Free The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond The Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival by Mona Golabek, Lee Cohen Page B

she doesn’t have a sponsor, they won’t let her into England.”
    “What if they don’t find one?” Lisa pressed.
    “We are doing our best, but it’s very difficult right now, there are so many who need sponsors.”
    “Please let me stay in London, I’ll help look for someone, too, I promise,” she begged.
    Mr. Hardesty sighed. “Let me see what I can do, at least temporarily.”
    He ran his index finger down a list of telephone numbers wedged under the glass top of his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed.
    “I’ll get a tongue-lashing, but hopefully it’ll be a short one,” he muttered.
    Lisa watched as Mr. Hardesty wrinkled up his face and began: “Mrs. Cohen? Alfred Hardesty, here, Bloomsbury House. We have a bit of an unusual situation here, and I know I promised not to send so much as one more sardine your way, but there’s a lovely young lady just needs a place for a month. . . .”
    He held the phone away from his ear and Lisa heard the raised voice of a woman. Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, Mr. Hardesty leaned forward and said sotto voce: “I think you two will get along famously.”
    Anxious to get some relief from the heat, and concerned about smoothing Mrs. Cohen’s ruffled feathers, Mr. Hardesty himself escorted Lisa to her new home: the hostel at 243 Willesden Lane, in Willesden Green, a twenty-minute taxi ride from the Bloomsbury House. Willesden Green was an older neighborhood of large brick houses. Its corners were alive with tiny shops—a butcher’s, a druggist’s, a laundry, and a bakery. Only one shop was boarded and had a sign: “Long Live Britain, God Bless You All.”
    The houses on Willesden Lane were surrounded by neatly manicured lawns. As the taxi slowed, Lisa noticed a building with a cross carved into the stone lintel above the door; three nuns were in the front flower garden, watering the plants. The cab rolled to a stop at the next house, a rambling three-story structure whose shutters and fence were in need of paint, but whose lawn was recently mowed and trimmed. Its semicircular driveway was bordered with a fringe of lilacs.
    The two of them got out and headed up the stone walk-way. Mr. Hardesty knocked and, while waiting, adjusted the crooked bronze numbers 2-4-3 back into alignment.
    An imposing middle-aged woman in a dark purple dress opened the door. She had a rigid, upper-class bearing and held her chin tilted upward. It looked to Lisa as though she were trying to balance the huge, tightly wound bun of auburn hair so it wouldn’t fall off the top of her head.
    “Please come in.” She surveyed Lisa and glanced at the little suitcase. “Is that all you have?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Come in then! Let’s not stand here while the house fills up with flies.”
    Mr. Hardesty picked up Lisa’s suitcase and put his arm around her shoulder, easing her through the doorway.
    Lisa walked into a dark-paneled foyer, which opened into a pleasant drawing room with two sofas and several groups of chairs and tables. Two well-worn chess boards were arranged neatly on top of a card table. A graceful staircase led upstairs, and a dining room was visible across the foyer. She stepped farther into the parlor and saw the large fireplace and the bay window that looked out on the convent next door. Nestled in the cove by the window was a distinctive shape, covered with a hand-crocheted shawl.
    Lisa’s heart beat faster; it was a piano!
    “We’re overcrowded, you know. We can only make room for you temporarily,” Mrs. Cohen said, not noticing Lisa’s expression of wonder. “I’ll have one of the girls tell you the rules.”
    Mrs. Cohen’s firm stride took her to the base of the stairs. “Gina Kampf, come down here, please!” she shouted in a remarkably strong voice.
    She has an even heavier German accent than I do, Lisa thought to herself, smiling. She felt comfortable here already.
    At the sound of youthful steps thundering down the staircase, Mrs. Cohen turned to