GINA 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?
The station at Whitechapel was marked by a large sign: “London Underground.” She melded into the stream of people passing through the turnstiles, and before she knew it she was stepping onto a large wooden escalator going down, down, down. The tubular passageway was enormous and deep.
Lisa couldn’t imagine how they had ever dug such a hole. At the end of the escalator, the people flowed down a white tile corridor and spilled onto a platform. A train burst through the black opening and screeched to a stop. She stepped across the gap, landing safely aboard the train, and was very proud of herself indeed.
She followed her instructions to Willesden Green station, got off without a hitch, and headed up Walm Lane. On the corner was a shop with the enticing odor of fish and chips, and Lisa watched a large man in work boots through the window as he sprinkled vinegar on the treasure in front of him. She was starving but only had a tup-pence in her pocket. Perhaps Mrs. Glazer had a pot of something stewing on the stove.
Continuing up the street, she saw a woman working in the front garden of a nondescript brick house. The middle-aged lady wore a plain black dress, and her white hair was pulled severely back in a bun.
The woman stared intensely at Lisa as she walked by; the effect was chilling, but she remembered how her mother had told her to be friendly to one’s neighbors. Despite her hunger and exhaustion, she did what the voice inside told her to do.
“Good afternoon! I’m a new neighbor from up the block,” Lisa said.
The scary woman gave a curt nod, then turned back to her vegetables. Lisa shivered and walked on.
The door to the hostel was kept locked from 9 to 4:30 when most of the children were at work. Lisa rang the bell and Mrs. Glazer let her in.
“Any luck?” the cook asked in a friendly tone.
“Yes, I start tomorrow,” Lisa replied, and trying not to sound too desperate, she added, “Is there any lunch left?”
“Of course, we’ll find you something.”
Lisa rested on her bed after eating and enjoyed the eerie quiet of the hostel. Mrs. Cohen was out shopping, and the two youngsters were at the synagogue nearby, learning Hebrew.
She pictured the living room downstairs and the treasure it held. It was now or never, she thought. She got up, went downstairs, and walked to the piano, gently pulling back the shawl that covered it.
Looking around guiltily, she lifted the lid covering the keys. A Bechstein—the professor had told her they were very good pianos. She sat down and stretched her fingers silently over the keys. It had been almost nine months since she had played a piano; would her fingers work at all?
Slowly, she began the opening theme of the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor. With a shiver of delight, she attacked the keyboard in earnest.
She felt a strange sensation—as if someone else were playing and she were only a spectator. She was oblivious to everything. She didn’t notice out the window that the nun had stopped watering the hyacinths next door or that Mrs. Glazer had come out of the kitchen and was peeking in from the foyer.
Finally, during a soft, lyrical passage, Lisa’s reverie was interrupted by footsteps. She turned to see Paul, the blond boy, trying to shut the front door quietly so she wouldn’t be disturbed.
“Please don’t stop, it sounds so lovely,” he said, smiling. Lisa played on as one by one the children arrived home. Even before they could open the door they heard the music, hypnotic and beautiful. Without saying a word, they gathered in the living room, on the stairs—anywhere they could hear.
Edith slithered to the sideboard, took out her knitting, and settled in for the concert.
Somewhere into the third, thunderous movement, Mrs. Cohen came through the door carrying a box of groceries; she stopped and stared. Lisa saw her and immediately stopped playing.
“Listen to Lisa!” Edith said proudly to Mrs. Cohen. “She can play the piano!”
Mrs. Cohen responded with a slight nod and continued on toward the back of the house.
“Don’t stop!” Edith begged Lisa.
“Oh, play something else, please?” asked Gunter, coming over to stand by her side.
Lisa began Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C Minor; she hoped she would remember the notes. Paul came closer, too, and watched in wonder as her nimble fingers flew over the keys.
Thrilled by the attention, Lisa launched into her favorite, “Clair de Lune,” just as Gina came in the door, followed closely by Aaron. When Gina saw her friend at the piano, surrounded by all the boys, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Gina, come listen!” Gunter said.
In spite of her immediate jealousy, Gina came over and stood transfixed by the music.
“You sound just like Myra Hess,” Aaron said, reverently. “You’ve heard about Myra Hess?” Lisa said, her eyes shining at the handsome boy.
“Who is Myra Hess?” Gina said, dying to be included. “A famous pianist, silly.”
“Well, pardon me!” Gina said.
“I’ve seen her at the Royal Albert Hall,” Aaron boasted. “No, you haven’t!” Paul and Gunter said in unison. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t, maybe I’ll get tickets next time she plays,” Aaron said charmingly.
Lisa continued playing the Debussy. The room grew hushed, everyone transfixed by the beauty of the music.
Lisa was the star of dinner; she hardly got to touch her food. Everyone wanted to know where she had learned to play so well and how long she had studied. Gina sat at the other end of the table talking with Edith, unhappy to see her popularity usurped but putting on a good face. Mrs. Cohen watched silently from the head of the table.
After the meal, the matron switched on the large wooden radio in the living room and everyone gathered to listen to the BBC. A reporter was giving details of a British negotiating team, which was headed for Russia, where they would try to make an agreement with the Soviets to block Hitler’s expected advance into Poland. It was August of 1939.
When the broadcast was over, the children resumed their chess games and conversations. As the din of the evening’s social hour got under way, Mrs. Cohen said in her formal voice: “Lisa, would you please follow me to my room.”
Everyone looked up in surprise. Gina looked at Lisa with an expression that said she feared the worst. Lisa followed the large woman to her room in trepidation.
“I see you’ve studied the piano,” Mrs. Cohen said, closing the door behind her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lisa answered, taking in Mrs. Cohen’s small room. It had an old world warmth that reminded her of her parents’ bedroom in Vienna; there was a four-poster bed with a thick duvet, and next to it was a beautiful mahogany dresser topped with photographs in silver frames, porcelain figurines, and a Victrola with a tall stack of 78 rpm records.
“And would you like to practice while you’re here?” Lisa didn’t know if this was a trick question, or what kind of answer was expected. She decided to speak from her heart.
“I would very much like to, if you—”
“My son plays the piano,” Mrs. Cohen said, interrupting.
Lisa hadn’t known there was a son. She didn’t have the nerve to ask where he was, fearing he was trapped somewhere by the Nazi nightmare.
“He is in London, in a special school, but he’ll be coming here soon,” Mrs. Cohen explained in a tone that was devoid of affect. “You may practice for an hour when you come home from work, then you must let the others use the living room for their purposes. If you like, you may play popular songs for us on Sunday.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
“Please close the door as you leave,” Mrs. Cohen said, and Lisa let herself out.
Aaron, Gunter, and Gina were waiting for her. “What happened?” Gina asked, dying of curiosity.
Lisa feigned a snobbish look of superiority and held out her hand as though she expected them to kiss it. “I will be performing in the main chamber for an hour daily. You may attend if you wish.”
“Ooh!” Gina said in mock fury, and chased her up the stairs.