Free Margot: A Novel by [email protected] Page B

plaid 20
dress falls over her. 21
I reach into my satchel, pull out a shiny nickel, and drop 22
it in her cup. 23
24
25
Sometimes I am haunted by my sister’s eyes. It’s hard to 26
remember them the way they were, when we were girls, living 27
in the house on the Merwedeplein, or even when we lay S28
next to each other quietly in the annex, writing in our diaries. N29
01 I cannot remember their inflections of joy, or the way they
02 darkened with jealousy when she asked if she could read my
03 diary and she read how I felt about Peter, or even the way they
04 fell when she cried, as she did so often. All I can remember
05 is the way they looked, at the very end. She was skin and
06 bones by then, her face barely even a shape, her eyes sunken
07 and huge. They were brown, the color of almonds, with small
08 green flecks. They were too big for her face. They begged me
09 to help her.
10 I try to shake the thought away as I walk to the stairwell
11 in Bryda’s brick apartment building, then up three flights to
12 her floor. The smell of garbage in the stairs overtakes me, a
13 smell like rotting putrid rats, and I gag, because suddenly I
14 am there, again, hauling trash with my sister. Her eyes. Like
15 saucers. Begging me to carry her.
16 I take a deep breath once I’m in the hallway, practicing in
17 my head what I will say to Bryda, how I will keep the conver
18 sation all business, only about Joshua. But the smell in the
19 hallway is not much better than in the stairwell. The air is
20 stagnant and I fight the urge to vomit as I wrap my sweater
21 tighter around my chest.
22 I reach my hand up to knock on her door. Apartment 3C in
23 the north section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
24 of America. It is a long way from Auschwitz, Poland. But as I
25 knock, I understand, it is not as far as you might think.
26
27
28S “You,” Bryda says, when she opens the door, her voice thick
29N with disgust.
“Hello,” I say, as cordially as I can, given the circum 01
stances, and then quickly spit out what I have just rehearsed 02
in my head. “Mr. Rosenstein asked me to stop by and talk. 03
Can I come in?” I don’t want to come in. Every bone in my 04
body is telling me to run. Run. Take two buses back to Mar 05
ket Street. Then run again, to my neighborhood, where the 06
rats stay hidden—or at least Katze sometimes keeps them at 07
bay when he feels like it, and the smells are of blooming 08
spring flowers and taxicab fumes. 09
She opens the door a little wider, and I step inside. The 10
room is tidy, but smaller than mine by at least half, a little box 11
room without a trace of a kitchen, only a hot plate on a table, 12
next to a wooden chair. There is a cot in the corner, where I 13
imagine she sleeps. 14
Even in the annex, at the height of the war, we had more 15
than this. 16
“So,” Bryda says. “What you want?” 17
Her hair has tumbled out of the bun, after what I imagine 18
was a long day of sewing for her, and today she wears a blue 19
Robertson’s Finery uniform, with a sleeve long enough to 20
cover her number. For this, I am grateful. Though I notice the 21
way Robertson’s Finery is stitched in yellow, just across her 22
heart—it is so much like the color and placement of the yel 23
low star we once wore. 24
I clear my throat. “Mr. Rosenstein asked me to come over 25
and visit with you and gather up the names and contact infor 26
mation for any people you found to join you.” 27
“Group litigation?” she says. I nod. “So he really do S28
help me?” N29
01 “Maybe,” I say, because I am still entirely unconvinced
02 about Joshua’s being able to go anywhere with this case after
03 the screaming match in his office with Ezra, and also because
04 I don’t want to get Bryda’s hopes up. Perhaps she deserves a
05 lot. The war is over; the Nazis are done. But it is still quite
06 hard to be a Jew, even here, in