The Other Traitor by Sharon Potts Read Free Book Online

Starlight Roof restaurant. December 1944, one year later. But the photo of the two little girls—her mother Sally and Essie Lowe—was taken in 1950. In front of our apartment on 120 Columbia Street, the caption read.
    The Lowes and the Goldsteins would have been friends from at least 1943 through 1950, so there was a very good chance that Mariasha was acquainted with others who associated with Isaac Goldstein. Would she know the person who had committed atomic espionage and let Isaac Goldstein take the fall in his place?
    She put aside the photo album, picked up Evoking the Great Depression , and turned to the section on Mariasha Lowe . There was a general description of her work, her major pieces, where they were on display, and then a biographical sketch, which was consistent with much of what Annette had already learned in her previous internet research.
    She tapped her notes into her laptop as she sipped her cappuccino, hoping to find an inspiration for an article.
    Born in Brooklyn, 1918 as Mariasha Hirsch, the older of two children. Brother Saul, born 1922. Father died in 1925, mother in 1939.
    Annette did the math. Mariasha would have been seven when her father died, twenty-one when her mother died. That would have been tough. Her brother would have been seventeen. Had Mariasha been close to her brother? But even if she was, it was unlikely that he had a connection to Isaac Goldstein.
    She continued reading and taking notes.
    Attended Brooklyn College 1935-39. Married Aaron Lowe, economics professor at NYU, in December 1943.
    Same as her grandparents. So the two couples were most likely both on their honeymoons in the photo at the Laurels Hotel.
    She read on.
    Mariasha’s daughter Esther was born in 1945, but Annette already knew that. Essie had been her mother’s friend and classmate.
    Then nothing for the next eight years. What was Mariasha doing? Raising Essie? Sculpting?
    Mariasha’s first show was in 1954, which just happened to be the year after Isaac Goldstein’s execution.
    Then the article moved into a discussion of Mariasha’s work.
     
    Mariasha Lowe’s sculptures are evocative of Depression-era America. However her pieces of men, women, and children at work and play differ from the thick, brooding artwork one typically associates with the WPA Depression-era artists. Lowe’s work has a lightness and an energy, as though her creations are about to step off their marble bases and finish what they’ve begun.
     
    Annette studied a picture of one of Mariasha’s sculptures called Girl Playing Hopscotch and quickly understood the comment about lightness and energy. The sculpture was composed of only metal pipes and spheres, but in it Annette could see a child poised on one leg, about to jump through the air to the next square.
    As a journalist, Annette could appreciate how difficult it was to convey so much so sparingly. Bill always said, “Make everything count in your writing,” and that was exactly what Mariasha had accomplished with her art.
    She browsed through a few more pages, her admiration growing for this woman who had once known her grandfather.
    But who was Mariasha Lowe and what had motivated her to create such powerful sculptures? Was this the hook she should use to approach Mariasha for a story? How people from her past influenced her? Or maybe Annette could use the angle of how growing up during the Depression inspired her work, then use that as a lead into communism. From there, she could ask Mariasha if she knew the Goldsteins, since they were from the same neighborhood, then move on to friends and common interests. That could work. She felt a tingle of excitement as often happened when an idea for an article began to jell. Now she was ready to meet the woman.
    She had found Mariasha Lowe’s street address and phone number in her earlier research. Should she call and tell her about the article she was planning to write, then ask if she could come by? But what if Mariasha refused to