Margot

by Jillian Cantor

  The air is cooler inside Joshua’s office, the room dark from lack of use. Joshua turns on the light now and puts his attaché down on his desk. “Shut the door, would you?” he asks me. I do, and then he tells me to have a seat.

  He sits in his chair, so we are across the desk from one another. It is not a far distance, and yet, as his gray-green eyes turn to meet mine for the first time in weeks, it feels like an interminable space.

  “Margie,” he says, his voice and his expression softening. “I feel I owe you an explanation.”

  “You don’t,” I say, though that is a lie. I ache for it, to get that moment back, when Joshua and I stood in the lobby, by the sandwich cart. When his hand tucked a stray hair behind my ear and traced the outline of my cheek. When Joshua looked at me, for a moment, as if I were more than just his secretary, as if he was about to kiss me. When I almost told him, This is the truth. This is who I really am. Shelby has no idea.

  “My father is very sick,” Joshua is saying now. “And I need to do everything I can to make him happy.” He pauses, and I think about everything he told me about his mother, about how hard it was to watch her disappear.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell Joshua. “This must be very hard for you.”

  “Thank you,” he says, and he casts his eyes downward, as if searching for something on his desk, in the papers that I have piled up there in his absence. “Anyway,” he says, “all that stuff I said about leaving . . .” His voice trails off, and he shakes his head. His chestnut curls are still rumpled from his hat, and I have the urge to reach across the desk and fix them. “I was saying it in anger, and I shouldn’t have. And I certainly shouldn’t have involved you.” He pauses. “While my father recovers, I’m going to make sure I do what needs to get done here on my cases and some of his too.”

  “And your dream of starting your own firm?” I say.

  “That was silly,” he says. “Stupid.”

  I nod, but I am thinking that Joshua is lying again. Maybe just to me, or maybe, also, to himself.

  “As I said on the phone a few weeks ago, I want you to stay on here, as my secretary, of course. We’ll be ceasing our group litigation, but you can keep your raise. For your continued loyalty,” he adds.

  I am not sure how I feel, about Joshua saying we will cease working on our secret case. On one hand, I’m relieved, but I’m also, surprisingly, a bit annoyed. How can Joshua let Bryda and the others go, just like that? What about that night, when his eyes lit up, when he confessed to me his fear, that if Jews are not seen as equals, something terrible could happen again?

  “You will stay on, won’t you, Margie?”

  I cannot work without you, Margie. I nod.

  “Good.” He sighs, leans back in his chair, and runs his fingers through his curls. I notice now his green tie looks too tight, and his neck is red, as if he is being suffocated by it, or it could be that he has already gotten too much sun in Margate. “For now, we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure Mr. Bakerfield does not get convicted of murder. His trial is coming up in three weeks.”

  “But you said he was guilty,” I say softly.

  He leans forward in his chair, but he does not look at me now. He looks past me, toward the door, the glass window, as if there is something out there, just beyond his reach. “It is not our job to judge a client’s guilt or innocence,” he says, his voice devoid of emotion, as if this is a rote phrase he has practiced in his head, wanting it to take on meaning.

  “I see,” I say, standing, not sure whether I am annoyed or disappointed, but wanting suddenly to be back at my desk, even if that will mean Shelby’s eyes staring at me just a little too hard.

  “Oh, and Margie,” Joshua says as I am about to open the door.

  “Yes?” I turn back, and for a second our eyes do meet. Joshua’s eyes are melting, full of hurt and pain and tiredness, and I feel the weight of all of that on my own sagging, sweating shoulders. I want him to say something profound, something that will make me feel the way I did that morning, not so long ago, when he looked me in my eyes and spoke of the truth as if it were something glimmering and full of light, like Shelby’s diamond.

  “Miss Greenberg will be stopping by for lunch. See to it that you send her right back.”

  “Of course,” I say again, and I drop my eyes before he does, before I can see it there, what it is exactly Joshua is thinking when he talks about Penny.

  Five minutes before noon, Penny steps off the elevator, dressed for summer in a sleeveless floral print that is tied at her tiny waist with a pink ribbon. She clutches a wicker handbag—or no, it is too big; it is not a handbag but a picnic basket, and food overflows from its top.

  “I have come to rescue Josh,” she announces, not to anyone in particular. Shelby rolls her eyes in my direction. And then Penny stops in front of our desks and shoots me a tiny, irascible smirk as she pulls her Marilyn sunglasses atop her head. “Hello, Margie,” she says. “Josh is expecting me.” I nod, and she leans in closer. “How’s he doing?” she whispers, as if we are friends, confidantes. Only, it is not a real question, as she does not wait for me to answer her. “This has been so tough on him.” She sighs. “I expect we’ll even move the wedding up, so his father can see it. It will help in his recovery, I’m sure. He’ll be so happy.”

  “The wedding?” I ask, my voice trembling as my eyes search Penny’s left hand for a diamond like Shelby’s, or I would guess, twice the size of Shelby’s. But I see nothing. Her thin pale fingers are bare.

  She leans in closer and lowers her voice. “Of course, it’s not official yet, but everyone has always known Josh and I would be married. Since we were little kids and our mothers pushed us into the sandbox together.” She laughs and pulls back. “Anyway, he’s expecting me for lunch.”

  I nod, and I don’t even offer to buzz him as she stands up straight and parades herself into his office. She shuts the door behind her, so I don’t even hear it, the sound of their laughter breaking against the sticky afternoon air.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  A WEEK LATER, I AM SITTING AT MY DESK, STILL AVOIDING Shelby’s eyes. It is nearly lunchtime, and each day I have watched the clock with trepidation, wondering if this will be the day that Penny will step off the elevator flashing a giant diamond in my face.

  But today, just before noon, the elevator opens, and instead of Penny, Bryda Korzynski steps off, dressed in her blue Robertson’s Finery uniform. My heart falls immediately into my stomach.

  “I speak to Mr. Rosenstein,” she says sharply as she approaches my desk, her brown eyes hard like stones, breaking me in two.

  “Miss Korzynski,” I manage to say, though my throat is parched and my voice barely escapes my throat. She narrows her eyes at me, and then walks purposefully toward Joshua’s office door. “You can’t go in there,” I hear myself saying. “He’s with another client.” Charles Bakerfield has been inside Joshua’s office all morning, his trial now two weeks away.

  Bryda stops and turns, her brown eyes searing. “Then I wait,” she says, sitting in the chair by my desk.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” I ask, swallowing hard as I speak, trying not to choke on the words. Just breathe. Breathe. “Or can I schedule you an appointment for later in the week? He might be a while in there.”

  “You?” She shakes her head. “You come to my apartment. You say Mr. Rosenstein help me. Then he ignore me. He do not take my phone calls.”

  Her phone calls? They have not come through me, so Joshua must have given her his direct number.

  Bryda glares at me now, and I pick up the phone to buzz Joshua, which is something I would normally never do when he is in a meeting with a client. But it is as if her eyes, they force me to do it. My fingers tremble as I press the button.

  “What is it, Margie?” Joshua asks. “Is it my father?”

  “No, no,” I say quickly, fee
ling bad that I have frightened him in such a way. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But . . . Miss Korzynski is here, and she wants to see you. And she’s refusing to come back later.”

  “Oh.” He sighs. I cannot see him through the glass because Charles’s tall frame, he is blocking my view, but I imagine Joshua putting his hand to his forehead, then running his fingers through his curls. “I didn’t get a chance to call her back,” he says. “Can you tell her?”

  “Tell her?” I ask, surprised, though maybe I should not be, as Joshua has already asked me for so much with this case.

  “That we’re dropping the case. Let her off easy. You can say we just weren’t able to get the support we needed, all right?”

  “I . . .” I turn and lower my voice so she hopefully cannot hear me. “I don’t think I can,” I say.

  He sighs again. “All right, then stall her for a while, until I’m finished here, and then I’ll talk to her.”

  “Joshua.” His name escapes me again, but this time I correct myself. “Mr. Rosenstein, I—”

  “I’m hanging up now, Margie. I’m in a meeting, remember?”

  His end goes to static, and then there I am, adrift in a flood, without even Joshua’s large hand to pull me to safety.

  “Well?” Bryda’s thickly accented voice hangs in the air. I turn and look at her, and though her brown eyes break me, suddenly I do not hate her anymore. To be a Jew, and to be treated badly for it. Even here, even in America. We will no longer be Jews, Peter said. But it strikes me how unfair it is, that you cannot be who you are, that you will be continually punished for the way you were born. Bryda, like me, lived through Auschwitz. She is mean and bitter and tired, but perhaps she has a right to be all those things. Suddenly I feel like a coward. Running, running. Still running, all these years later.

  “What happened to your finger?” I hear myself asking, and then the moment the words escape my lips, I hold my hand to my mouth, realizing I have misspoken. That I have asked for too much.

  She frowns, but something softens a little in her eyes. “There was accident,” she says. “In camp.”

  “But you said it wasn’t what I thought,” I murmur.

  “I say accident.” She frowns. “My mother, she so sick, so tired. One day, she slip and drop brick on my finger and crush it.” She pauses. “That not what you thought, was it?”

  I shake my head because I suppose she is right. I did not think of an accident in the camp. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Then I realize I do not hear the sound of Shelby’s fingers on the keys or even feel the haze of her smoke washing across the desks. I glance in her direction, and she is staring at this interaction between Bryda and me with all the intensity with which she inhales a movie at the cinema. I swallow hard, and turn my eyes back toward Bryda, who has now fixed my face in a steady glare.

  She narrows her brown eyes; she is full of hate and anger again, and now all of it, it is aimed directly at me. As if I were the one who carried her away in the middle of the night. Who accidentally took her finger. Who purposely took her family. You know what worse than Gestapo? Snake. “You not going to help me, are you?” she asks.

  I don’t respond, and she seems to take this as a no. Joshua said to stall her. How am I supposed to do that, when she is standing here, prodding me? “You,” she yells. “You did this, didn’t you. You told Mr. Rosenstein not to help me.”

  “I’m only his secretary,” I hear myself saying, the words seeming to float in somewhere from far away, disconnected from me. “The truth is, he just hasn’t been able to get the support he needs for the case.”

  She narrows her eyes, so they are slits, barely even alive. “I see way he look at you,” she says. “You more than secretary.”

  I can practically feel Shelby’s eyebrows arching across the desk, wondering who this woman is and what she knows that Shelby doesn’t.

  “You don’t know,” I say, and I am angry now too. What right does she have to come here, to think she knows everything about me? This is America, and if I want to wear a sweater, to be someone that I’m not, well, then that is my right, isn’t it?

  “You,” she mutters again. “You in your sweater. Thinking you better than me.” She shakes her head. “I hear there doctor who take tattoo away. Just right for you. Then you be liar and out in open, yes?”

  She stops talking, and everything in the office feels very still, as if everyone, they are listening to Bryda and her accusations. Shelby’s eyes are wide brown saucers. I am sweating, and I can feel hands on the back of my neck, the rough green skin of a uniform. Walk, Jood. You cannot hide from us, Jood. We will always find you, Jood.

  “You not even worth my breath,” Bryda mutters, and then she turns and walks purposefully toward the elevator, getting on, and not even looking back as the doors shut behind her.

  “Margie?” Joshua says my name. Now he is standing at his doorway, Charles behind him. How long has he been standing there? What has he heard Bryda say to me? “I heard yelling. Is everything all right?”

  “I . . .”

  “Let me finish up here,” he says to me. “And then we need to talk.” He walks back inside his office and shuts the door, and then Shelby whistles softly under her breath. “What was that all about?” she whispers.

  But I do not answer her. I cannot speak now. I can barely breathe. Bryda’s words ripped off my sweater, and I am raw and aching, as if my forearm, it is bleeding. What did Joshua hear? What is he thinking now?

  I look up, and I expect Shelby to be staring at it, my arm, my sweater. But she is not. Her gaze meets mine, evenly.

  “Margie?” Shelby’s voice floats across the desk. Hiding who you are, it’ll be so much easier than hiding where you are, Peter said. Like an annex in your mind. “Why was she telling you about a doctor who could remove a tattoo and calling you a liar?” Shelby’s curiosity has gotten the best of her, and so she is questioning me now as if she is no longer mad. Or perhaps she isn’t. Now it might all be water under the bridge, as she would say. “What tattoo?” she is asking.

  I close my eyes, and I am standing there at the camp, the numbers being singed into my arm. It is just a number. Nothing can’t mean something. A badge of honor, my sister says.

  I open my eyes, and Shelby is still there, her eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer. “She’s crazy,” I finally whisper. “I have no idea what she was talking about,” I lie. I lie and I lie and I lie. It is all I know now; all I have. Everything I am.

  Shelby nods and teases a Kent out of her pack. “She sounded pretty crazy. That accent and that creepy missing finger.” She holds the pack of Kents in my direction, just the way she always does. Nothing is different. Nothing has changed. I shake my head and then watch her light her smoke on fire. She takes a drag and blows smoke in my direction. “And what was she saying about you and Joshua? You being more than his secretary?”

  Her brown eyes pierce me as if they are expectant or even nervous. I realize she is much more interested in this than in the tattoo. Margie Franklin, of course, she would not be the kind of girl to have gotten a tattoo, or to have had one forced upon her. Gentile skin remained untouched, unblemished, during the war, unless a soldier got a tattoo by choice, and it would not even occur to Shelby that I might be anything other than a Gentile.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Like I said, she’s crazy.” Of course, Shelby will believe this. You are you, she’d said to me. Joshua could never look at you the way you look at him.

  “Is she the one Joshua and Ezra were fighting about?” Shelby asks. I nod, slowly, still finding it hard to breathe. “Well . . .” She waves her cigarette in the air, her diamond glinting off the fluorescent light. “Good riddance, then.”

  I hold my breath for a moment more, waiting for Shelby to understand that I am a liar, and I am a Jew. That I am marked and ruined. That my sweater covers only so much, and my lies, th
ey cover the rest. But Shelby finishes her smoke and goes back to her typing, and doesn’t say another word about Bryda Korzynski. Shelby is so gullible; she believes every word I say to her, as if it is so easy just to believe the best in people. Ron could have a thousand hussies, I realize now, and she would not even believe it.

  Charles Bakerfield walks out of Joshua’s office just before noon, and Joshua follows close behind him. Charles steps onto the elevator, and then Joshua taps his finger on my desk and grabs his brown hat from the rack. “Lunch,” he says, rather sternly.

  I am still having trouble breathing in the wake of Bryda’s accusations. Shelby may have bought my lies, ignored Bryda’s comment about the tattoo. But Joshua . . . what did he hear her say? What is he thinking now? We have barely spoken since Ezra’s heart attack except for that one time in his office last week, and I cannot read the expression on his face now. Is it sadness, or is it anger? Or is it something else entirely?

  “Come on,” Joshua says gently now, his features softening, his gray-green eyes dancing across my face gently. “Let me buy you lunch, Margie. And we’ll talk.”

  I glance at Shelby, who has slowed her typing to watch my reaction. I can practically hear Bryda’s words reverberating in her brain: more than a secretary. I think Shelby has even forgotten already about any talk of a tattoo, and instead she is wondering exactly what it is Joshua and I have been doing at these lunches. I feel my cheeks turning red, but I shrug in her direction and then grab my satchel and follow Joshua toward the elevator.

  The air is sticky on Market Street; my sweater, stifling. I can hear the sound of my sister’s voice, though now it feels much like Bryda’s voice: Why are you still punishing yourself for being a Jew? Here, in America? And maybe that is exactly what I’m doing, punishing myself. Because I still deserve to be punished, don’t I, after what I have done?