The Last Train to London

by Meg Waite Clayton

  “Žofie-Helene will find Stephan, I promise you that, Frau Neuman. I called her the moment I learned of this effort. She and Johanna are already holding a place in the line for your boys. We’ll find Stephan, and I’ll arrange to send the boys together so that he can watch out for Walter. But we must go now.”

  “Walter,” the boy’s mother said without hesitation, now with a strength that surprised Otto, “let’s get your suitcase.”

  Walter handed Frau Neuman his little stuffed rabbit and wrapped his arms around her neck.

  Otto said, “I believe this is just to register. I’ll send Žofie-Helene for a suitcase for Walter if it’s more than that, but I am quite sure this is just to register.”

  The poor woman removed Walter’s arms from her neck and kissed him desperately.

  “You must go with Herr Perger,” she said to the boy. “Be a good boy and go. Do exactly as he says.”

  Walter said, “Peter will stay here to watch over you, Mutti.”

  Any Child Who is in Danger

  Otto eyed the long line. There couldn’t be six hundred already, could there? Not if you excluded the adults, he didn’t think. “There they are, Walter!” he said, spotting Žofie-Helene standing with Johanna in her arms.

  Walter looked mutely up at him. The boy hadn’t said a word since they’d left the little apartment. He was so young. How could he possibly imagine what they had in mind for him?

  Otto led the boy to join his granddaughters, Johanna saying as they reached them, “Žozo, I’m cold.”

  Žofie-Helene snuggled her to be warmer. “It’s okay, my little mausebär,” she said. “I’ll keep you warm. I’ll take care of you.”

  A woman in front of them in line—a striking young mother with lilac eyes and perfect eyebrows, fine collarbones, and a baby in her arms—said, “Aren’t you a good big sister?” Did the mother really mean to send her infant away to England? She stood with an older woman whose granddaughter, a little redhead whose left eye turned in, hung on her skirts.

  “Do the children need to be here to be registered for the transport?” Otto asked them as he took Johanna from Žofie.

  “Why is that woman watching us?” Žofie-Helene asked, and they all looked in the same direction at the same time—the grandmother with the cross-eyed redhead and the beautiful mother with the baby and Otto himself, as if Žofie’s words had put point to their sense that they were being watched.

  A pale, foreign-looking woman stood apart from the line some distance away, seeming to belong here, and yet not—a woman with a strong chin and nose and brow, a mouth so wide it might be cruel were it not softened by gentle gray eyes. She shifted, registering the discomfort in the faces returning her gaze, then lifted one yellow-gloved hand in acknowledgment and carried on into the building, striding as easily as if she owned the synagogue.

  “They do,” the grandmother said. And at Otto’s puzzled expression, “The children do need to be here to be registered for the transport. They’re taking photos and giving medical exams.”

  “Žofie, I need you to go find Stephan,” Otto said. “Get him to come here and get in line. Walter and Johanna and I will hold the place, but run and get him if you can. I’ve told their mother I would register them both. That’s what they’re doing here. They’re organizing for Jewish children to get to safety in England.”

  “And others,” the pretty mother said.

  “Other places than England?” Otto asked.

  “Other children. Not just Jews.”

  Otto put a hand on Žofie’s shoulder before she could run off, saying to the women, “They’re taking non-Jews?”

  “The children of Communists and political opponents.”

  “Do you think they might take my granddaughters? Their mother has been arrested for publishing a newspaper critical of the Reich.”

  The women eyed him skeptically.

  “Our Žofie-Helene, she’s a mathematics prodigy,” he said. “She’s been tutored at the university since she was nine. By Professor Kurt Gödel, who is very famous. She could study in England.”

  The grandmother said, “We’re not the ones you have to convince.”

  “Any child who is in danger,” the lilac-eyed mother said. “That’s what Herr Friedmann said. They have to be healthy, is all. Healthy and not yet eighteen.”

  Otto struggled with his own conscience, and quickly lost.

  “Žofie-Helene, you need to stay here,” he said.

  “I’ll be back, Grandpapa. I won’t miss our turn, I promise. If I can’t find Stephan quickly, I’ll come back.” And she was running off already, leaving Otto calling after her, caught between wanting to stop her lest something happen to her and knowing that if something happened to young Stephan, he would never forgive himself.

  “I’m cold, Grandpapa,” Johanna said.

  Otto pulled the child to him, cold himself now. Cold with the fright of the choice he faced, the choice Frau Neuman had confronted so boldly. Could he send his grandchildren off to a country where they didn’t even speak the language? And if he did, would he ever see them again? Would Käthe ever forgive him, or would she want him to send them away?

  Walter handed his scarf up to Johanna. “You can have my scarf,” he said. “I’m not too cold.”

  Our Different Gods

  Truus entered the main synagogue on Seitenstettengasse, where the long line from outside continued around the burned-out shell of the main hall and snaked upstairs to circle the women’s gallery, which had survived the night of synagogue fires. It was up there that she found Herr Friedmann orchestrating volunteers at folding tables and others with clipboards in hand, sending children one way or another. A teenage girl disappeared behind a curtain for a medical exam. A boy was having his photo taken. Herr Friedmann ushered Truus to a quieter corner, still in view of the line.

  “How did you get the word out so fast?” she asked.

  “So many of us are confined to a single neighborhood,” Herr Friedmann said. “The miracle is that these parents have told each other. The problem will not be finding enough children, but having too many.”

  “And the medical exams?” Truus asked. “We need to assure the British that the children are healthy—truly healthy. Any problems in this first transport will jeopardize any future—”

  “As healthy as malnourished children can be,” Herr Friedmann interrupted. “Our doctors will make sure of that. It is the blessing of our doctors being deprived of earning their living in Nazi Vienna that they are free to show up here on a moment’s notice, as they have.”

  “There will clearly be no issue with gathering six hundred,” Truus said. “The question will be sorting which should go. Can we assess who are at highest risk and take them on the first train?”

  “The most at risk are the oldest boys,” Herr Friedmann said. “Those in work camps whose mothers stand in line for them.”

  Older boys would be the hardest to place in Britain. Families would want to take in babies, but they simply couldn’t manage to transport babies in this short amount of time and with so few adult chaperones.

  “Can we assess the health of boys in camps and get their photos taken?” she asked.

  Desider Friedmann conceded that they could not.

  “All right, then we are back to where we started: children here, between four and seventeen,” Truus said. The cutest little ones, she thought, but did not say. Cute little children the parents of England could imagine were their own. “Let’s make sure we take enough older girls to help with the little ones on the train. The older girls will be relatively easy to place. They can serve as informal domestics when they get to England.”

  Desider Friedmann said, “These children are not meant to be domestics, Frau Wijsmuller.”

  The faces of the mothers across the room were filled with dread and hope. Any one of them would be happy to serve as a domestic in England, to be near her children. Informal domestics. The idea had not been Truus’s own.

  “Herr Fri
edmann, we must be practical,” she said. “These first children must be placed quickly.”

  Friedmann said, “I’m told there are holiday camps—”

  “If the holiday camps fill, the British will be reluctant to accept more children unless there are homes already arranged for them.” Another idea not her own. But Norman and Helen Bentwich had been right: Who was she to question Britain’s generosity in welcoming these children in whatever manner they would? Her own country would grant them no more than passage by train from the border with Germany to ferries at Hook of Holland. “And arranging homes takes more time than we have,” she said. “Well, perhaps we could note the quality of the children’s table manners and the extent of their English? Children who can speak English will be easier to place, and good manners will stand them in good stead. We might even teach them a few English phrases and give preference to quick learners.”

  “We have only until Saturday,” Herr Friedmann said.

  “Yes, of course,” Truus said. So much to do. So many children.

  “There must be more than six hundred children in line already,” Herr Friedmann said, “and we are to decide who escapes? We are to play God?”

  The long line wrapped around the women’s gallery, down to the burned-out main hall and out the door onto the street—so many parents waiting patiently for the chance to send their children off to a land where they knew no one, with customs they couldn’t fathom, a language they did not speak. Adorable youngsters who would be easy to place, some of them, but also unruly boys, and girls like the cross-eyed redhead Truus had seen in the line outside. She ought not to have stared at the girl, but it had broken her heart to imagine that beautiful child lined up for prospective parents to choose, or not.

  She said to Herr Friedmann, “‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’” She started to say “Corinthians,” but it was the New Testament, the word of her God but not his. She said instead simply, “Who are we, Herr Friedmann, to question the order in which God brings his children to us?”

  Paper Trail

  In the cocoa storeroom, Žofie-Helene took a middle sheet from the clipboard and tore it into pieces, working quickly in the dim light of the storeroom flashlight, aware that at any moment someone from Neuman’s Chocolates upstairs might come down and find her. She wrote on one scrap Come to the synagogue behind St. Rupert’s now! We’re in line for a train to England with W—

  She scratched out the W and wrote your brother.

  She repeated the message on the other scraps, then pocketed them and hung the clipboard back in its place. She took the flashlight with her as she ducked under the stairway and descended the ladder into the lower cavern, where she folded one of the notes in half and balanced it over one of the ladder rungs.

  Back in the tunnel, she tucked a note into the octagonal manhole atop the circular stairs. She hurried up the tunnel to the crypt under St. Stephen’s to tuck a note there. One at the convent. The Talmud school. Where else had Stephan been keen to show her?

  With the last note still in hand, she hurried back to see where Grandpapa was in line. She still had some time.

  She pulled the flashlight from her coat pocket again and hurried through the tunnels in the other direction, all the way to the exit across the canal from Leopoldstadt, nearest the apartment where Stephan’s mother now lived.

  Binary

  Žofie-Helene hurried to the head of the line at the synagogue, where Grandpapa waited with Johanna and Walter behind the lilac-eyed mother with the baby and the grandmother with the redheaded girl.

  “Ach, Žofie-Helene!” Grandpapa exclaimed.

  The people in line all turned. Žofie expected the grandmother might hush Grandpapa as she’d hushed the redheaded girl so many times. Even the staff at the registration tables and the people with the clipboards frowned at Grandpapa’s outburst.

  As the grandmother was called to one of the registration tables, Grandpapa set Johanna down, pulled out a handkerchief, and scrubbed at Žofie’s face. The lilac-eyed mother was called too now, to the other table.

  “I searched everywhere,” Žofie said to Grandpapa. “I left notes. I know he’ll be here in a minute. We can just wait like you said I—”

  “We cannot wait, Žofie,” Grandpapa said. “We cannot wait.”

  The grandmother with the redheaded girl was now demanding to know why the children must be made to travel on the Sabbath. The lilac-eyed mother began weeping at the other table as the woman who had watched them in the line—the one with the beautiful yellow gloves—spoke to her patiently, saying she was sorry, honestly she was, but for this first transport they simply could not take babies. The gloved woman took the mother’s arm, easing her away from the table. “There isn’t the capacity to arrange care for them in this short time,” she said. “The children must be at least four. At least four and not past seventeen.”

  Four, the smallest prime squared. Žofie fixed on the comfort of the number. And seventeen, the sum of the first four primes and the only prime that is the sum of four consecutive primes.

  The attendant at the table motioned for Žofie and Grandpapa to step forward, introducing herself as Frau Grossman and handing Grandpapa some forms to fill out. Grandpapa took two for Johanna and Walter, and handed a third to Žofie to fill out for herself.

  Grandpapa asked if he might have a fourth form to fill out for Walter’s brother, whom he hoped would join them shortly. Frau Grossman responded that she could only register children who were present.

  Žofie dawdled over the form, stalling for Stephan.

  Frau Grossman said to Grandpapa, “The little girl isn’t Jewish?”

  Grandpapa said, “No, but—”

  “And she is only three,” Frau Grossman said.

  “She will be four in March, and her sister—”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Frau Grossman interrupted. “The boy is Jewish?”

  Frau Grossman looked impatiently to Žofie, who with another glance over her shoulder—the lilac-eyed mother was watching her so intently that it was disconcerting—reluctantly turned over her form. There was still no sign of Stephan.

  A man was saying to the grandmother with the redheaded girl, “Yes, I understand it’s a cruel choice, but the transport is to leave on the Sabbath. Rest assured it is not our choice. You must commit your granddaughter, though, or step aside and leave the space for someone who will. If anyone backs out, the whole six hundred will be prohibited from leaving.”

  Frau Grossman said to Grandpapa, “I’m sorry, we’re processing only Jewish children here. Non-Jews are to be—”

  “But we’ve stood in line for hours already,” Grandpapa objected. “And we’re here with a Jewish boy who has already lost his father and whose mother is ill. We can’t be in two places at once!”

  “Nonetheless—”

  “My grandchildren’s mother has been arrested for the simple act of writing the truth!”

  The woman with the yellow gloves stepped over and took the paperwork from Grandpapa, saying, “It’s okay, Frau Grossman. Perhaps I can help Herr . . . ?”

  “Perger. Otto Perger,” Grandpapa said, trying to calm himself.

  “I’m Truus Wijsmuller, Herr Perger,” the woman said. Then to the other workers, “How many is this?”

  Frau Grossman consulted with the woman at the other table, each counting the number of pages they’d filled out and the number of names on their most recent, partial pages.

  “Let’s see,” Frau Grossman said. “Twenty-eight multiplied by nine is—”

  “Five hundred and twenty-one,” Žofie said. She was sorry the minute she’d blurted it out. The longer they took, the more time Stephan had to find the notes and show up here.

  The woman smiled condescendingly at her. “Twenty-eight multiplied by ten is two hundred and eighty.” Then to the others, “Subtract twenty-eight and that’s two hundred and fifty-two.”

  The woman at the other table said, “Two hundred and fifty-two doubled i
s five hundred and four. Plus your ten and my seven is . . .”

  The woman in the pretty yellow gloves, with a kind smile at Žofie-Helene, said, “Five hundred and twenty-one.”

  The beautiful mother with the baby, still watching, also smiled.

  “It’s a prime number,” Žofie said, trying to keep them talking. “Like seventeen, the highest age of children you are registering. Seventeen is the only prime that is a sum of four primes. If you add any other four consecutive primes, you always get an even number, and even numbers are never primes because they’re divisible by two. Well, except two, of course. Two is a prime.”

  The two other women took in the long line still waiting to register. “More than six hundred,” Frau Grossman said. “Hundreds more.”

  The gloved woman came to Žofie and took her hand, the leather gloves softer than skin against Žofie’s fingers.

  “And you are . . . ?” the woman asked.

  “I’m Žofie-Helene Perger,” Žofie said.

  The gloved woman said, “Žofie-Helene Perger, I’m Geertruida Wijsmuller, but why don’t you call me ‘Tante Truus’?”

  “You aren’t my aunt,” Žofie said.

  The woman laughed, a lovely, elliptical laugh like Stephan’s aunt Lisl’s.

  “No, I’m not, am I?” the woman said. “But Frau Wijsmuller is a lot for most children to say. Not for you, of course.”

  Žofie-Helene considered this. “It’s more efficient.”

  The woman laughed again. “‘More efficient.’ It is, isn’t it?”

  “People call me ‘Žofie,’ because it’s more efficient,” Žofie said. “My friend Stephan sometimes calls me just plain ‘Žofe.’ I don’t have an aunt, but he does. His aunt Lisl. I like her a lot. But she’s in Shanghai now.”

  “I see,” Tante Truus said.

  “She’s Walter’s aunt too. Walter and Stephan are brothers.”

  She waited for Tante Truus to ask about Stephan, but the woman only turned to take in Walter.