The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond The Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival (9 page)

“Here, you can share this drawer with Edith, she won’t mind.”

The beds were neatly made, and nothing in the room was out of place.

“Where is everyone?” Lisa asked.

“Everybody’s working! We all have jobs. You’ll have to get one, too, you know. I’m only here because I help Mrs. Cohen do the books on Fridays—because my English is so good. The matron speaks dreadfully, but she doesn’t care, she’s old and doesn’t need to impress anybody.”

Lisa put down the suitcase and went to the window. She surveyed the large lawn where two ten-year-old boys were playing soccer. “That’s Arnold and Shepsel. They’re too young to work, so they get to play all day, the creeps,” explained her exuberant roommate.

Gina headed out the door. “Come on, come on! I’ll show you the washroom. There’s only one for all seventeen girls, and we’re not allowed to use the boys’ upstairs unless we’re dying or something.” Lisa looked at the small bathroom with its gleaming white bathtub and tried to conjure up the image of seventeen girls fighting for a place in front of the mirror.

The tour continued. She was shown the third floor where the boys slept, met the cook, a blond Czechoslovakian named Mrs. Glazer, and was told too many rules to remember. Curfew was ten, lights out ten-thirty, no food allowed in the bedrooms (for fear of mice), hot bath once a week (to save coal), telephone calls no longer than one minute (egg timer on the table), chores on Saturday, obligatory picnic Sundays (to boost morale).

Gina kept chattering and laughing and gossiping about everything and everyone. Lisa tried to follow it all, but she could hardly keep her eyes open. She heard herself offer a weak thank-you and fell onto the cot for a nap. She’d had a difficult twenty-four hours.

When she awoke, the house was transformed by the commotion of thirty-two children. German and Yiddish and Czech and English mixed together in the hall. The smell of roasting meat drifted into the room while the sounds of loud footsteps mixed with the screeching of chairs and tables from downstairs.

“Hurry up! You’re late, I let you nap as long as I could!” Gina said. “Mrs. Cohen will have our heads if we’re late for
Shabbes.”

Shabbes!
Lisa had forgotten it was Friday.
Shabbes!
It had been six months without it. She looked out the window and saw that the sun was setting. Jumping up, she combed her hair, smoothed her skirt the best she could, and ran downstairs.

The thirty-two children ranged in age from ten to seventeen and sat at two long tables in the dining room. Chairs and stools of varying heights had been pressed into service. The ones on stools couldn’t fit their legs under the table. The room was so tightly packed that some of the children had to crawl under the table to reach the chairs on the other side. Gina had graciously saved the seat next to her for Lisa, who was the last to arrive. She felt like she was sitting down to dinner at a carnival merry-go-round. A hush fell over the room and all eyes turned to Mrs. Cohen, who made a gesture to Mrs. Glazer.

The cook then lit the two candles and moved her arms in the circular gesture of the
berachah,
saying, “Blessed art Thou, King of the Universe, Who commands us to kindle the Sabbath candles.”

Lisa recited the prayer along with the others, feeling like crying because of the deep feeling it evoked in her. It was the first time someone other than her mother had lit the candles, and she ached for her presence.

Then the challah bread was blessed and passed around the table; each child broke off a piece and ate.

It was Mrs. Glazer again who began the prayer over the wine. Gina leaned over and whispered conspiratorially to Lisa. “Mrs. Glazer has to do it because Mrs. Cohen doesn’t know the words. Somebody said she doesn’t like to admit she’s Jewish!”

When the prayers were over, the children attacked the platters of food, spooning the chicken and dumplings and string beans onto their plates. The girls assigned to kitchen duty got up from the table to ferry additional items to and from the kitchen.

Partway through the meal, Mrs. Cohen tapped her fork against her water glass and cleared her throat. “We have a new girl tonight, Lisa Jura. She is from Vienna. I want all of you to take the time after dinner to introduce yourselves to her courteously.”

The instant Mrs. Cohen stopped speaking, the children resumed eating, hardly missing a beat. Lisa was momentarily hurt by the lack of interest, but Gina leaned over to explain. “There’s always somebody coming or going—after dinner I’ll introduce you to the interesting people, don’t worry.”

The children ate as rapidly as possible, knowing that the special food of
Shabbes
disappeared more quickly than the ordinary fare. The faster one ate, the more food one got.

Mrs. Cohen tried to preserve some dignity by slowing down the worst offenders. “Nathan? Put your fork down and count to twenty. Let someone else have a dumpling, would you?”

When the food was gone, Mrs. Cohen again tapped her fork on her wineglass. “Does anyone have any news they would like to share?”

Everyone quieted down.

“I understand you received a letter today, Paul,” she continued, turning to a blond sixteen-year-old with wavy hair. “Is it something you’d like to talk about?”

Paul felt all eyes turn his way; he wiped his mouth neatly and folded his napkin. “My parents have written to say they are no longer in Berlin. Their apartment has been taken away.”

The others listened carefully to Paul as he said the difficult words. “They have gone to live with people they know in Munich, but they aren’t sure they’ll be able to stay there long. They are looking for visas to Shanghai; I hope my brother will be coming soon on the train.”

As they all listened, each child thought of his own parent, his own nightmare, his own hope.

Lisa thought of her parents and wondered if they would be able to stay in their apartment. She looked around the table at the others and saw her own sadness mirrored in their faces. They shared a terrible anxiety. It was odd, she thought, how being with others like herself made her fears easier to endure. Part of the weight of the great loneliness she had felt since her arrival in England was lifting. Now, maybe, she could almost bear the long wait until she could see her mother and father again.

After dinner, the younger boys raced to the living room and took dibs on who would be first at the game boards. Two dark-haired boys sat down at the chess set and resumed their game. Several of the girls pulled out their knitting bags; soon there was a clacking of needles. Because it was the Sabbath, the large wooden radio set in the corner was silent.

Gina took Lisa’s arm and sat her next to her on the sofa, determined to be the arbiter of all news about “who was who.”

“See the boys playing chess? The one facing us is Gunter. He’s got a crush on me, but I’m still deciding. The other one is a dreamboat, but he has a girlfriend, the rat. Oh, by the way, whatever you do, don’t disturb Mrs. Cohen after dinner. See that door?”

Lisa turned around and saw a closed door at the end of the downstairs hallway.

“That’s her room. People say she’s got gold and jewels stashed inside. I don’t think anyone’s ever been there, though.”

The front door opened and a sixteen-year-old with a leather jacket walked in with a swagger. Lisa’s eyes widened at his handsome arrogance. Gina waved at him.

“Aaron, come here a minute, meet the new girl,” said Gina. “This is Lisa.”

“Hi, I’m Aaron,” the boy replied easily, with a bright white smile.

“Hi,” she said, fascinated by the unshaven stubble on his chin.

“I hope you don’t believe anything Gina’s telling you, I’m sure none of it’s true,” he joked.

“Aaron! What a mean thing to say!” Gina said with every ounce of charm she possessed.

“Just kidding,” he said, winking, then headed for the kitchen.

“Why is he here so late?” Lisa asked, curious to find out more about him.

“He’s the mystery man, isn’t that fabulous?”

The rest of the evening brought a parade of nice faces saying polite words to Lisa. Only one person didn’t come forward, a very large boy who had spent the evening writing in a notebook. He was more than six feet tall, and his forearms and biceps were gigantic.

“Who’s that?” Lisa asked.

“That’s Johnny, otherwise known as Johnny ‘King Kong,’ Gina said, snickering.

“Johnny what?” Lisa asked.

“Didn’t you see the movie
King Kong?
King Kong is a big ape just like him!”

“That’s not very nice,” Lisa said.

“It’s just a nickname, silly.”

But Lisa still thought it was an insult and resolved to be nice to the hulking boy with the serious face. “What’s he writing?”

“How would I know? He doesn’t show it to anybody,” Gina answered.

At ten-thirty it was lights out. Putting her head on the pillow, Lisa heard wave after wave of polite nice-to-meet-yous drifting through her brain and realized she couldn’t remember anybody’s name.

Gina was still gossiping when Lisa fell asleep on the bed next to her.

9

G
INA TOLD
Lisa that she was sure the garment factory in the East End, where she worked, needed more girls on the assembly line. Almost all the children of 243 Willesden Lane had jobs; and three-quarters of the salaries of each went to the hostel coffers for room and board.

Lisa begged Gina to go by bus—the huge double-decker red bus that fascinated her so. What she didn’t say was that the idea of the underground train she’d heard about terrified her—and she didn’t want Gina to think she was a scaredy-cat. The two new friends walked down Willesden Lane, past Paddington Cemetery to Kilburn High Street where a dozen people were queuing up neatly. The bus rumbled up several minutes later and they got on, running up the spiral staircase to the top deck.

The second-story view was divine. Lisa looked out excitedly as they sped down Edgeware Road to the Marble Arch, where the magnificent expanse of Hyde Park began. Elegant women were pushing wicker prams, and obedient pugs, corgis, and spaniels were held tight by their leashes. London was mercifully crowded and civilized, a welcome change from the slow pace of the countryside near Brighton.

Gina shared some of her early adventures with Lisa. She, too, had been assigned a servant’s job when she first arrived, in a large family home in Sussex, and she, too, had found a way to leave.

The other fact that bonded them was that they were both from Vienna.

“Didn’t you love the opera house? Isn’t it the most beautiful place in the world?” Gina asked.

“Yes, oh, yes,” Lisa fibbed. She had never been inside the Vienna Grand Court Opera House she had so admired from a distance. Only rich people could afford the opera, and Lisa soon realized from her new friend’s descriptions of fur coats and oil paintings, silver and servants, that Gina’s family background was worlds removed from her own on Franzenbrückestrasse.

The two girls, however, shared the same worry about the fate of their parents. Gina spoke about the letters from her parents and how they had been forced to wear yellow stars and carry identification cards with the large letter J. Lisa was aghast.

She stared into the street below, taking in the recruitment posters for the RAF and the piles of sandbags; she realized that Britain was also worried about Hitler. First Austria, then Sudetenland, then Czechoslovakia; who would be next? Would the Nazis come here? The huge block letters of the poster advertising the
Evening Standard
spelled the day’s headline:
POLAND TREMBLES
.

“Look! Look! That’s where the king and queen live,” Gina yelled over the noise of the bus. They had turned left and were passing the gold-tipped metal gates in front of Buckingham Palace.

Lisa strained to get a glimpse of royalty but could see no one but the palace guards in their huge bearskin helmets.

“The princess is the same age as I am,” Gina said proudly.

“Who’s the princess?” Lisa asked, hating to sound so naive.

“Princess Elizabeth! She’s fifteen!”

How thrilling to be so close to something so exciting, so royal. Lisa was beginning to like this England. And I’m the same age as the Princess, too, she thought.

The bus wove through the crowded financial district and crossed the Thames River at Tower Bridge. Before them lay the docks and warehouses; huge cranes lined the river, loading waiting barges with all manner of crates and machinery.

The garment factory was in the predominantly Jewish part of the Cockney East End and was a three-story brick building with folding warehouse doors that read “Platz & Sons” in faded letters. Inside were long rows of sewing machines, with scores of women in scarves bent over them, making a deafening racket. The air was stale and filled with dust.

Seeing her friend’s startled expression, Gina laughed: “You’ll get used to it,” and brought Lisa over to meet the foreman, Mr. Dimble. She kissed her friend good-bye and went to work.

Mr. Dimble motioned for her to follow him into a crowded office. “Ever use a sewing machine before?” he asked quickly, sparing the niceties.

“Yes, my father is a tailor.”

“Let’s get a little taste of it, then,” he said, and ushered her back onto the floor. “Mabel, stand up for a second, would you kindly?”

A woman in her forties with thick glasses stood up. Mr. Dimble picked up two pieces of navy blue cloth from the floor, placed them together, and handed the fabric to Lisa.

“Let’s give it a try.”

Lisa sat confidently at the machine, lifted the presser foot, inserted the two pieces of cloth, and pushed the foot pedal. She produced a perfectly straight seam.

“You’re hired,” Mr. Dimble said. “Come back tomorrow morning—eight-thirty—and we’ll set you up. Come to the office and I’ll go over your papers.”

Lisa handed him her alien registration book, which he stamped and handed back.

Thanking him profusely, she left and looked for Gina down the line of machines, but bolts of cloth and mannequins blocked her view. She waved anyway, and several nice ladies waved back.

The foreman had explained that the best way back to London northwest was by the underground and that the station was just a block away. Buoyed by the optimism her employment had brought her, she decided to give it a go. How scary could it be?