by Jana Zinser
“What about Hans? I won’t leave him.”
“He will live with us, wherever we decide to be. I promised Anna. Now invite me in. I’m about ready to faint.”
Stephen smiled and opened the door. Nora, battered from Hitler’s war, walked into her son’s life again.
On the steps outside the Cohen house, Harry, Doris, Mrs. Daniels, Priscilla, and Becca watched with anticipation, as Peter silently read the telegram from the Red Cross that had just been delivered.
“WE REGRET TO NOTIFY YOU THAT SYLVIA AND LILLY WEINBERG DIED ON THE GROUNDS OF A TEMPORARY CAMP AT 404 EDELWEISS STREET IN SEPTEMBER 1939.”
His mother and sister were dead. They had died across the street from their home and shop, on the grounds of the burned-out synagogue, only nine months after he and Becca left on the Kindertransport, he thought.
Peter’s body shook. The brave commando, who had faced every fear, did not want to see this, the end of Becca’s hope. He had no choice.
He took a breath. He looked at Becca and sadly shook his head. “They didn’t make it.”
Becca cried out. “Hitler won after all!” She looked at Peter. “We are lost, Peter! We are sunk!” She ran into his embrace. The telegram from the Red Cross, announcing the end of their dreams, fluttered to the ground.
Peter held the sister he had missed so much, his annoying, bossy, chatterbox sister, who was his connection to his past, his family, and his memories.
He took a deep, shaky breath. “We are not lost, Becca. We have each other, and nothing will ever separate us again. I will walk beside you, and I will stand and die with you, but never again will we be lost.”
Across the wide expanse of lawn at 16 Poppleton Circle, Eva, free from Germany at last, ran toward her rescuer and her favorite little spitfire. It was time to live again.
EPILOGUE
After the war, Peter returned to his violin and the solace of his music, to heal. He studied at a London music conservatory and spent his days basking in the challenge of conquering the elusive Mozart.
One night, a crowd of people, in their finest suits and dresses, filed into the London concert hall to listen to Peter play. His night had come. He was no longer outside listening, he was inside playing.
Backstage, a nervous Peter adjusted the violin strings, and a fear overtook him. He knew the King and the Prime Minister were in the audience. The emotions of the night were too powerful. He felt he did not deserve the victory, when so many others were lost.
Then he thought of the day his father had given him the violin. It seemed so long ago, in a world where the atrocities of Hitler were not possible, at a time when his father’s gift had allowed him to dream of such a night. His father would have expected nothing less. Silently, Peter recited the cuts of meat in his mind: loin, shoulder, porterhouse, rack, and shank.
He took a breath of this new world, and with fear and defiance, he walked out onto the stage as the crowd erupted into applause. He stood transfixed as he gazed at the packed concert hall filled with people who had come to hear him play, and his gratitude flooded over him.
He saw Eva and Becca hugging each other. Peter barely recognized Sloan and Mica in their unlikely suits, as they applauded with a thunderous force. Marla sat between them, beaming at Peter. Hans, Stephen, Charlie, and Noah waved to their friend. There were two empty seats near the middle, because Sebastian’s wife was in labor. His little boy, who would be named Peter, would be born on the night of Peter’s concert debut.
The time flew by as Peter concentrated on each note, filling the hall with his music and his emotions, just like he had at the Dovercourt mess hall. That night he fought with Mozart again, and Peter won this time.
Peter bowed to the King in the royal box. He nodded to the Prime Minister next to him. He tapped his heart with his bow and then pointed to Becca and Eva.
Then he took a breath and began his finale. It was the music he’d silently practiced in the farm attic, his secret message to Becca and his tribute to the people of England, who gave him this sanctuary. Peter, the butcher’s son, played the British national anthem, “God Save the King.”
The music reverberated from his violin and his heart. He played it in gratitude for all of England, the country that had given him and the other Kindertransport children refuge when most of the world had turned away. Escape on the Kindertransport was necessary, he had come to believe; giving up was not.
When he finished, the people in the audience rose to their feet as the hall shook with thunderous applause. Peter, the violin commando, graciously bowed his musician’s acceptance, knowing that to survive and live with love and appreciation was the greatest victory of all.