The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond The Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival (17 page)

Lisa had been too wrapped up in the first part of the program to pay much attention to Aaron, but now that the string quartet had begun, she sneaked a look his way. He was handsome, she couldn’t argue with that; she couldn’t decide whether it was his long brown eyelashes or his rakish smile that she liked best. But suddenly, under the lashes, she noticed there were tears in his eyes.

She wished she knew more about him, but he had been so guarded about his past. She thought he had mentioned something about his father building bridges, but she couldn’t quite remember.

Lisa hated when the beautiful notes slipped away and the concert ended. There was so much she wanted to say to Aaron. But now there was no time; she was needed back at the factory. She gave him a hurried thank-you hug and ran for the bus.

At lunch the next day she was embarrassed to hear Mrs. McRae and the other workers sing her a verse from “Happy Birthday.” Gina began to laugh at Lisa’s dismay but stopped when Lisa shot her a warning look. After blowing out the single candle on top of the tiny cupcake, Lisa split the sweet dessert with her as a payoff for her silence.

“I have some news,” Gina said. “I’m not going to work here anymore.”

“What do you mean? Why not?” Lisa asked, surprised and alarmed.

“The lady where I’m staying wants me to help take care of her new baby.”

“Oh, no! How far away is it?” Lisa asked.

“Forty minutes by train. Not so bad, I guess.”

Lisa felt suddenly abandoned.

“I won’t just be a servant, though, like the last time,” Gina said to cheer things up. “The lady says I can go to school in the morning! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Yes, it is,” said Lisa, trying to hide her sadness as the buzz of the crowded lunchroom disappeared into the inner silence of another loss.

The whistle of the Grieg again sounded at her window that evening. Having hoped it would come again soon, she had laid out her shoes, her coat, and a muffler just in case. She tiptoed out the front door, leaving it slightly ajar.

She and Aaron strolled through the streets, darkened by the blackout, and once again the stars seemed to vibrate in the heavens. It was blessedly quiet; there were no antiair-craft guns or ambulances or air raids, though every few minutes a search beam would sweep the sky for enemy aircraft. They strolled slowly toward no destination in particular.

Aaron was as sweet and gentle as he had been the day before. She couldn’t figure out what would make his moods so different one day to the next. Sometimes he’d be sarcastic and bitter, then gracious and sentimental, as he was now.

“Any news of the committee?” Aaron asked.

“Gina’s got a new job as a nanny.”

“I wonder how long that’ll last?” He laughed. “Oh, did you hear about Paul?”

“No, is he all right?”

“They picked him up the day after he turned sixteen. He’s on the Isle of Man.”

“That’s terrible, how could they? It’s so stupid.”

“It’s so British.”

“That’s mean.”

“But don’t worry, Gunter got a letter from him. He says he’s fine and that the food is better than it was at the hostel. Says there are lots of Nazis and spies but they don’t say much or they’ll get beaten up. In six months they’re going to let him enlist in the army.”

They kept walking and passed the entrance to the tube station at Willesden Green. A family with small bundles was going in for the night. The deep underground stations were favorite bomb shelters, and some people preferred to spend the night on the platforms even when the sirens hadn’t gone off, just in case.

“Aaron, I want to ask you something personal, please don’t be angry,” Lisa began.

Aaron didn’t say anything, so Lisa continued.

“What were you crying about yesterday at the concert?” She had been reliving this moment for the last two days.

“I wasn’t crying,” Aaron said.

Lisa had expected as much, but she didn’t stop. “Please tell me?”

“Memories. That’s all, just memories.”

“Bad memories?”

Aaron was silent for a moment. Lisa didn’t interfere. “Good memories, they’re the worst kind.”

“About your family?”

Aaron nodded.

“You’ve never even told me where you were from.” “Mannheim. On the Rhine.”

She was quiet, hoping he would go on.

“I was remembering the chamber music at our house,” he said finally.

“You had chamber music at your house?” she said, surprised.

“When I was younger I used to fight with my mother about having to go downstairs and listen—all I wanted to do was stay in my room and build bridges, like my father did. I had hundreds of metal strips and screws and bolts that my father had made for me. . . .” His voice drifted off for a moment, then started up again. “Sunday nights, though, they made me listen to chamber music in the salon. Actually I liked it; it was quite good, you would have loved it.”

“But why were you crying?” she asked gently.

“It’s what happened when the chamber music stopped. My father was very influential in Mannheim, you see, just like his father and his father’s father. He had designed the major new bridge over the Rhine. The members of the philharmonic came to the house, so did the mayor. I mean, they used to come before they were told not to—by the Nazis.” They kept walking. Aaron disappeared for a while into the memory of his story.

“And then?” Lisa asked, prodding gently.

“Then nobody came to the house anymore. And they closed my father’s office; he had to stay home all the time. One Sunday night, he dressed up again in his black tie, opened the front door and waited for the guests to arrive. My mother was crying as she watched him waiting and waiting. Of course, nobody came.”

Lisa waited as Aaron exhaled a huge sigh and then continued. “Then he walked out the door . . .”

Lisa waited for Aaron to go on, but he didn’t.

“Then what happened?”

“They found him floating in the river . . . near the bridge he had built.”

Lisa started to cry and he took her hand. They walked quietly through the streets, treasuring the comfort of each other’s presence. At the corner, in the dark under the streetlight, he put his arm around her and kissed her. She felt her heart beginning to give way.

16

I
N THE SPRING
of 1941 the crocuses came up in strange places; they poked their leaves between sandbags, from under piles of bricks, from anywhere their corms had been blasted by the force of the bombs.

At 243 Willesden Lane they came up in the front yard and were a welcome mat of purple flowers for the reopening of the hostel.

Repairs had been expedited at the insistence of Mrs. Cohen, who wanted her charges to be reunited as soon as possible.

She and Hans and Mrs. Glazer had lived in the house during that period, and Hans later told Lisa that his mother had admitted to feeling lonely without the chaos.

The day the children were to return, she had made sure that the postponed gingerbread cookies were finally baked and that as much meat as possible was procured from her network of donors, do-gooders, and neighborhood shopkeepers.

Lisa prepared to move. As she rolled up her scarves and folded her pleated skirts, she looked around the bare room with a nostalgic feeling. The weeks had gone by faster than expected, and she had come to honor Mrs. Canfield’s steady kindness and support. She had learned a little about the “Friends” and their belief in pacifism. One thing made her admire them especially. Mrs. Canfield told her about letters she had received from Quaker friends in Germany, who in response to the Nazi greeting
“Heil Hitler”
would say,
“Grüss Gott,”
meaning “Hello” or “Good day.” Many had been jailed because of their insolence.

Mrs. Canfield had also helped Lisa with her English— every night for fifteen minutes without fail. It wasn’t quite as good as a real school, but it was learning, and Lisa was hungry for it.

On the day of the move, Mrs. Canfield escorted Lisa around the corner to the hostel, embracing her as they said good-bye.

“I promise I’ll come visit,” Lisa said.

“That would make me very happy. I hope thou knowest how comforting it was to have thee—it helped me so with my worries about John so far away. My house will always be thy house.”

Mrs. Cohen greeted each child with a smile and a hug; there was a softness in her that had replaced her former aloof demeanor. She had missed them.

Lisa walked happily in the front door and immediately noticed the changes. The blackout curtains now had draw-strings and could be rolled up in the daytime—making it much more bright and cheerful. The windows were clean, the carpet spotless, and Mrs. Cohen’s Victrola was now in the place of honor in the recess of the bay windows—the place where the piano had been and where it was no longer.

Lisa was stunned. Had the piano been damaged? Had Mrs. Cohen been angry and taken it away? Lisa saw Mrs. Cohen glancing at her nervously.

Suddenly, a group of teenagers led by Johnny, Aaron, and Gunter jumped out from the hall and yelled, “Surprise!”

Lisa was now totally confused. Before she could remind them that it wasn’t her birthday, her friends circled around her, pushing her down the hall into the kitchen. The cellar door was standing open.

“Follow me, Maestro,” said Johnny, turning on the light. Lisa followed him down the stairs into the moldy basement. The pickles and preserves had been moved—in their place was the sturdy old upright piano.

Mrs. Cohen stepped carefully down two stairs from the top and peered into the room: “It’s not the Royal Albert Hall, but if you insist on playing through the bombings, at least you should play where it’s safe.”

Lisa was speechless. When she recovered her manners she turned around and said, “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You should thank them,” Mrs. Cohen said, pointing to Johnny, Aaron, and Gunter. “They did all the work.” The boys took a bow. “Now, be sure you practice! I would hate to think they brought such a heavy load down these stairs for nothing!”

Lisa kissed Johnny and Gunter, then gave a romantic smooch to Aaron and the room broke out in whistles. The younger boys poked their heads in from the kitchen door, adding “Play something, Lisa!”

Everyone crowded around the piano, pushing aside tins of peas and carrots and cleaning supplies to get a better look.

Lisa decided on something playful and romantic, an Impromptu of Schubert. She hadn’t played in a while, and she was nervous at first. She stretched her fingers, shaking them out above the keys, then launched into the piece.

One of the eleven-year-olds blurted out: “Go, Lisa!”

“V for Victory!” another added, and everyone laughed. After the first few chords, Lisa called out loudly up the stairs, “Oh, Mrs. Cohen! You had the piano tuned! Thank you so much!” Mrs. Cohen beamed back; Lisa could only imagine how complicated it must have been, with the rationing and the lack of money and the million other repairs that the matron was responsible for. She finished the short Schubert piece with a flourish and everyone clapped. Looking around at the familiar faces, she realized how deeply she had missed her Willesden Lane family.

“All right, no more time for fooling around, everyone! I have posted the chore lists, so let’s get to work!” the matron said forcefully, and the teenagers boisterously pushed each other up the stairs, happy to be shoving and joking and tripping over their friends again.

Mrs. Cohen came over to Lisa as she was closing the piano. “Miss Jura? Please come to my room before dinner, I want to talk with you about something.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lisa said nervously, worried as always by the formal tone of the matron’s voice. Had she done anything wrong? Maybe she shouldn’t have kissed Aaron in front of everyone.

The children of Willesden Lane reinstalled themselves in their bedrooms and quickly discovered that the house wasn’t repaired as completely as it first appeared. Sheets of plastic still covered part of the roof, one of the boys’ dormitories had plywood in the window frames, and several unlucky boys had to bunk in the hall. Makeshift boards covered a hole in the floor of the boys’ bathroom. It took no time at all for some of the younger boys to realize they now had a wonderful view directly into the girls’ bathroom. They took full advantage until the girls caught on and pelted them through the hole with wet towels.

Lisa opened her suitcase and started to unpack, looking over sadly at Gina’s empty bunk. She heard a crashing from the stairs, and Aaron, breaking the rules, careened into the girls’ dormitory, followed shyly by Gunter.

“Hey, you’ve got windows!” he said, tapping on the new panes of glass, then went over and lay back on Gina’s empty bed. “Gina’s lazy, that’s what I think.”

“I thought at least she’d come by and say hello,” Gunter added. “She knew we were all coming back today.”

“You ought to go visit her, Gunter,” said Lisa. “Go visit and tell her to come back.”

“She won’t. If she comes back, she’ll have to go to work again,” Aaron said. “She’s lazy!”

“She is not!” Gunter protested halfheartedly.

“We know you’re sweet on her, so don’t pretend,” Lisa said, teasing.

Gunter exhaled in frustration, then got up and went downstairs. Lisa smiled at Aaron, who took her arm and escorted her downstairs to the dining room.

“Save me a seat, I have to talk to Mrs. Cohen,” Lisa said, giving him a playful push.

Lisa prayed the meeting with Mrs. Cohen would have something to do with her music—and not be any bad news about the many things she always worried about—her parents, Rosie, and Sonia. She knocked on the door nervously.

“Come in, please,” the matron said.

The room had been rearranged since the bombing and all the breakable clutter had been removed, making it as sparse as the Quaker house. Mrs. Cohen was sitting on the bed; in front of her was an open copy of the
Evening Standard
newspaper.

“I’ve been saving this to show you,” Mrs. Cohen said, pointing to a small announcement in the middle of the page.

It read: “Auditions for scholarships at the Royal Academy of Music. Applications being accepted through April