The Star and the Shamrock

by Jean Grainger

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Talia asked, and Daniel could hear the edge of resentment in her voice.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong. I’m just not… Look, we’re friends, living this life none of us anticipated, and it’s bound to play havoc with emotions…’

  ‘I love you, Daniel,’ she said, resting her head on his chest.

  He sighed. ‘You think you do because I’m from Vienna and I’m actually old enough to be your father. But you are looking for security, safety – of course you are – and I will be that for you. I’ll look out for you, Talia, but not like that, all right?’ Gently, he stepped back from her, and even though it was hard to see the hurt in her eyes, he kept her gaze.

  ‘All right?’ he asked again.

  She nodded slowly, and he gave her a one-armed squeeze.

  ‘All right,’ she said, and she walked back to the dining hall.

  Chapter 11

  Daniel pulled the bus up outside the primary school an hour late. He hoped the Catholic and Protestant kids and their families would be kind to the children; they had suffered so much already. At least the woman he’d met in the sweetshop had been appointed as the teacher, and she seemed lovely.

  It was hard not to believe Jews were universally hated after everything that had happened. The Jewish organisations from Dublin and Belfast had visited and told them a little about life as a Jew in Ireland, and while they were a separate people – everyone in the South seemed to be Catholic apart from a handful of Protestants who had stayed after independence – they just got on with things and were generally allowed to live unhindered. An overzealous priest led a pogrom against the Jews in Limerick at the start of the century, which caused many Jews to flee the city, but apart from that, they were accepted. It was a source of deep shock to the Irish Jews that their government was refusing refugees, but they were. Apparently, the Catholics were afraid of the impact a huge influx of Jews would have.

  There had been much discussion on the farm once the children went to bed. The Irish Jews were constantly protesting the apathy the neutral South was showing towards the fate of the Jews in Europe. It looked like they just didn’t care. Many of the Jews explained how they’d joined the part-time Army Reserve in Ireland, and there were many who had crossed to England to join the British Army to throw their weight behind the bid to rid Europe of National Socialism forever. Apparently, up until the war, Jews were just part of society. There was even the story of a young Jew from Cork, called Goldberg, who was silenced at a debate at the university there because ‘only Irishmen could speak’. But the friends and relatives of the late IRA mayor, the republican Terence MacSwiney who died in a British prison during a hunger strike, insisted Goldberg be heard. It was hard to understand. On one hand, the Irish knew what it was like to be a persecuted people. They were subjected to terrible cruelty at the hands of the British by all accounts, so this stone wall of refusal on the subject of refugees was hard to understand.

  Daniel was ashamed that he knew nothing of the conflict in Ireland before coming. He’d heard rumblings, of course, but it seemed so far away and utterly removed from his life. And yet there he was.

  As he watched the children file off the bus, he gave them an encouraging smile. They were given asylum because they were Jews, but would the locals see them just as Germans? On the farm, they were protected, isolated and among their own. The director had visited the previous night and tried to warn the children without terrifying them about how people might react once they heard they were Germans or Austrians or Jews.

  He was unsure if he should go in with them and was considering what to do when he spotted Elizabeth crossing the road to where he was parked.

  ‘Good morning.’ She smiled. ‘Better late than never.’

  ‘Good morning,’ he replied. ‘Bus trouble.’

  ‘Well, you are here now, and I’m delighted. My two have asked about fifty times, “How long before they get here?”’

  ‘Sorry to have made you wait. I think it is fixed now, for today anyway.’ He smiled ruefully. He hoped his English was correct. He was learning it as fast as he could but suspected his Austrian accent was heavy. He wasn’t a natural at languages, having more of a mathematical mind.

  ‘Well done. I was hoping you could come in. It might help to settle them if they see one face they recognise. It’s a big day for them – they must be nervous.’ She smiled again, and Daniel relaxed. The kids would be safe with her; she cared about them already.

  ‘Of course.’ He switched the engine off and followed her into the schoolroom. His large frame seemed even bigger surrounded by little desks and chairs, and he tried to stand in the corner out of everyone’s way. The children were aged from five to eleven, as the older ones stayed to work on the farm – some instruction in English was provided for them in the evenings. He was going to do some math and physics classes as well once winter came and there wasn’t as much to do.

  He stood beside a large bookshelf filled with brightly coloured books and noticed several of the children gravitate towards him as they waited for Elizabeth to arrange them into groups by age. He waved at Liesl and Erich, and they waved back. They looked in better shape than the kids from the farm – nice clothes and well fed.

  He marvelled at Elizabeth’s organisational skills. Within a few minutes, she had everyone sitting and sharing boxes of crayons to decorate their name tags, which she had stuck to the corner of each desk.

  The classroom itself was makeshift. It had once been an outbuilding of some sort, but it was clean. Elizabeth had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to decorate with pictures and maps, and being September, it wasn’t cold.

  He noticed that one of the windows had no glass and that the teacher’s desk was what looked like a door held up with blocks. Once the children were all busy, he approached her.

  ‘Thank you for your kindness, Elizabeth. They were scared this morning, but now they are not. Thank you.’

  She looked up and smiled. ‘Yes, I can imagine they were. It’s all been such an upheaval for them too, the poor little pets.’

  Daniel looked into her kind, gentle eyes. There was something about this woman. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was a goodness to her that was rare. Despite having several pressing jobs waiting at the farm, he found himself making an offer. ‘I can perhaps help here? The desk, the window?’ He pointed, just in case he had used the wrong words.

  ‘Would you mind?’ Her blue eyes lit up. ‘There is a caretaker, but he’s very elderly and I don’t like to ask.’ She seemed thrilled.

  ‘Of course. I will go back to get my tools. And then I will return, if that is all right?’

  ‘Wonderful! I really appreciate that.’ She turned to the class and addressed them slowly and clearly. Thirty children watched and waited.

  ‘Now, everyone, firstly, can I just welcome you all to Ballycreggan Primary School. Please do not be worried about anything, as we are going to have a wonderful time here together learning all sorts of things. And some of you have very good English and others don’t, but that’s all right. We’ll fix that too. The most important thing is not to worry. Now, my name is Mrs Klein, and my husband, Rudi, was Jewish – he was killed in the last war – so that’s why I have a Jewish name even though I am Irish. I grew up in this village, but I taught in Liverpool in England for a long time. The Germans bombed my house and the school where I worked, so I came home with my two foster children, Liesl and Erich.’ She pointed at them and they smiled.

  ‘Liesl and Erich’s mutti and papa asked me to take care of them, and they came from Berlin on the Kindertransport, just like you did, so I hope you are all going to be very good friends.’

  She scanned the room, and Daniel noted how every child was enthralled.

  ‘Now, I know things have been very hard for you, and you are all worried about your families back at home, but I was saying to Erich and Liesl the other week, all we can do is trust Mr Churchill, do our bit for the war effort and hope. So we
will make friends, and learn new things, and grow up strong and clever. Your parents wanted you to be safe and to be happy, so let’s make them proud, shall we?’

  Daniel saw the looks of trust and determination on the children’s faces, and he thought again what a kind woman Elizabeth Klein was. She never said they would be going home to Germany or that their parents would come for them soon or anything like that – the possibility was less and less likely with every passing day – but she had managed to rally them and give them hope of a brighter tomorrow.

  Yes, Elizabeth Klein was a remarkable woman, he thought as he walked out to the bus.

  Chapter 12

  Ruth Alger tried her best to fix her hair. She’d been chasing that donkey all afternoon – he’d escaped and was roaming the backroads around the Ards Peninsula. She had volunteered to go and find him, hoping someone would be around to drive her in the bus. But Daniel was down at the school again, and Levi was out in the fields repairing some fencing that had been trampled by the newly arrived heifers. The big old car, another donation, was in the yard, but she dared not take it – it was not the done thing for women to drive; the rabbi frowned upon that sort of modern idea – and there was no sign of any of the other men.

  She had volunteered to come up from Dublin the previous summer and had intended to only stay a few weeks, but seeing the children and how lost and alone they were, she decided to stay.

  As she checked in the mirror, she saw Talia behind her. Something about that girl irked her, although she couldn’t say why exactly. Coming from safe, neutral Ireland, it was not really accepted to say anything bad about the refugees – they’d all been through so much – but she admitted to herself that she just didn’t like her.

  Talia flopped down on her bunk in the women’s dormitory. ‘I hate those bloody chickens, I really do.’ The younger woman was examining her chapped hands.

  ‘I do too,’ Ruth agreed, trying to be friendly despite her reservations.

  ‘Daniel is down at the school again. I wonder what the attraction is down there?’ Talia flipped onto her stomach, and Ruth glanced over.

  The young woman was beautiful, but she knew it. The other women worked so hard on the farm that they looked like bedraggled scarecrows most of the time, and while nobody could accuse Talia of not pulling her weight, she seemed to always look well. The overalls they’d been given were too big, as mostly they were for men, but Talia had rolled hers up and cinched them with a belt. She wore a shirt that was open at the throat, revealing her smooth olive-skinned décolletage – again, not too much, but enough to have the men notice. Ruth was sure she stuck her breasts out and swung her hips just for attention.

  Talia was attractive in that she was small but curvy, and men seemed to want to take care of her. She tied her dark hair back with a flowery hairband, leaving a tendril or two around her face, and those hazel eyes of hers looked so innocent. Ruth suspected she was anything but.

  She came from Vienna, like Daniel, though they didn’t know each other until they arrived at the farm. Both Daniel’s and Talia’s family were secular Jews, which explained how they knew so little about their faith.

  Like everyone who’d escaped, Talia was reluctant to talk about her family, and Ruth understood. She could not imagine how hard it must be for all of them, especially the children. But there was something different about Talia. She did what was necessary when it came to worship, but you could tell she didn’t believe a word of it. She’d been heard to explain that she was only Jewish insofar as the Nazis determined it. One quarter Jewish – having one Jewish grandparent – made you Jewish, and she had one Jewish parent, but she claimed that she never felt Jewish before now. That was probably why Ruth didn’t like her, if she were honest. The others, those brought up either Orthodox or Reform, she had more in common with. She liked most of them and had spent a lot of time with Levi discussing scripture recently as they’d thinned turnips. He was quiet and some might say taciturn, but she thought he was a good, devout man. Her thoughts were far away when she realised Talia was waiting for an answer.

  ‘Hmm?’ Ruth dragged the brush through her tangled curls. She had no idea what the younger woman was on about.

  ‘Daniel, down at the school. He’s spending a lot of time there, isn’t he? I wonder why?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Ruth replied nonchalantly. ‘You two are good friends, aren’t you?’

  ‘Mmm, we are,’ Talia said, her tone suggesting they were a lot more than that. ‘He’s so nice, but deep, you know. You wouldn’t know what was going on with him.’

  ‘The same as everyone else, I expect.’ Ruth tried not to snap as she wrapped an elastic band around her hastily bunched ponytail. ‘Trying to make do and manage until this awful war is over and Hitler and the rest of his henchmen are blown to kingdom come.’

  Talia had taken out her sketch pad once more and was on her knees on the bed, drawing the scene out the window. ‘I won’t be holding my breath for that,’ she said, holding her pencil horizontally and taking a measurement with her thumb with one eye closed. Then she returned to her drawing.

  ‘Well, losing the war is unthinkable – it just can’t happen. So we’d better pray Mr Churchill can convince the Yanks to join in.’

  ‘Why should they?’ Talia replied, though her attention was on the drawing book. ‘It’s not their war.’ She took her eraser and removed some pencil strokes.

  ‘Because it’s the right thing to do, of course. There are lots of Jews in America – they’ll just have to make their government understand.’ Ruth found the other woman’s intransigence irritating.

  ‘I hope you’re right, but I think in the end, the Americans will turn on the Jews just as the Germans and the Austrians did.’ Talia flipped her drawing book closed and sighed. ‘Now, I’ve a pile of potatoes to peel. Honestly, did you ever meet a nation so obsessed with one vegetable?’ She rolled her eyes and threw her book and pencils into the locker beside her bed. Lots of sheets of paper were rolled up in there already. Ruth had seen some of her artwork before, and even she had to admit it was very good.

  Ruth changed her dress. She’d have to handwash the one she’d been wearing later on, as it had chicken blood on it from when she’d had to decapitate that night’s meal. She gave herself a quick wash under the arms.

  ‘That wouldn’t happen in America. They are civilised people who wouldn’t behave like that.’ Ruth tried to sound as sure as she felt.

  ‘Oh, believe me, Ruth, you were never there. Germany and Austria are very civilised places. Opera, ballet, art, architecture… There is an ancient and proud culture in those countries. But they just had enough of the Jews – that’s how they saw it – and wanted them out. Simple as that. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.’ Talia shrugged and strolled out the door, and Ruth swallowed her fury. It was true she’d never been to Germany – or anywhere – in her thirty years, but she refused to believe that the rest of the world would behave as the Nazis had.

  The use of the word ‘them’ annoyed her too. Maybe Talia didn’t feel very Jewish and wasn’t brought up in the faith, but she was here like everyone else, expelled because she was a Jew. So why would she say ‘them’? Surely it was ‘us’?

  Chapter 13

  Ballycreggan, June, 1941

  The time had flown, and Elizabeth could hardly believe almost a full school year had passed. There had been Halloween decorations made, Hanukah and Christmas celebrated inasmuch as was possible with rationing, and now they were preparing to finish up the school year with a big concert. The people of Ballycreggan had been welcoming, if a little distant at the start, to the Jews at the farm, but the children had brought them together in ways only they can. As she watched Liesl and Erich blend into life in the sleepy Irish village, she wondered often how they could ever go back when the war ended. They were assimilated and loved their lives in Ireland. They had great friends among the refugee children as well as the locals and seemed to be constantly attending football
matches and birthday parties.

  She could never have imagined during all those years on her own in Liverpool that she would ever feel at home in Ballycreggan, but she did. Everyone knew her by name, and they knew Erich and Liesl too. She was part of the community, and she found she liked it.

  The rabbi, with his short curly peyot and black hat, still caused a stir when he walked down the main street of the village. Daniel Lieber, on the other hand, had integrated much better than the others. He helped out any local who needed it with farm machinery, and he’d been asked by both the Catholic priest and the Protestant vicar to remove the church bells and railings to be donated to the military’s call for metal. Most of the able-bodied men of the village were in uniform, so a strong man was much in demand. Levi helped out too, as did the older boys, but it was Daniel they all sought out.

  Daniel. She thought of him often, and sometimes she caught him looking at her as he did odd jobs in the school or at her house, but he never said anything. Besides, he and Talia were often together, so she assumed there was something between them. He was always most polite and proper, and so was she. He’d done full days getting the outbuilding she used as a classroom into better shape, and on those days, she brought an extra sandwich for him as well as three for herself, Liesl and Erich. They were relaxed and easy in each other’s company. He was funny and kind, and she laughed at how precise he was when it came to even putting up shelves. Everything was measured and drawn to scale before he did anything.

  She was marking tests and had sent Erich and Liesl home alone after school. She was determined to give each of the refugee children a report card so they could post it to their parents to show them how much progress they were making at school. The parents might not receive it, but the fact that they were able to send one meant a lot to the children. They were all growing up so fast, and despite the pain of the separation from their parents, they were thriving. Being surrounded by other children living with the same heartache seemed to have helped, or perhaps it was just the natural resilience of the young. Whatever it was, she loved to see them smile and laugh.