wonder how Shelby would look at me if she knew the truth, and not just that, but how many people she would tell, about her friend, the Jew, damaged in the war, and surely some of those people would be anti-Semites, and then, what might happen? And even if no one nailed a flaming flare to my apartment door, still, it would not be long before Shelby would ask, before everyone would ask, about my family, about where I really came from. No. I cannot go back. I will never go back. I will invent another lie to get myself out of this, to keep my arm covered. I love Shelby, and I am happy for her. And that is one of the worst things about this life. As a liar, a pretend person, you cannot really truly ever be someone’s friend. My American life, it is lonely. Often, it is very, very lonely.

  Just before noon, I watch Penny sashay off the elevator and walk toward her father’s office. What good timing, I think. She is here for lunch. And within five minutes, she is making her way out of Saul Greenberg’s office and over toward my desk. Today she is dressed in a powder-blue dress that accentuates both her trim waistline and her large pointy chest. She wears a snow-white hat, with her curls pulled back behind it in a twist.

  “Has Josh gone to lunch yet?” she asks, barely glancing at me as she speaks. She is, instead, staring past me, arching her neck to see into the glass window.

  “I believe he’s eating at his desk today,” I lie. “He mentioned he has a lot of work to do.” He has not mentioned any of these things, and I remember why Joshua said he does not eat at his desk, because it is good for him to get out of this place, if only for a lunch break.

  “Oh.” She frowns. “I see. Well maybe I can persuade him otherwise.”

  “Shall I buzz him for you?” I ask before she has the gall to step inside his office, uninvited. She nods and takes the seat Charles Bakerfield was sitting in earlier this morning.

  I pick up the phone, but do not actually depress the intercom button. I know it’s wrong, but I do not want Penny and Joshua to have another lunch together. I do not want Penny walking in here, taking, taking, taking whatever she wants. Joshua and I, we had a moment on the street this morning, and I am not ready to let that go, yet. “Mr. Rosenstein,” I say softly, “Miss Greenberg is here to see you about lunch.” I pretend to listen for a moment, and then I say, “Yes, yes. I see. I will tell her.” I hang up the phone, and my hands are trembling as I turn to look at Penny. “I’m sorry,” I say, shrugging.

  “Oh.” She frowns and peers through the glass once again. Joshua is reading papers at his desk, and his brow is furrowed in concentration. He does not look up. “Well,” she says, “I needed to see my father anyway.” She walks back toward the elevator, and as soon as the doors shut behind her, I hear Shelby whistle softly under her breath.

  “What was that, Margie?” she says.

  “What?” I ask, innocently enough, as if I have no idea of the lies she has just witnessed me speaking.

  “Oh, sweetie.” She shakes her head. “If you think a little faking out the intercom is going to stop her, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” I say. “Mr. Rosenstein has a very busy schedule today.”

  Shelby’s lips twitch into a smile. “And I didn’t ev
en know you had it in you.”

  See, I am not a paragon of virtue. Really, I am not.

  After work, I watch the skies turn dark through the small square window behind my sofa. I should eat dinner, but I find myself sitting there, thinking about the way I deceived Penny, then about the pink Cadillac in Peter’s driveway. Then, inevitably, as always, my thoughts turn to my sister. I wonder if it was possible that she deceived me the way I deceived Penny. Or maybe, not her who deceived me, but Peter?

  In 1944, I became nocturnal, staying awake all night in Peter’s room, sleeping in the afternoons on the foldout cot in my parents’ room, letting the slow tick of Pim’s clock lull me to sleep.

  One afternoon I fell asleep, and I had a dream. Peter was there, and he was talking to me, whispering in my ear. Only then, Peter turned into my sister. Don’t be such a ninny, Margot, my sister was saying. He could never love you.

  I awoke, and Pim’s clock said it was only 3 P.M., an hour when we were still supposed to be silent, to tiptoe in stockinged feet, to whisper. I found my diary beneath the sheets, and lay there and recorded my dream.

  And then I hid it again, and tiptoed up the stairs to Peter’s room. I would ask him, and he would remind me. In Peter’s voice, the future sounded certain, always. It became a way to survive, a way of making it through fear and hunger. In Peter’s voice, there was a future. What he said had to be the truth.

  I stopped near the entryway to his room when I heard the sound of a giggle. A stifled giggle, because it was 3 P.M., and we were supposed to be quiet. If we weren’t quiet, someone might hear us below, and then it would all be over.

  But there it was, a giggle nonetheless, and unmistakably hers, my sister’s. “Shhh . . .” I heard the sound of Peter’s voice. “They’ll hear us.”

  “So what?” my sister said. “So what if they do. Everyone already knows anyway,” she said.