“Welcome to England, children!” she said. “I’m Miss Anderson. Please tell me your names as you debark. When I give you your cabin assignment, take your belongings with you.”
The children exchanged confused looks.
Žofie whispered to Stephan, “What is ‘debark’?”
Stephan didn’t know “debark,” but he gathered that the woman meant for them to go from the bus to the little cabins. “Die hütten,” he said. Surely there would be electric heat in the cabins.
Žofie said, “You go first, but wait for me?”
Stephan and Walter went down the stairs, Žofie and the baby right behind them, and merged into the line of children from the lower level of the bus.
“Stephan and Walter Neuman,” Stephan said when it was their turn.
Miss Anderson said, “Walter Neuman, you’re in cabin twenty-two, child.”
She double-checked her list again. “I don’t have a Stephan Neuman,” she said. “You’ve gotten on the wrong bus. This is Dovercourt. The older children are being sent to Lowestoft.”
“I’m Carl Füchsl,” Stephan said, not sure how to say it more clearly in this second language. “He has . . . masern? He is sick. Mrs. Bentwich told me to help with the younger boys.”
Miss Anderson eyed him, perhaps assessing whether he was up to the task. “All right, cabin fourteen.”
“Tante Truus said my brother and I would be together.”
“Who? Oh, all right. Stand here while I arrange the rest of the busload, then we’ll sort out a cabin for you both.”
Stephan thanked her in his best English, and he nudged Walter, who said “Thank you” in English too.
As they stepped to the side and Miss Anderson addressed Žofie, a man and woman approached Walter.
“Look, George, what a cute little boy!” the woman said.
Stephan said, “We are brothers.”
The man said, “Darling, we’ve already chosen a boy from the German lot. I think one five-year-old is as much as Nanny can manage at her age. We’re meant to go inside and collect him.”
Miss Anderson, who’d been speaking with Žofie-Helene, said, “Goodness, is the entire bus full of children we aren’t to have expected? All right, stand over there by those boys and let me process the rest of the children.”
The woman who thought Walter was cute exclaimed, “A baby? George! Oh, I would love a baby who could be our own. They told us there would be none. Please, let’s get him before anyone else does.”
“These children are just arrived from Austria,” her husband said. “They haven’t even bathed.”
The wife touched the baby’s face, saying, “What’s your name, little one?”
Žofie-Helene said, “My sister’s name is Johanna.”
The wife tried to take the baby from Žofie, but Žofie held tight.
“You’re awfully old to have a baby sister, aren’t you?” the woman said, stepping back as if Žofie might be diseased.
Žofie regarded her with an expression Stephan had never seen in her eyes before: uncertainty. She was so smart. She always knew everything, in their own language.
The woman took her husband’s arm and set off for the main building, saying, “Heavens, they’re sending us ruined girls.”
Stephan stood watching, wanting to rise to Žofie’s defense even though he couldn’t exactly parse what the woman might mean. Ruin. Like the ruins of Pompeii, which would never be put back together again. You couldn’t restore something that was ruined, but a thing could be ruined and yet still perfect.
An Exit Visa of Another Kind
Ruchele began weeping long before Žofie-Helene’s grandfather finished what he’d come to say, that all three of the children had arrived safely in England.
Otto Perger set aside his hat, which had been in his hands. Ruchele pulled herself into as small a person as she could manage lest he touch her. She did not think she could bear any tenderness.
Herr Perger said, “They’re at a holiday camp in Harwich until they can be placed with families.”
Still, she wept and wept—an indulgence, she knew. She ought to pull herself together, but there was no doing it. There was so little left to pull, in any event.
Herr Perger said, “It is so hard to have them gone, I know.”
Ruchele gathered herself enough to say, “It is such a relief to have them safe. Thank you, Herr Perger.”
He smiled a little. “Otto,” he said. “Please.”
She ought to respond with her own given name, but she couldn’t make herself do so. It wasn’t, as she knew he would imagine, that even here, even stripped of everything that had given her dignity, she felt herself above him. She did not. She saw that she once had, and she regretted that. She would have liked to apologize, but she had so little energy left, and still this one task to hand off.
She pulled from the top bureau drawer some forty thin little envelopes containing letters she’d written on borrowed paper, with stamps Frau Isternitz had bought for her with the last of the money Michael had provided. Stephan’s and Walter’s names were on the envelopes, which were otherwise unaddressed. The simple movement caused her pain, but she brushed away Otto’s help. He must not think her weak. If he were to see anything of her—better that he didn’t, but if he did—it must be her strength, her resolve.
She held out to him all but a last, unstamped envelope.
He sat staring at them, refusing to take them, as if he knew what they meant, what she would ask of him.
“Herr Perger,” she started, “it’s so hard for me to get out, and I have so little time left—”
“No, I won’t take them,” he insisted.
“It’s unfair for me to ask, I know,” she conceded. “I’m a Jew.”
He could be jailed for the simple task of mailing a letter for her.
“It isn’t that,” he said. “Of course it isn’t that, Frau Neuman. You mustn’t—”
“I would give them to someone here,” she said, “but we are . . . No one imagines we will stay. My husband is dead already, Herr Perger, and I will die in any event. You must see that I am dying: I’m left a whole room here to myself.”
She gathered every bit of strength she had to produce a weak smile. She hoped it was a smile. It had been so long since she’d smiled.
“Please do me this kindness?” she begged. “If not for me, then for my sons?” So thankful for his fondness for Stephan. “One letter to be mailed each week, so they will continue to know I’m safe.”
“You might—”
“So they can attend to starting their own lives in England and caring for each other, without worry for me.” Words that came in a whisper, in pain both physical and not. “The last letter is written in a different hand, to tell them I am gone,” she managed. “They will expect it, Stephan will, and I don’t want them to hurt for not having heard from me.”
He touched fingers uncertainly to his goatee. “But . . . But how will I know when to send it?”
Ruchele watched him, saying nothing. He was an old man, his eyes behind the round, heavy glasses beginning to go rheumy. If she were made to put it into words, he would balk. Anyone would balk. Even an old man who might understand.
“Frau Neuman, you . . .” He set his hands on her hands, on the letters. “You mustn’t do—”
“Herr Perger, what I must do in life is ensure that my sons will grow up to be fine young men.” The firmness of her voice startled her as surely as, she could see, it startled him. She said more gently, “I cannot thank you enough for your role in allowing me that. Now you must leave me to rest with the good news that my sons are safe.”
She tucked the letters into his hands.
“They aren’t addressed,” he said.
“I don’t know where they will be, but perhaps you will write Žofie that you are addressing and mailing them for me because it’s so hard for me to write? Žofie, I think, will always know where Stephan is.”
The tears pooling again. How co
uld this strange little girl fill the hope she had for Stephan and, with him, Walter?
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Otto Perger said. “I’ll bring you food. You must eat, Frau Neuman.”
“Please, don’t trouble yourself further for my sake,” she said, “except to mail the letters over time.”
“But you must keep your strength. Your sons need you to be strong.”
“I will receive all the care I will need from my neighbors, and you would only jeopardize yourself.”
He searched her face. He knew without knowing—she could see it in his eyes behind the lenses, she could feel it in the slight additional pressure of his grip on the letters. He wanted to know, and he didn’t.
She kept her gaze steady. If she kept her gaze, kept her strength for this last moment, he would be reluctant to return, to intrude.
“In a few days, then,” he said.
“Please,” she said, “the letters are all I need from you.”
“When I receive news from Žofie-Helene. Surely you will want to know when I hear from her. And I’ll want to know what you hear from Stephan and dear little Walter.”
She nodded, fearing he might not leave if she objected, and now that the letters were in his hands, she needed him to leave. What would she do if he changed his mind? What would she do if she changed her own mind?—a thought that came with this talk of letters from her sons.
He stood reluctantly, turning back at the meek little door. She closed her eyes, as if unable to stave off sleep.
When the door shut quietly behind him, she drew from the remaining envelope a photograph of Stephan and Walter together. She kissed each face, once, and then again.
“You are such good boys,” she whispered. “You are such good boys, and you have brought me so much love.”
She tucked the photo into her clothes, next to her bosom, then removed the tissue inside the envelope, and unwrapped the last of Herman’s razor blades.
Part III
The Time After
JANUARY 1939
Rabbit Number 522
Stephan sat at the edge of Walter’s bunk. “Come on, Wall, time to move,” he said gently. “The other boys are long gone.” He pulled the covers back. “It’s a new day, a new year!”
Walter yanked the blanket back over his head.
“We’ve already missed breakfast,” Stephan said. The first breakfast of 1939. In just weeks, Stephan would turn eighteen. And then what? If he and Walter weren’t placed with a family before he turned eighteen, would they place him?
“Peter isn’t hungry,” Walter said. “Peter says it’s too cold to eat.”
Smart rabbit, Stephan thought.
He said, “I have a new letter from Mutti.”
The camp post office at one end of the main room in the big building was closed on Sundays, but Stephan had saved the letter that arrived the day before, wanting to have it for after the prospective parents left today. It was exhausting, a whole day of sitting and politely chatting with strangers who held your future in their hands, or tossed it away. So far, his and Walter’s futures had been tossed. But this was only their third Sunday, and last week almost no prospective parents had visited, as it had been Christmas Day. Back home there would have been the big Christkindlmarkt with gingerbread and glühwein and decorations, people coming from all over the country to see the tree in the Rathausplatz. At home, they would have decorated the tree with gold and silver ornaments and stars made of straw, and lit the tree and exchanged presents on Christmas Eve, and sang “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!”—the tune the same but the words so different from the ones the English sang. Some boys from a college near the camp had taught them the English version, a way for them to begin to learn the language. Stephan wondered who Mutti had sung with, or if Mutti had sung at all.
He sat Walter up and pulled a second sweater over the shirt and sweater he’d slept in, then his coat and scarf. His hat and gloves were already on; they’d both slept in their hats and gloves, Stephan’s arms wrapped around Walter’s in the same bed because they were warmer together. He had all the boys in the cabin sleep with their hats and gloves on, sharing beds for warmth.
When Walter was dressed, Stephan handed him his Peter Rabbit, then took Walter’s number placard to loop over his brother’s head. Walter ducked to avoid it. He’d become obstinate about the damned number. Not that Stephan blamed him. Stephan hated wearing his tag too, hated being reduced to something numerical and cold, no matter how special Žofie tried to make their numbers seem. But it was the rule: the children at Dovercourt had to wear their numbers, always.
“I know,” he said gently. “I know, but . . .”
He took the placard and tripled the string, saying, “How about if Peter takes a turn wearing it today?”
Walter considered this idea, then nodded.
Stephan looped the string over Peter’s head: rabbit number 522.
IT WAS SOMEWHAT warmer in the main building thanks to the fireplaces, but still the children ate breakfast with their coats on, finishing kippers and porridge at long tables. A radio played music as two of the older boys took down the Christmas tree. One of the ladies in charge called in English to three children arguing over table tennis, “You’d best behave or we’ll send you back to Germany.”
The children turned to her, but if they understood what she was saying, they didn’t show it. Walter asked what the woman had said, and Stephan explained.
Walter, confused, whispered, “If I’m a bad boy, I can go home to Mutti?”
Stephan’s throat suddenly ached. “How would I survive here without you to keep me from freezing at night, Wall?”
“You could be a bad boy too,” Walter said. He addressed his rabbit. “Peter, could you be a bad rabbit?”
“But that would make Mutti sad,” Stephan said. “How could she come to England if we went home?”
“Can we read Mutti’s letter now?” Walter begged.
Stephan pulled the envelope from his coat pocket with mittened fingers, their names written in Mutti’s hand but the address, like the first two, in Herr Perger’s. Mutti’s first letter had come with a note from Žofie’s grandfather telling them not to worry about their mother, that he was helping her—helping her at great risk to himself and Johanna, Stephan knew; if Herr Perger was jailed for helping a Jew, who would take care of Žofie’s sister? Their mother was still in Nazi custody.
Stephan searched the room for Žofie, but she wasn’t here yet, although the chalkboard that the staff used to post the list of the children chosen to go to homes each week was covered with equations that hadn’t been there when Stephan left the night before.
“We can read Mutti’s letter now if we read quickly,” he said to his brother. “But no crying, okay? Maybe the family to take us will come today, in just a few minutes.”
Walter said, “If they pick us, we get to move to a house with heat for Peter and me and a library for you.”
Stephan handed him the letter. “We hope about the library, but heat certainly,” he said. “Now, you read this time.”
“Peter wants to read,” Walter said.
“All right, Peter, then.”
Walter, in his Peter Rabbit voice, read, “‘Dear dear sons, We miss you in Vienna, but it comforts me to know you are together in England, and will always take care of each other.’” It was the way Mutti’s first two letters had begun, letters they read and reread together so that Walter now had them memorized. Walter was becoming quite a good reader; they had read so much together in the last few weeks, with so little else to do. As most of the books at the camp were in English, though, Walter was becoming a better reader in English than in his own language, a fact Stephan only realized as Walter looked to him for help. Of course, the books they read were in print while Mutti wrote in script, handwriting difficult even for Stephan to decipher. He too sometimes had to fall back on memory.
Stephan wiped Walter’s tears with a handkerchief—a former train diaper—saying ge
ntly, “Come on, Wall. Tears only at night.”
Žofie and the baby joined them, the baby wrapped in blankets some of the ladies had brought for her. Stephan removed Žofie’s glasses, fogged from the change from the cold outside to the slightly warmer inside air. He cleaned them with his mittened fingers and returned them to her face.
“Who knew it could get colder?” he said.
“It continues to get colder after the solstice even though the days are getting longer now because the summer heat stored in the land and sea continues to dissipate,” Žofie said.
Walter said, “Stephan and I slept together in all our clothes and still I was cold! Peter was freezing. He only has one little jacket. But maybe a family will pick us today.”
Žofie said, “I bet they will, Walter. This feels like your week to me.”
At the chalkboard, one of the ladies took up the eraser and cleaned off the equations. Stephan took Walter’s hand, and the four of them joined the children gathering around her, a girl exclaiming, “Me! Me! Me! I’m going to a family!” as the chalk screeched on the board. When the list was done, the line of children at the door—who would be taken back to their cabins to pack their things—consisted only of girls and toddler boys. The rest began to settle at the tables. The prospective parents were about to arrive.
“Okay, Wall-man,” Stephan said, “let’s hear it.”
“Good afternoon. It’s very nice for you to visit us,” Walter said, his English clearer than it had been the prior Sunday. Practice did make better, if not perfect.
“Perfect,” Stephan said to build his brother’s confidence. “Now, where do you want to sit this week?”
“I want to sit with Žofie and Johanna,” Walter said. “All the parents come to see Johanna.”
So as always they sat beside Žofie and the baby, in the chairs that had been turned away from the tables, the last of the breakfast dishes now cleared in preparation for another long, sad Sunday of what Stephan had begun to think of as “the Inquisition.” Still, he watched hopefully as the doors opened and the prospective parents came in.
The Last Train to London Page 33
