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“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
    I am not sure if he asks me to interpret I will be able to speak 01
at all. Not because of the Polish but because of the tattooed 02
number, right there, on her arm, in Joshua’s face. I wasn’t 03
mistaken. 04
Joshua shakes his head. “Miss Korzynski, I’m so sorry. I 05
can’t even imagine.” His face turns for a moment, darkens in 06
a way I have rarely seen from him, and I think it’s because he 07
is a Jew. I suppose that’s why Bryda is here in his office, 08
thrusting her arm in his face. If I were her friend, I would tell 09
her that American Jews are different, that they don’t under 10
stand what it was like to wear a yellow star, to not be allowed 11
to ride your bike or even the bus. They will think they under 12
stand, because religion is religion, and Jews have always been 13
a persecuted people. But you cannot understand what you 14
cannot really imagine, and they cannot really imagine it. No 15
matter how much they think they can or how many books 16
they’ve read or movies they’ve seen. In America the Jews still 17
prosper. They are lawyers with houses in Margate and also on 18
the Main Line. I cannot bring myself to hate Joshua for this, 19
though, as it is not his fault, where he was born, what he was 20
born into. 21
“So,” Joshua says, “let’s talk more about what we discussed 22
on the phone. You said you have a Jewish problem that you 23
want me to handle because I am a Jewish lawyer, right?” 24
She nods and she thrusts her arm in his face again. “You 25
see this? I already suffer at hands of Nazi. My mother, she 26
gassed immediately after we arrive to Auschwitz. Dominik, 27
my brother, he sent to work and he die in Mauthausen after S28
N29
    01 death march. My father, he die of cholera in Neuengamme. I
02 only one to survive it.”
03 The names of the camps fall in my brain, in her thick Pol
04 ish accent. Her words hurt; they are sharp. Needles. Mau
05 thausen, where Peter was said to have died, and I think
06 uneasily of the tiniest of squares that has sat in the bottom of
07 my satchel for nearly a week now.
08 I look up, and I realize Joshua has said something to me.
09 “I’m sorry.” I shake my head and pull my sweater tighter
10 around my body. “What did you say?”
11 “I was telling Miss Korzynski that you are also from
12 Poland. But you were lucky that you weren’t there, during the
13 war, right?”
14 I nod, hanging on to the lie. It was one of the first things
15 he’d asked me, at my job interview, and I’d forced myself to
16 smile then as I’d told Joshua I had gotten the American ver
17 sion of wartime, like him.
18 Bryda Korzynski stares at me, as if she can see through
19 me. Her eyes are hard brown stones. I wrap my sweater
20 tighter around my body.
21 When she turns