The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond The Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival (8 page)

But she kept pedaling and began to chant aloud: “I will go to London. I will go to London.” With sheer force of will, and with every yard of distance between her and the castle, she left her indecision behind.

She waited to eat as long as she could, then pulled over to the side of the road, leaned her bike against a hedge, and pulled out the precious piece of meat she’d taken from the pantry. She nibbled carefully, determined to keep some for later. The countryside was quiet, and the bees were at work in the hayfields. The tall grass soothed her aching legs. In no time she was asleep, dreaming of Franzenbrückestrasse. People were running down the streets, and her mother was yelling, “Find Papa, find Papa!” She was running through piles and piles of broken glass, looking for her father. The piles of glass got deeper and deeper and felt sharper under her feet.

She jerked awake and was frightened to see a figure hunched over her—a face right next to hers, a cold hand on her thigh. She screamed and scrambled to her feet, throwing the man to the side.

“Wait a second, good-looking; don’t run off so fast!” The man was middle-aged and ill shaven and looked as if he’d been working in the fields. He moved to Lisa’s bike and put both hands on the handlebars ominously.

“Don’t be running anywhere just yet.”

Lisa’s heart was beating furiously. “Give me my bike.” But the man stood still, smiling menacingly. She stepped quickly into the middle of the road, looking frantically up and down, but it was completely deserted. When she looked back, she saw the man wheeling her bike behind the hedge.

“Let me show you something, good-looking,” he said, wheeling the bike farther and farther away from the road.

Lisa forced herself to keep her wits about her. She considered running away, but everything she had in the world was in the suitcase strapped to the bike. She had to stall until a car came down the road.

“Wait! I can’t walk, I’ve hurt my foot,” she said, throwing herself back to the ground near the edge of the road. “I think I have broken my foot.”

The man looked at her skeptically but wheeled the bike back to where she sat on the ground.

“Come talk to me,” Lisa said, smiling flirtatiously. “Do you work near here?” The man nodded and came over, leaning against the hedge. He brought out a hand-rolled cigarette and lit it.

“I work very near here,” Lisa pressed on. “Perhaps I could meet you later.”

Every minute that went by was an eternity but she hid her terror and made false promise after false promise about a fictitious rendezvous. Luckily, the man was gullible and arrogant, nodding his head and smiling. Finally, ten agonizing minutes later, she heard the noise of a vehicle in the distance.

As it approached, she jumped up and lurched into the road, waving her arms frantically. A military jeep pulled to a stop in front of her.

“Sorry, miss, no riders, government orders.”

Before Lisa could even explain about her attacker, the man had fled into the field and disappeared. Trembling, she thanked the soldier, got on her bike and pedaled as fast and as far as she could.

She entered the outskirts of the city of Brighton at nightfall and followed the signs to the train station. Her muscles were shaking as she got off the bike and limped up to the ticket master’s booth.

“The next train to London?” she asked wearily.

“Not till morning, six-eighteen, track four.”

She fished for the required shillings and pence from her pocket, and was handed a ticket.

“Is that your bicycle?”

Lisa nodded.

“You’ll have to wait for the afternoon train, then; no bikes allowed on the commuter express.”

“Are you sure?”

“Rules are rules.”

Lisa hung her head and wheeled her bicycle through the station, finally finding the ladies’ room, grateful to see a small wooden bench inside. She lay down on it and put her head on her suitcase. She was too tired to dream.

The sound of the flushing toilet woke her up. Two giggling teenage girls in school uniforms were putting on lipstick and laughing, oblivious of Lisa’s presence. “Hurry up!” one of them yelled to the other. “You’ll miss the train.”

Lisa hurried, too, grabbing her things and running onto the platform. The train doors were open and inviting. She glanced back at her red bicycle, said good-bye, and boarded.

The compartment was crowded, but she found a seat next to a group of teenage boys with green duffel bags. She supposed they were being called up for the draft as part of the national mobilization. Their faces were soft and young; one of them was covered in pimples. She didn’t think they stood a chance against the steely-eyed Nazi soldiers she had seen at home, and a dark mood of worry seized her. Lisa tried to distract herself by looking out the window at the lush green countryside, steering her mind onto a more cheerful path of thoughts about the big city ahead of her.

Waterloo station was filled to the brim with travelers. Whole families were on the move, and porters were wheeling huge carts overflowing with suitcases. The warm smell from a bakery stall made her stomach ache, and she went and ordered a hot-cross bun. She made herself eat slowly so she could enjoy it; it seemed like the most delicious bun on earth.

Following the careful directions of helpful pedestrians, Lisa walked the weary miles to Bloomsbury House.

8

T
HE BLOOMSBURY HOUSE
was still a madhouse of volunteers, arriving children, and file boxes. Lisa walked down the hall in guilty trepidation and gave her name to one of the secretaries.

“Have a seat, dearie, he’ll be with you soon as he’s able. Care for some tea?”

She accepted gratefully and watched as boxes of donations were sorted and stacked. Britain had responded to the arrival of the Kindertransports with an outpouring of cutlery, linens, rocking horses, and dolls; all manner of whatnots seemed to have landed in the hallway in front of her. The offices were full; the overflow of prospective foster parents spilled into corners and onto stairwells.

“I know you said you could only take two, but it would be terrible to break up the family,” a volunteer implored into a telephone. “They’re so lovely, and very well behaved, too.” The worker glanced at the three children next to her who were holding tight to one another’s hands. Her eyes were sparkling in encouragement, and her chin nodded up and down.

Lisa wondered how she’d be described—not well behaved certainly, more like a troublemaker. No matter, she’d made her decision. She wouldn’t go back. Anything, she told herself, was better than the terrible loneliness of the last six months.

The volunteers continued their phone calling and their cajoling, fielding offers of buildings to be converted to orphanages and giving advice on bedwetting and tantrums. Lisa accepted more and more cookies.

“Lisa Jura? Mr. Hardesty will see you now.” She walked into his office and half imagined that Mr. Hardesty groaned when he saw the dark red hair approach.

“Aha, it’s you!” he said as recognition dawned. “We were worried—the captain told us you’d gone missing.” But instead of the brash young bundle of energy he remembered, before him stood an exhausted girl with un-combed hair and wrinkled clothes. Lisa was too tired to think of anything to say.

Mr. Hardesty picked up a file with Lisa’s picture on the front and several papers clipped to the back.

“Were they treating you badly?”

Lisa reddened in embarrassment. “No, sir.”

“Were you getting enough to eat?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Hardesty let out a large breath, exhaling weeks and months of fatigue and frustration. He loosened his collar. He was sweltering in the airless August afternoon.

Lisa forced herself to begin the speech she had rehearsed over and over in her head. “I want to make something of myself. I don’t want to be a servant. I want to learn something. Please, let me stay in London.”

Mr. Hardesty studied this outspoken young woman and let out another long breath. “I’m afraid that’s very difficult. So many people are leaving London, and I don’t know if I could find a family here to take you. The hostels are full up.”

“People are leaving?” Lisa said, her eyes filled with fear.

Mr. Hardesty softened his expression. “Didn’t you get any news down there? Most people are expecting a war— and I’m afraid I am, too. Looks like Warsaw will be next. Chamberlain is over there now pleading, but it won’t come to anything, if you want my opinion.”

He looked at her proud but vulnerable expression and added, “We’d prefer to send as many of you to the countryside as we can. Most people expect we’ll be bombed.”

“Please, don’t send me back. I can work in a factory! I need to make some money to send to my parents to bring Sonia over.”

“Sonia?” Mr. Hardesty asked.

“My sister, Sonia. I’m hoping she will come soon on the Kindertransport.”

“What’s her name, again?”

“Sonia Jura, from Vienna.”

“He fumbled for a long time through a file box and finally located a typed card. “Sonia Jura, aha. Yes, but we don’t have a sponsor for her yet. If she doesn’t have a sponsor, they won’t let her into England.”

“What if they don’t find one?” Lisa pressed.

“We are doing our best, but it’s very difficult right now, there are so many who need sponsors.”

“Please let me stay in London, I’ll help look for someone, too, I promise,” she begged.

Mr. Hardesty sighed. “Let me see what I can do, at least temporarily.”

He ran his index finger down a list of telephone numbers wedged under the glass top of his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed.

“I’ll get a tongue-lashing, but hopefully it’ll be a short one,” he muttered.

Lisa watched as Mr. Hardesty wrinkled up his face and began: “Mrs. Cohen? Alfred Hardesty, here, Bloomsbury House. We have a bit of an unusual situation here, and I know I promised not to send so much as one more sardine your way, but there’s a lovely young lady just needs a place for a month. . . .”

He held the phone away from his ear and Lisa heard the raised voice of a woman. Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, Mr. Hardesty leaned forward and said sotto voce: “I think you two will get along famously.”

Anxious to get some relief from the heat, and concerned about smoothing Mrs. Cohen’s ruffled feathers, Mr. Hardesty himself escorted Lisa to her new home: the hostel at 243 Willesden Lane, in Willesden Green, a twenty-minute taxi ride from the Bloomsbury House. Willesden Green was an older neighborhood of large brick houses. Its corners were alive with tiny shops—a butcher’s, a druggist’s, a laundry, and a bakery. Only one shop was boarded and had a sign: “Long Live Britain, God Bless You All.”

The houses on Willesden Lane were surrounded by neatly manicured lawns. As the taxi slowed, Lisa noticed a building with a cross carved into the stone lintel above the door; three nuns were in the front flower garden, watering the plants. The cab rolled to a stop at the next house, a rambling three-story structure whose shutters and fence were in need of paint, but whose lawn was recently mowed and trimmed. Its semicircular driveway was bordered with a fringe of lilacs.

The two of them got out and headed up the stone walk-way. Mr. Hardesty knocked and, while waiting, adjusted the crooked bronze numbers 2-4-3 back into alignment.

An imposing middle-aged woman in a dark purple dress opened the door. She had a rigid, upper-class bearing and held her chin tilted upward. It looked to Lisa as though she were trying to balance the huge, tightly wound bun of auburn hair so it wouldn’t fall off the top of her head.

“Please come in.” She surveyed Lisa and glanced at the little suitcase. “Is that all you have?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come in then! Let’s not stand here while the house fills up with flies.”

Mr. Hardesty picked up Lisa’s suitcase and put his arm around her shoulder, easing her through the doorway.

Lisa walked into a dark-paneled foyer, which opened into a pleasant drawing room with two sofas and several groups of chairs and tables. Two well-worn chess boards were arranged neatly on top of a card table. A graceful staircase led upstairs, and a dining room was visible across the foyer. She stepped farther into the parlor and saw the large fireplace and the bay window that looked out on the convent next door. Nestled in the cove by the window was a distinctive shape, covered with a hand-crocheted shawl.

Lisa’s heart beat faster; it was a piano!

“We’re overcrowded, you know. We can only make room for you temporarily,” Mrs. Cohen said, not noticing Lisa’s expression of wonder. “I’ll have one of the girls tell you the rules.”

Mrs. Cohen’s firm stride took her to the base of the stairs. “Gina Kampf, come down here, please!” she shouted in a remarkably strong voice.

She has an even heavier German accent than I do, Lisa thought to herself, smiling. She felt comfortable here already.

At the sound of youthful steps thundering down the staircase, Mrs. Cohen turned to Mr. Hardesty. “While you’re here, Alfred, I have some receipts I’d like to go over with you.”

Mr. Hardesty turned to Lisa and shook her hand. “Now, please mind Mrs. Cohen; she has her hands full with all of you and I don’t want to hear any stories about any more, ah, unexpected trips, all right?” Lisa knew he thought her a troublemaker, but she’d show him. She would make something of herself, and then he’d understand.

“Hi, I’m Gina!” A pretty, dark-haired girl with vivacious eyes finished bounding down the stairs. “You must be the new girl.”

“Yes, I’m Lisa Jura.”

“Pleased to meet you!” she said with an exaggerated bow. “Isn’t my English fabulous? Mrs. Cohen says I’m the best English speaker in the whole house. Oh, that’s the first rule, she says you have to speak English on the first floor at all times. There are millions of rules, but don’t worry, I’ll go over everything.”

Gina started running back up the stairs. “Come on, hurry up! I’ll show you our room, you’ll be in with me and Ruth and Edith and Ingrid. I’m so glad you’re here; Edith and Ingrid are really boring.”

Lisa was shown a bedroom with two bunk beds and a small army cot wedged against the wall. There was hardly room to walk. Gina pulled open a large drawer and pushed some clothes to the side.