her.
'You have a fire in the kitchen. Nobody else has a fire in their kitchen.'
A cosy, closed house. As if it was her shell, and she curled within it, like the walnuts that went on the cake.
It was there, sitting at the kitchen table after a lesson, that she told me how she had come to England. There was the coal
fire in the grate, cake crumbs on the cloth. There was a direction in one of the Satie pieces, du bout de la pensée, which meant 'at the tip of one's thoughts', and often there were passages of time like that, with light words and the fire
rustling. This day it happened that the thoughts were spoken.
'It was because we were Jewish. A British charity said that it would take the Jewish children and find them homes to live
in.'
I wrote about it later in my diary. No one I had known before had told me a story about their life that was a proper story,
like a story in a book.
Sarah Cahn said goodbye to her mother in the waiting room of a railway station. It was in Berlin, a great station that I imagined
like Paddington where the train came in when we went up to London. I pictured Paddington, the high arched roof, the great
clock where we were told to stand if we ever got lost, pictured the platforms filled with a grey throng of children without
their mothers, brothers and sisters leading each other hand in hand, and a waiting room like a great cave full of mothers
weeping.
She did not tell all that, only about the waiting room. That the authorities had said that they must make their partings there,
to keep things in order. That there was to be no display of emotion on the public platform.
She was just a bit older than I was. She had on a new dress, and had new clothes in a little brown leather suitcase, in two
sizes as she would grow, and her bathing costume because England was an island and she hoped to live near to the sea - that
she said lightly, with a flick of the hand. There was a number hung around her neck. The same number was on her suitcase and
on her rucksack. In the rucksack she had the things she had packed for herself and some that her mother and father had given
her to take. One of them was that photograph on the dresser, the photo of her with her grandmother on the beach. Not the frame.
The Nazis would not have let her take a silver frame. They had not let her take her stamp collection either. They said that
it was too valuable.
At one moment Sarah Cahn stopped to take a hand-kerchief from her sleeve and put it to her eye. I was astonished to think
that an adult might cry about when she was a child. About what had happened twenty-five years before. I thought that she had
told me the story because of my own mother, because she was without a mother. But it wasn't the same at all. Her story was
entirely different.
'We came to England across the sea, and it was grey and rainy. I didn't think I should ever come to like it!'
'Didn't it rain in Germany?'
'Yes, my dear, of course it did, but I was coming to a new place, a new life, and I didn't think you could start a new life
in the rain.'
I saw it then like a film: the girl Sarah, standing with her suitcase on the ordered platform. Arriving in the rain, feeling
the English rain on her cheeks as she walked down the gangplank on to the dock where the strangers stared. Starting to live
somewhere else in some other language.
The first thing Sarah played on the piano when she got to England, when she was taken into a house by a family and found a
piano there, was 'God Save the King'. Her father had taught it to her before she left. You will need this, he had said, in
England.
'I think I should go home now.'
'Shall I walk with you tonight? Will you be all right, going in the dark?'
'I've done it lots of times before.'
She had got too close. I didn't want her too close.
As I went out of the door I said, 'Next week, I want a different piece to play, one like everyone else plays.'
When I got home I wrote
'You have a fire in the kitchen. Nobody else has a fire in their kitchen.'
A cosy, closed house. As if it was her shell, and she curled within it, like the walnuts that went on the cake.
It was there, sitting at the kitchen table after a lesson, that she told me how she had come to England. There was the coal
fire in the grate, cake crumbs on the cloth. There was a direction in one of the Satie pieces, du bout de la pensée, which meant 'at the tip of one's thoughts', and often there were passages of time like that, with light words and the fire
rustling. This day it happened that the thoughts were spoken.
'It was because we were Jewish. A British charity said that it would take the Jewish children and find them homes to live
in.'
I wrote about it later in my diary. No one I had known before had told me a story about their life that was a proper story,
like a story in a book.
Sarah Cahn said goodbye to her mother in the waiting room of a railway station. It was in Berlin, a great station that I imagined
like Paddington where the train came in when we went up to London. I pictured Paddington, the high arched roof, the great
clock where we were told to stand if we ever got lost, pictured the platforms filled with a grey throng of children without
their mothers, brothers and sisters leading each other hand in hand, and a waiting room like a great cave full of mothers
weeping.
She did not tell all that, only about the waiting room. That the authorities had said that they must make their partings there,
to keep things in order. That there was to be no display of emotion on the public platform.
She was just a bit older than I was. She had on a new dress, and had new clothes in a little brown leather suitcase, in two
sizes as she would grow, and her bathing costume because England was an island and she hoped to live near to the sea - that
she said lightly, with a flick of the hand. There was a number hung around her neck. The same number was on her suitcase and
on her rucksack. In the rucksack she had the things she had packed for herself and some that her mother and father had given
her to take. One of them was that photograph on the dresser, the photo of her with her grandmother on the beach. Not the frame.
The Nazis would not have let her take a silver frame. They had not let her take her stamp collection either. They said that
it was too valuable.
At one moment Sarah Cahn stopped to take a hand-kerchief from her sleeve and put it to her eye. I was astonished to think
that an adult might cry about when she was a child. About what had happened twenty-five years before. I thought that she had
told me the story because of my own mother, because she was without a mother. But it wasn't the same at all. Her story was
entirely different.
'We came to England across the sea, and it was grey and rainy. I didn't think I should ever come to like it!'
'Didn't it rain in Germany?'
'Yes, my dear, of course it did, but I was coming to a new place, a new life, and I didn't think you could start a new life
in the rain.'
I saw it then like a film: the girl Sarah, standing with her suitcase on the ordered platform. Arriving in the rain, feeling
the English rain on her cheeks as she walked down the gangplank on to the dock where the strangers stared. Starting to live
somewhere else in some other language.
The first thing Sarah played on the piano when she got to England, when she was taken into a house by a family and found a
piano there, was 'God Save the King'. Her father had taught it to her before she left. You will need this, he had said, in
England.
'I think I should go home now.'
'Shall I walk with you tonight? Will you be all right, going in the dark?'
'I've done it lots of times before.'
She had got too close. I didn't want her too close.
As I went out of the door I said, 'Next week, I want a different piece to play, one like everyone else plays.'
When I got home I wrote
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