BRITAIN READIED itself for the German attack. Posters were slapped on subway walls, some showing dashing air force pilots in leather jackets, others showing German soldiers parachuting from the sky—“How to Recognize the Enemy,” they said, and described the German eagle-wing insignias to watch out for. Londoners walked around looking up, convinced the Nazis would be arriving at any moment.
The London Zoo brought its animals inside, stuffing boa constrictors and cheetahs into sturdy crates. Antiaircraft guns were set up in Hyde Park, and in a confusing attempt to throw the enemy off guard, road signs were uprooted throughout the city. Lisa was grateful she already knew her way around.
The assembly line at Platz & Sons was immediately switched over to the full-time production of uniforms, and Lisa’s floor now cut and stitched trousers for the Royal Navy. Flared bell-bottoms flew out of her machine, and she let her mind wander to the brave midshipmen who would soon be wearing them. Perhaps even Monty would get a pair.
One day, Mrs. McRae, the line manager, seemed less chatty than usual, and at lunch, Lisa overheard the other girls talking about the news.
“Mr. McRae has been shipped to France already! Did you hear? Last night, real sudden-like, with no warning at all. For God’s sake, don’t they have any concern for the missuses?”
“Now, how are they going to keep a secret if we know about it? U-boats’d get ’em ’fore you count to ten.”
“Guess you’re right. But they’re going to smash them stinkin’ Jerries, aren’t they. It’ll be over before Easter.”
Lisa listened to their conversation but didn’t feel enough at ease to join in. They talked so fast with their Cockney accents, it was all she could do to catch half of what they said. She imagined the dark expanse of the English Channel, the gray sky she had seen almost a year ago now, and pictured the men setting out to sea.
She was so grateful they were going; she’d sew a million uniforms for them if that’s what was needed!
Now that she’d become a permanent member of the hostel, Lisa was given her own drawer in the bureau which she filled with her music, the hairnets she needed for the factory, and several new scarves that she had sewn for herself during lunch break. The scarves were just pieces of cloth she had rescued from the boxes of donated clothes, but they gave her a fashionable flair, and made her think of her older sister, Rosie. Rosie! Where was her beautiful older sister now? Was she safe?
The hour from six to seven was a favorite time for everyone to gather in the living room and listen to Lisa practice. Since the gift of Mrs. Cohen’s sheet music, she no longer had to play only the pieces she knew by heart. Part of every session was an adventurous struggle through difficult new pieces, and she longed for her mother’s guidance. When the effort to learn something new was too tiring for her already exhausted fingers, she would lapse into her favorite, the Grieg piano concerto. She played the unforgettable first bars, Dum dum, da dum dum, and invariably, someone from the “committee” would hum the musical response: Dum dum dum da dum. The heroic and tender passages of the Grieg piano concerto had worked their way inside everyone’s heads, and the musical response to the opening bars had become the call to arms for a committee meeting. Aaron had been the first to do it, and the habit had stuck.
Sometimes, Gunter would sit on the piano bench to be closer to the beautiful music. His round, horn-rimmed glasses made him look a bit like a junior version of Professor Isseles. As Lisa had gotten to know Gunter, she had come to love his sweet and gentle manner. He had grown up in Cologne, where his father had owned a hardware shop, and he loved to play chess. Lisa liked his company on the bench and sometimes shared the images of the music that her mother had instilled in her.
“Hear that? That’s the sound of the deep blue of the fjords.”
Gunter smiled.
“Grieg was from Norway, so I picture this as a summer’s night when the sun never sets. Can you see it? Low in the sky.” She played the end of the elegant slow movement, then exhaled quickly and launched into a staccato dance.
“Ta ta ti da, ta ta ti da,” she hummed along. “Those are the peasants dancing.”
“Must be exhausting,” Gunter said, making her laugh. Promptly at seven Mrs. Glazer announced dinner, and the children rushed to the dining room. As Lisa tidied up her music, she noticed that Johnny “King Kong” still sat in the corner. She looked over at him, and he put his notebook down and clapped. She smiled back and hurried to join the others.
Gina’s and Lisa’s beds were next to each other, and the two girls whispered confidences after lights out. One night Gina suddenly asked, “Have you ever had a boyfriend?”
“Of course not!” Lisa blurted out honestly.
“I did,” Gina said in a conspiratorial voice.
“In Vienna?”
“Uh huh.”
“What was his name?” Lisa asked, riveted.
“Walter.”
“Did he get out, too?”
“He didn’t have to. He wasn’t Jewish.”
“You had a gentile boyfriend?” Lisa asked, scandalized. “Why shouldn’t I?”
Lisa didn’t say anything. Sometimes Gina was too confusing to her.
Gina continued her story. “He came to the train to say good-bye and brought me a flower.”
Suddenly Gina bounded out of bed and fumbled through a drawer in the dark, coming up with a sweet-smelling box. Lisa peered at it through the almost total darkness but made out the form of a dried flower.
“I can still see him standing there when I left. His pants were really wide and they were flapping in the wind—they made so much noise.”
“Do you miss him?” Lisa asked.
“Not really. I don’t really remember what he looks like anymore,” came the matter-of-fact answer. Gone was the scattered gossipy air about Gina that had bothered Lisa in the beginning. Now they were closer than ever—she had found “a best friend,” someone to help fill the hole of not having her sisters near her.
“Do you like Gunter?” Lisa ventured.
“I don’t know. He seems kind of soft.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing. I bet you he’ll make a lot of money when he gets older.”
“You think so?”
As the girls whispered, they heard humming coming from outside the door and down the stairs—it was unmistakable.
“Dum, dum, da dum, dum.” The opening bars of the Grieg!
Shivering in delight, they scuttled out of bed, trying not to wake Edith as they slipped their coats over their nightgowns and jammed their bare feet into their shoes.
The humming came again, followed by a quick whistle. Tiptoeing down the stairs into the dark foyer, they saw the front door was open. Gunter and Aaron were standing on the porch, peering at the sky through binoculars.
“What are you doing?” Gina asked excitedly.
“We’re spotting German planes,” Gunter said with importance.
“Follow us! Quick!” Aaron said, sticking a matchbook in the door as it closed so it wouldn’t lock them out.
“It’s after curfew,” Lisa whispered.
“We’re official plane spotters, come on, hurry up.”
“Where did you get the binoculars?” Lisa asked, not convinced.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Ooh, don’t say that, it makes me nervous!”
“We got them from the air raid warden. We’ve been asking every night, and finally he let us be spotters,” said Gunter.
The girls were led to the unlocked front door of the convent next door and up two flights of stairs. A ladder lay waiting under an open hatch, and they clambered through it onto a large flat portion of the slate roof.
“Mein Gott im Himmel!” Lisa exclaimed, looking up at the extraordinary sight. The blackout of London had produced a wondrous celestial show rivaling the greatest planetarium. The moon had not yet risen, and the white band of the Milky Way seemed close enough to touch; the brightest stars twinkled like fairy dust.
Aaron got proudly to work. There were several blankets on the roof already, and he stretched one out and lay down, putting the field glasses to his eyes.
“We’re looking for two kinds of bombers, the Dornier Do 17 and the Heinkel He 111,” he said, scouring the heavens.
“Well, aren’t you Mr. Know-it-all?” said Gina.
“The Dornier looks like a pencil, the Heinkel is rounder.”
Gunter spread out another blanket and all four of them lay side by side, looking straight up into the sky.
Nothing moved. They looked and looked.
“What happens if you see something?” Gina asked. “You blow this whistle and the block air raid warden will hear you.”
Gina and Lisa shared an impressed look.
“Let me try,” Lisa said.
Aaron handed her the binoculars and showed her how to focus. She put them to her eyes and waved them around unprofessionally.
“You look like you’re chasing mosquitoes.”
Lisa slowed her motion and her vision came to rest on a close-up of a human face. She screamed, dropping the glasses. Everyone stared in the direction of her gaze. A neighbor, perched on the roof three houses over, waved at them. All of London was pitching in.
From then on, the “committee” met on the roof every Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes Paul joined them, but often not; he had become more withdrawn since the failure to get his brother out of Germany. Lisa worried about him.
“Go back and get Paul,” she pressed Aaron as they trekked across the lawn.
“Oh, let him sleep,” Aaron said.
“No! I want you to get him.”
“I’ll go,” offered Gunter, ever the gentleman.
One night it was colder than usual, and all five huddled close under blankets.
The evening’s chatter was usually organized by Gina, who either told gossip from the factory, made observations about the royal family, or introduced a challenge, as she did tonight.
“Let’s each tell something embarrassing.”
Gunter groaned. “You go first.”
“All right, I will.” Gina launched into a rambling account of the time when she’d been a servant and had made some arcane faux pas that the others didn’t understand. Her stories always ended by making the point that her family was very wealthy and she knew more about silver service in particular or culture in general than the English upper class.
“That’s not embarrassing,” complained Lisa.
“Then you tell us something,” Gina countered. “Remember I told you about the castle? I was caught once throwing out the nappies, because they were so disgusting I was going to vomit.”
“You already told me about that, it doesn’t count!” Gina said.
“I’ll tell you something,” Aaron said, his voice taking on a seriousness it usually didn’t have. “I’ll tell you something, if you want.”
“Of course we do,” said Gina.
Aaron rolled onto his back, staring into the sky. “When I first came to England, I was sent to a little town near the Scottish border—to work in the stables. It turned out the lady who sponsored me had a little dairy farm. It was freezing all the time. I had to sleep in the barn on a cot, but I piled straw all around it, so I guess it wasn’t so bad. When everyone was called up, her husband joined the army—the day after he left she had me move inside.”
Aaron paused, as if he wondered whether to continue. “And?” asked Paul.
“She didn’t want me to move the cot inside though, she wanted me to sleep in her bed.”
The words fell heavily on Lisa; she didn’t know why but she didn’t want to hear what came next. Aaron sensed the mood of the group and went silent.
“Did you sleep with her?” Paul insisted.
Aaron didn’t answer for a long time, as if he wished he could take it all back. “What do you think?” he tried to say ambiguously, but the friends looked at this handsome, arrogant boy and knew the answer.
Lisa didn’t know whether she liked this Aaron anymore. Why had he shared this? It made her uneasy.
Gunter had been listening quietly; there were tears in his eyes.
“Gunter! What’s the matter?” Gina asked gently.
“I was thinking about the birds and bees—when my father tried to tell me about the facts of life,” he answered, his voice trailing off.
“And?” Gina asked.
Gunter was silent.
“Oh, please tell us,” she coaxed.
“It was the day I was to leave Cologne. The transport left at midnight, so there was a lot of time after dinner, and my mother asked him, just like that. She said, “Take your son and tell him what fathers tell sons.’ So we left the house and started walking around the block. My father hadn’t spoken much since we’d decided about the Kinder-transport . . . he had been awarded the Iron Cross in the Great War, fighting for Germany, and now they’d smashed his shop and were sending me away.”
Gunter started to cry.
“What did he say?” Gina asked.
“He never said anything because he couldn’t stop crying.”
Gina took his hand and squeezed it tight.
As weeks passed and there was no sign of Germans, the chill of winter made the rooftop adventure less attractive, so the Willesden boys gave the binoculars back to the warden. Months went by without the sighting of a single German bomber, and many Britons became convinced it had all been a false alarm. Half of the 800,000 parents with young children who had left for the countryside returned home and England played a waiting game. Even the 150,000 soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, who had been sent across the Channel, were waiting, hunkered down in muddy barns in Belgium and France.
One day, Mrs. Cohen asked the Kinder to move their bedding back to the hostel from the convent bomb shelter, and the normal life of the hostel resumed—if anyone dared call it that.
Lisa’s waiting also continued. When Hanukkah came, a promised visit from Sonia was postponed. In spite of the lull, people said London was still too dangerous.