The Star and the Shamrock

by Jean Grainger

  Ireland was the best place in the world as far as Liesl and Erich were concerned. There was more food, and though Belfast had been bombed last week, in general, it was safer. Some people remembered her, and whenever she met any of the old neighbours, they said nice things about her mother, which may or may not have been true. But independently of the fact that she was Margaret Bannon’s daughter, she was beginning to feel like she fit in.

  The principal and his wife – both teachers at the school – were lovely people. There was another woman as well, an elderly lady called Mrs Ashe who taught singing and music and could be heard warbling in a watery contralto all over the school. The children did not look forward to their singing lessons, and Elizabeth could see why. Though Mrs Ashe wasn’t openly unkind, she acted as if she found the Jewish children distasteful. She seemed to stare and never addressed them directly. She asked Elizabeth questions about the children’s ability to understand her instructions when they were taking singing classes, and though it irked the older woman to no end, Elizabeth simply redirected every question to the children.

  Mrs Ashe had never met a Jewish person before, as she was fond of pointing out, and she acted as if it were really a most inconvenient thing that she had to meet some now, but Elizabeth bit her tongue and said nothing. If Mrs Ashe was the worst that they had to contend with, then it wasn’t so bad.

  Mr Morris, the master as he was called, and his wife were very kind to the refugees and encouraged lots of integration with the local children. They played sports together and of course took the dreaded singing classes together, and slowly but surely, the barriers of language, nationality and religion were being eroded. In a world so divided and harsh, it was good to see.

  The children’s English was improving week on week, some of them even developing Irish accents. Liesl was best friends with two sisters from Poland called Anika and Viola, and Erich was on the Ballycreggan football team.

  Elizabeth had stayed behind every evening that week to finish decorating the little school hall for the concert that would be performed for the whole village on Friday night. Daniel was in the hall, putting the finishing touches to the stage, and it even had a curtain – four old sheets stitched together by Liesl’s class. Each child – or group for the shy ones – was going to perform, so there were going to be uilleann pipers and tin-whistle players among the local children, youngsters performing traditional dances from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany, and singers and mime artists, home-grown and international. Everyone was looking forward to it, and the parents’ association had offered to run a tea-and-bun stand to raise money for an outing for all the children on the last day of term.

  People were so kind. The cinema owner in Donaghadee didn’t charge the refugee children for the Saturday matinee, so Daniel made the trip every weekend with a busload of excited boys and girls. The local parents, though they hadn’t much themselves, donated any clothing that was too small for their children to the Jewish little ones. It was hard to believe such hatred as they heard about on the news existed just a few hundred miles away in the face of such generosity and sympathy.

  Elizabeth finished the last test and boiled the kettle in the little staff room to make coffee. Daniel had bought some of the precious beans from a shop in Belfast, and she had discovered a coffee grinder in her mother’s kitchen. Elizabeth had never known her mother to drink coffee, but perhaps she developed a taste for it in the years they were estranged. Just another thing about her mother that she didn’t know. She ground just enough coffee for two cups. In one of her first conversations with Daniel, he explained how he could not get into drinking tea no matter how often he was offered it.

  She put the cups on a tray, cut two slices of the caraway cake a kind parent had dropped in for the teachers and made her way to the hall.

  Daniel was up the ladder, attaching the pole, as she went in.

  ‘I’ve brought you some coffee,’ she called.

  ‘Thank you. One moment.’

  She watched as he fixed the pole in place and climbed agilely down. His shirt had ridden up, and she caught a glimpse of his taut olive-skinned torso. He was fit and muscular from all the physical work on the farm, and she felt a lurch in her stomach at the sight of him. It was an unfamiliar and not entirely welcome feeling. She felt herself blush, so she turned around and busied herself arranging paintbrushes.

  Pull yourself together for God’s sake, she berated herself. And don’t be taking mad old notions.

  Daniel walked to the table and lifted his cup. He inhaled its luxurious scent before sipping.

  ‘Mmm…’ He sighed theatrically. ‘I miss coffee the most.’ He grinned at her, and she felt the blush rise again. His dark-brown eyes were warm.

  ‘You were lucky to get this. I’d enjoy it if I were you because I doubt you’ll be able to get more. I don’t think anyone here has had proper tea for ages, let alone coffee.’ Elizabeth smiled at his enjoyment.

  ‘I got it from a man who imports wine and fancy food. Even in wartime, if you have enough money, you can have whatever you want. I had to fix the whole electric system in his house and his shop to get it,’ Daniel said ruefully. He sipped his drink and took a big bite of cake.

  She found herself looking forward to his popping his head around the door every day as he dropped the children. Since that first day, he was in the habit of coming into the classroom to settle them in. Elizabeth or the Morrises sometimes had a job for him to do, and he was always happy to help. He waited in the bus at the end of the school day as the children filed out of school, always giving Elizabeth a friendly wave as he loaded up his charges.

  ‘Thank you for all this work,’ she said, gesturing to the stage. ‘The children are so looking forward to it all.’

  ‘Yes, they are. Every night at the farm, it is music and dancing in preparing… Is this right? In preparing?’

  ‘In preparation,’ she corrected with a smile.

  ‘Yes. This. In preparation. You make them happy, Elizabeth. You know that is not easy, as they have much sadness. But coming here to you, it makes them happy. That first day, I was so…not feared…nervous – yes, I was nervous. They are not my children, but we are all together here and they don’t have parents, so I feel like…’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I am so glad it was you.’

  ‘I’m glad it was me as well, both for the children from the farm and for Liesl and Erich too.’

  She took her cup and sat down on the old chair that they used for standing on. Daniel leaned against the wall.

  ‘No word from their parents?’ he asked.

  Though they’d had lots of chats in the past year, this was the first time they were alone together and could talk properly about the situation. There were always small ears around, and so the adults spoke in a kind of code.

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘Their father was my cousin – Peter was his name. I never met him. According to Liesl, her mother explained that the Germans needed him for work, so they’d taken him to a work camp. I don’t know exactly, but it doesn’t sound good. That would have been in early 1939, sometime before the war was declared. Ariella, their mother, was the one who wrote to me, asking that I take them. I’ve written several times to her last-known address telling her that Liesl and Erich are here, and the children send something every fortnight, a card or a picture, but we’ve had nothing in response.’

  ‘They’re from Berlin?’

  ‘Yes.’ Elizabeth looked at him and their eyes met. ‘It’s difficult to keep coming up with excuses as to why she’s not been in touch, you know?’ she asked, knowing his answer.

  He nodded.

  ‘And I want their parents to come for them, of course I do. But every month that goes by, the more I… Well, I would hate to lose them.’ She was surprised to hear herself admit that, especially to him. ‘I find myself trying to prepare to hand them over…’

  Daniel put his coffee cup down and turned to face her. He went down on his hunkers in front of her. She caught a waft of the d
istinctly masculine scent of him, soap and oil and something else. She was close enough to see the shadow of stubble on his jaw.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that any time soon,’ he said quietly.

  ‘But we don’t know. Ariella could get a visa – I hope she can. Peter could come back from wherever it is they are holding him.’ Elizabeth was trying to be realistic.

  ‘She was Jewish, alone in Berlin, her husband arrested.’ Daniel sighed. ‘Things are bad, and I’m only hearing this on the grapevine, as Rabbi Frank still has some contacts there. But, Elizabeth, your care for these kids might be a lot longer than you think. It might be forever.’

  She tried to process what he was saying. ‘But Peter isn’t even Jewish…’ What he was suggesting was horrible – poor Liesl and Erich!

  ‘He was arrested defending a Jew, though, wasn’t he?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, they hate that. If he was taken away, who knows? And his wife alone in Berlin… They would have rounded her up by now, I’d imagine. Unless she could go into hiding, if someone would hide her, but if she had such a person, you would think she would have hidden the children rather than send them away.’

  She could see Daniel hated to be the bearer of such a terrible prospect, but she also knew he was telling the truth. She felt pain for the little girl and boy she considered her own. She assumed from the start that it was just a matter of time before their mother and father would come for them, but from what Daniel was saying, it wasn’t a guarantee.

  ‘At least they have you. It was a lucky day for them when you agreed. It was a big thing to take total strangers into your home. It was a great kindness.’

  She smiled. ‘They’ve given me more joy than I could ever have imagined. I was nervous at first, as I was very set in my ways. After Rudi died…’ She paused. She used to think and talk about Rudi all the time, but she realised she’d not mentioned him in months.

  ‘How did he die?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘That last war. He was shot in the early morning of the 11th of November. The armistice was at eleven a.m., and he was killed around nine. He survived the last bloody months of that thing and then…’ To her horror, her voice cracked and her eyes stung.

  ‘I…I’m sorry…’ she began.

  Daniel reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. Gently, he wiped her tears.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ she began again, and he shook his head slightly.

  ‘You’re sad – don’t be sorry about that. It was such a waste. The war was over. He should have lived.’

  ‘Exactly. I just feel silly, as it was so long ago…’

  ‘Don’t feel silly. It is the price of love, this sadness. You were lucky to have known such love.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you had no children?’

  Nobody had ever dared go there with her over all the years she spent in Liverpool, but there was something about Daniel that made her not just want to know about him but to open up to him as well.

  ‘I was pregnant when Rudi left in June of 1918. I wrote to tell him he was going to be a father. I don’t know if he ever got the letter – I hope he did. When I got the telegram to say Rudi was dead… I don’t know. It was such a shock or something that I had a miscarriage.’

  The silence hung easily between them, the big schoolroom clock ticking on the wall.

  Eventually, Daniel spoke quietly. ‘You would have been a wonderful mother. I see you with Liesl and Erich and all the children – you are a wonderful mother.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She gave him a watery smile. ‘How about you, Daniel? Did you have someone?’

  He looked so sad sometimes that she thought there must have been someone he’d had to leave behind or someone the Germans got to.

  ‘There was someone. Lydia. I thought I loved her.’ His sad smile surprised her. ‘But she left me for a man with a lot of money and a big house in Hanover – someone who was not a filthy Jew.’ He shrugged and smiled.

  He paused, as if contemplating what to say next. ‘I’ve told nobody here my story except Rabbi Frank. I was raised Catholic. My parents didn’t officially convert or anything like that. They were Jews in Salzburg, and when they moved to Vienna in 1900, they lived as Catholics. It wasn’t until the Nazis checked and accused me of not registering that I realised I was, in fact, Jewish.’

  Elizabeth didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s strange, I know, but funnily enough, I like Judaism, and I’m learning. Rabbi is teaching me privately.’

  ‘So they just changed without doing anything official? Did you ask them why?’ It was unlike her to be so inquisitive, but she wanted to know about him.

  ‘My parents are dead long ago, thank God. My brother, Josef, was killed in a car crash. So there’s just me. An old college friend from Swindon helped me by sponsoring me into Britain. Otherwise, I would be in a camp by now, or worse.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I mean I know it’s happening, but that German people are just going along with it…’ Elizabeth still found the situation in Europe difficult to comprehend.

  ‘It is. I never knew what it was like to be a Jew. I suppose I wasn’t one, not really, but I’m so shocked at the way people are behaving. I find it hard to reconcile the country I know and love – or at least I did love – coming to this, but it has.’

  He took another sip of his coffee, draining the cup. ‘This is strange cake to me, with these seeds, but I like it,’ he said, polishing off the last mouthful. She was permanently hungry herself, so she couldn’t imagine what existence on the small rations was like for a man as large as him.

  Suddenly she blurted, ‘Would you like to come and have dinner with the children and me? It’s only shepherd’s pie, and the meat is scarce, so lots of potato and carrot, but if you’d like to, you’re welcome.’

  His dark-brown eyes held hers, and she noticed how long his eyelashes were – most girls would love to have lashes like that. A smile played around his lips. His dark hair, longer at the top and short on the back and sides, was streaked with grey at the temples and flopped over his face, which was expressive; every emotion he had was there for all to see. There was something so exotic about him. She should have looked away, but something about his gaze was compelling.

  ‘I would love to,’ he whispered.

  The mood was broken by the sound of doors opening. Mr Morris was still around the school.

  They finished up and walked back up the street to her house. Liesl knew how to put the pie Elizabeth had prepared the previous day in the oven, and so a delicious aroma met them at the front door. Erich was at the table shelling peas freshly picked from the garden to accompany the pie.

  ‘Hello, Daniel,’ Erich called, as if Elizabeth bringing men home for dinner was the most normal thing in the world.

  ‘Hallo, mein Schatz.’ Daniel ruffled his hair.

  ‘Where’s Liesl?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Can you call her? We need to set the table.’

  Erich took a deep breath and bellowed, ‘Liesl! Set the table!’ without ever moving from his seat.

  Elizabeth leaned over and started to tickle him. ‘I could have done that myself!’ she said as Erich screamed with laughter.

  Daniel smiled. Erich and Liesl Bannon had surely landed on their feet.

  Chapter 14

  The children looked on in amazement as Talia sketched Viola, who was perched on Elizabeth’s desk. The drawing looked just like her.

  ‘So now I will show you all how to do this.’ Talia smiled, and they eagerly pulled their drawing pads and pencils towards them.

  It had been Daniel’s idea to invite Talia to give a few drawing lessons, and it was working out wonderfully, though there were only a few weeks left in the term. Elizabeth had feigned insult when he first suggested it one evening as he popped in to say hello while the children enjoyed a few extra minutes of playtime before getting on the bu
s back to the farm and chores.

  She pointed to the picture of the cat she had drawn on the blackboard. ‘And you think my drawing is not up to standard, is that it?’ she said, hands on her hips in indignation.

  ‘Well, no, I think this is a very good elephant you draw here.’ He pointed at the board with a cheeky grin.

  ‘That’s a cat! How dare you!’ She swiped at him with the cloth she was using to wipe the board, but he ducked out of her way.

  Elizabeth found she was very relaxed around him these days. He called to the house in the evenings sometimes, although he didn’t stay long. Liesl and Erich loved his company, and he was building something with Erich, using a Meccano set he had bought the boy for his birthday.

  The children were invited to partake in religious ceremonies with the rest of the Jewish community from the start, and Daniel often collected them and dropped them home afterwards. They were practising Jews back in Berlin, so she was glad to be able to keep that up for their mother.

  Liesl had unearthed a box of old dolls and busied herself making dresses for them with the Singer sewing machine in the parlour. Elizabeth’s mother had kept the dolls too, but then, she kept everything, if the tins of buttons and boxes of mouse traps she had on every shelf and in every cupboard were anything to go by.

  Life had settled into a nice rhythm. Elizabeth loved teaching, and Liesl and Erich were thriving. They spoke about their parents often. Elizabeth encouraged it. Sometimes they got upset, but it was better out than in, she believed.

  Daniel had done a lot of odd jobs for her, but usually during the day when she was at school. There were tins of paint in the shed, there since God was a child, she imagined. Daniel managed to resurrect them with turpentine, and the brown paint that had been on every single surface had been replaced with whites and creams and even a few pastels. The whole house was so much better for it, bright, airy and welcoming.