RATIONING WAS announced New Year’s Day. It was 1940. Mrs. Cohen sorted through the coupons on the kitchen counter and muttered to Mrs. Glazer, “Four ounces of meat per week per person? Good grief, these are growing boys and girls.”
She took the coupons to the shops on Walm Lane twice a week to pick up the meager supplies. Luckily, the kosher butcher kept a jar on the counter with a hand-lettered sign—“For Our Needy Refugees”—and used the coins to help the hostel buy additional provisions; occasionally, the greengrocer slipped in something extra. All in all, they got by.
The bulk of the items were parsnips, potatoes, and flour. The children were assigned turns lugging the heavy bags back home, moaning about the disappearance of candy and chocolate from their lives. The rations were mere subsistence; Lisa often felt hunger gnawing at her stomach.
One Saturday, when it was Lisa’s and Gina’s turn, a freak snowstorm transformed the neighborhood from its customary gray to a brilliant white. After synagogue, the two girls broke off from the rest of the group and went to collect the groceries, fastening the bags onto rickety-wheeled trolleys. The sun was shining for a change, and Lisa saw things in the neighborhood she had never noticed before.
There were colorful, reflective strips in the shape of wrenches and hammers pasted on the blackout curtains of the hardware store, and the bric-a-brac shop had a hand-painted mural of a room of antiques. The light stanchions had newly painted zebra stripes to ward off the rash of car accidents that had begun the night the streetlights were turned off. It all put her into a merry mood, and the two girls skidded home on the icy sidewalks, laughing their way down Willesden Lane into the gigantic crossfire of a serious snowball fight.
The hostel had divided up into teams by rooms, and the boys and girls were pelting each other mercilessly. Lisa and Gina became instant fodder for the cannonballs of snow, so they were forced to fight back with everything they had—turnips and potatoes (the vegetables flew better and took less time to produce than snowballs)—and soon several of the little boys were sobbing from direct hits.
“I’m sorry, Leo! I didn’t mean it,” Lisa said with contrition, but ten-year-old Leo responded by stuffing a huge wad of snow down her back.
“Truce!” someone yelled, and Johnny came forward and comforted the crying children by rolling an enormous snowball and beginning a snowman. Everyone pitched in and the snowball became life-size. Gina hit upon the idea of decorating the face with a green turnip top. She stuck it on to make a mustache, and everybody gasped.
“Der Führer has arrived,” she said in an eerie voice. “Let’s kill him!” someone shouted.
The younger boys leapt on the snowman, and in seconds the effigy was pummeled into slush.
The front door opened and Mrs. Cohen came out on the porch and surveyed the soggy groceries with displeasure. Turnips and potatoes littered the front yard, and her expression alone was enough to send everyone scurrying to pick them up.
“Aaron, Paul? Please come here for a moment.”
Mrs. Cohen was carrying a bucket of black tar and handed it to them. “Mrs. Knight at 156 would like our help, her roof is leaking. I want you two boys to find a brush and help her.”
Paul took the pail from her, but Aaron hung back, saying to no one in particular, “Isn’t it convenient to have all these refugees to work all the time.”
Mrs. Cohen overheard and turned to him. “Aaron, I’m tired of your thinking that you are somehow above these things. And I’m also tired of your thinking you don’t have to obey the same rules as everyone else. If you are late for a meal one more time without a good excuse, we will not serve you, understood?”
Aaron pretended he wasn’t affected by her words and turned and left with Paul. Lisa watched him and worried. What worried her most was that she liked him too much. He was trouble; and she knew she should stay away.
Lisa and Gina hurried to finish kitchen duty, carrying the soggy bags of produce to Mrs. Glazer in the kitchen.
“Downstairs, please, but leave some potatoes here,” the cook said to Gina, directing her to the tiny cellar below. “Here, Lisa,” she said, handing her a large knife. “Peel me fifteen potatoes, would you, please?”
Lisa was beginning her task as Mrs. Cohen came into the kitchen. She stared at Lisa’s snow-reddened hands holding the poised knife.
“She is not to use knives, Mrs. Glazer,” the matron said matter-of-factly, handing the sharp utensil back to the cook. “Please come here, Lisa, I want to introduce you to someone.”
Mrs. Cohen escorted Lisa to the living room, past several girls who were vacuuming and dusting, over to a boy in his early teens who sat calmly on the couch. He had neatly combed hair and was wearing dark glasses.
“This is my son, Hans. He was hoping you could play something for him.”
“Hello,” Lisa said shyly.
“He will be staying at the hostel with us,” Mrs. Cohen added with her usual formality, then turned and left them alone.
“Thank you for the use of your music; I hope you didn’t mind,” Lisa said.
“Not a problem. I won’t be needing it,” he said with an odd sarcasm. “Would you play something by Debussy?”
“ ‘Clair de Lune’?” she offered.
“How about ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair’?” he replied.
“I don’t know it.”
“There is a copy of the music there.”
“I’m terrible at sight-reading.”
“Please?” he asked.
Trapped, Lisa leafed through the stack of music and found the piece. She hated to sight-read because she was so bad at it, but fortunately the piece was simple, and she muddled through the first page. When she saw the complicated second page she stopped, too much of a perfectionist to allow herself any more mistakes. “I’ll play you the ‘Clair de Lune.’ ” Without waiting for a response, she launched into her favorite piece.
“Mother was right, you play beautifully—it almost makes me feel there might be something nice left in the world,” Hans said when it was over. He had a sad, resigned air about him.
“Won’t you play me something now?” she asked. There was a long silence before he spoke. “Yes, I will, if you’ll help me to the piano.”
It was only then that she realized Hans was blind. She got up, took him by the arm, and led him to the piano.
“Please show me middle C.”
She put his thumb on the proper key, then hesitantly, he began “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” playing with warmth and determination. “I’m sorry, but it’s the only piece I remember by heart.”
Listening to him play, a profound feeling overtook her. How lucky I am, she thought. She had spent so much time thinking about how terrible things were and how worried she felt about her parents and Rosie that she hadn’t had time to be grateful—grateful for Sonia’s escape, grateful for her own freedom. She knew God had given her a gift, and she vowed to use this gift to its fullest. She would practice and practice; she would fulfill the promise she had made to her mother.