Diaspora

It's not often Maria Lehnsherr puts her foot down, but when she does, the house trembles. Erik takes note and seeks refuge in his room, swiftly followed by Elsa. Once up, the muffled sounds of the row drifting up through the bare boards, Erik puts a finger to his lips and lies flat on the ground, a glass pressed to the floor and his ear against it. His sister sits on the bed and hugs her knees.

"-And I am not waiting for those savages to come here!"

"This is our land Maria! Have you any idea what that means? Of course, maybe being born in the city-"

Erik winces, whenever his father brings up his mother's birthplace, the row is about to get bad.

There's a timid knock on the door. "Come in." Elsa calls.

It's Moshe. He's pale and looks sick. He's only five and unlike Elsa and Erik, he can't remember the Grandmother Rows of '35. Erik doesn't think they've had one this bad since then. Elsa shifts over and he huddles next to her, burying his face in her blouse. She pats him gently.

"Is that all it's worth to you? This land? Maybe it's my city born way, but I thought you'd value your family's safety more than some patch of dirt!"

"Are you so hysterical that you'd abandon your own home on the off chance there's an invasion! I thought you better than that Maria-"

Oh it's bad. It's really bad. Erik is seriously considering climbing out of the window and spending the day in Palming woods until they've both cooled off. Moshe's still shaking. Maybe they could find some line and take him fishing like they'd promised - no, that's not going to work, the line's in the kitchen and wild horses wouldn't get him downstairs with his parents rowing like this.

"This is worse than when Grandmama said all that about mother' family." Elsa mutters. Erik grimaces. It is. The Grandmother Rows have finally been topped. It is a sad day indeed.

Another knock, and the door opens a crack. It's the twins. Then come in without being invited. Misha crouches beside him; "Can I have a go?"

Erik waves her away furiously, and they sit on Erik's now extremely crowded bed. Elsa puts an arm around Mika , but she squirms her off, glaring.

"Is that a chance you're willing to take? You heard the stories-"

"Stories! Stories! You're willing to run away on some tall tales-"

"Tall tales? My sister saw the synagogue burn down! And they were shrieking around it like wild Indians! She went to America straight after that, said she couldn't stay in that country another moment, not after seeing old Markus taken away. How are we safe, living next to an insane country like that?"

There's silence. It fills the room up like water. They all look at each other. The silence stretches.

"Who's they?" Mina asks eagerly.

"Shut up!" Erik plants his ear against the glass again, his father is muttering something.

"What is it?"

Erik lifts his head, "It sounded like 'maybe you're right Maria'."

Silence again, he can hear the conversation continue at a more subdued volume downstairs, but they've got the important part.

Moshe turns away from Elsa and rubs his damp eyes. "They've stopped?"

Erik sits up, stretching stiff legs. "Yes, they've stopped. At last."

"What was that about?" Mika and Mina are seven, they can just about remember the Grandmother Rows.

Erik bites his lip. He's not entirely sure. He knows what it sounded like, but surely-

"Mother wants us to leave the country." Elsa answers for him.

More silence. Erik feels slightly sick. He doesn't know how to feel about this. It sounds exciting enough, and it would mean they'd be able to leave the village for more than short trips to Warsaw, but... this is home. He knows every tree in the woods, every stone along the roads. They practically are the village here, their vast, sprawling family owning most of the shops and services. And they own the land. The first in the family to own land. And now they are planning to leave.

"Is it because of them?" Mina asks.

Erik nods. They don't talk about them. Father hides the papers and Mother no longer talks about her childhood in Germany.

"Why don't they just find them and give them a good kicking?"

"Girls don't kick people." Moshe snorts.

"I think, " Erik says, "That there are a lot of them."

It doesn't start feeling real for a long time. Life goes on as it has for the last twelve years of Erik's life. There's school in the village, and adventures in the woods. They finally take Moshe fishing and catch three large trout to take home and eat, and Erik's little brother is glowing for days afterwards and boasting to anyone who'd listen how it had been 'this big' and had terrible teeth and fed the whole family with enough left over for sandwiches. Elsa's latest boyfriend is driving Father up the wall, the twins are as annoying as ever, the new baby as noisy as ever, and Erik spends his time studying and walking the woods and adding to his collection of 'interesting metal things'.

But every time Erik starts forgetting about the Them Row, as they've come to term it, bits of it come back to haunt them. There's the late night discussions when the adults think they've all gone to bed, even Elsa's not allowed to attend, and she's almost sixteen, and they all sneak down or hide in Erik's room listening through the floorboards to talks about visas and your sister and possible housing and passports.

One night when Erik and Elsa are both hiding behind the stairs (everyone Elsa is upstairs and waiting for their report) that they first hear the words New York.

It sends a chill up Erik's spine. The idea of leaving had been a vague notion, the general aim of away, they know where they're coming from, but this is the first time they hear where they're going to.

Erik tries to remember everything he knows about New York when he and Elsa creep up the stairs avoiding the squeaky steps, and join the others in Erik's room.

"We're going to New York." He announces without preamble.

They all stare at him. "That's so far." Mika gasps.

Erik shrugs, it wasn't his idea. Elsa smiles. "I think it's a great idea."

They stare at her now. "But they just speak English over there. I can't speak English!" Mina hugs her knees.

"I can," Erik puts in. It's almost true anyway, he's the best in class easy. "You'll have to learn." He's going to enjoy that. They twins have far too much time to spend annoying him, it'll be great for them to have less.

"I hate you." A pillow is thrown, Erik ducks.

"No, it'll be great." Elsa sits down on Erik's work chair. "Mum's sister lives there and she's amazing. It's huge and there'll be lots of things to do, and people to see. It's so small here, it'll be great to finally see the world. You know, live."

"You just want to meet a rich American man and get married." Moshe sniffs haughtily, looking ridiculous for five.

"Or be unmarried, like Mother's sister." Mika giggles.

Elsa shrugs. She's heard far worse from great Grandmama, the rabbi, and almost everyone else in the village. "So what if I do? It's better than my chances here." She pauses, "Erik, do you still have that photograph mum's sister sent you?"

Erik hesitates. The photo is in his box of 'interesting things' and he doesn't want to get it out in front of them. If the twins know where it is they'll steal it and blackmail him, or lose it. After a moment he pulls it out from under a loose floorboard. He'll have to find another place to hide it tomorrow, maybe under his desk?-

The photo is crumpled and creased from having been looked at a hundred times. Mother's sister (he can't call her his aunt even in his own head. His aunts are the Lehnsherr unmarried maidens who disapprove of Elsa and make loud hints about Erik taking over the family trade) sent it to him when she went to America. It shows eleven men eating lunch high above New York City, while building a skyscraper. Erik must have looked at it a thousand times.

Now they all pour over it, wondering at the crazy people in the city who sit so happy hundreds of meters above the ground, eating lunch. Moshe says that they must have so many people in the city that they must not care if a few fall to their deaths. Elsa answers that they must all be very brave. Or crazy, Misha puts in. Erik doesn't say anything. Maybe he's a little mad, but he's often thought he'd like to be one of those men on the skyscraper. You'd have the whole city under you, and you'd work all day in the clouds with birds to pay you visits. It strikes Erik then that maybe he could be, that he'd actually be able to see where this photo was taken on the Empire State Building, and suddenly he feels a lot happier about leaving.

Even then, it's almost 1939 before their parents break the news. It's sweet that they thought they'd been able to hide what was going on from them, but the day Erik and his siblings are called down to the dining room and they seen mother looking determined and father looking grim, Erik for one knows that This Is It. The big talk. Even with everything, it really hadn't felt real until now.

Father starts. "Your mother and I feel that-" he takes a deep breath and looks imploringly at Maria, as though also aware that the moment he says the words, there's no going back -"that things in this country are no longer stable enough to justify staying." Another deep breath, Erik's mother gives the smallest of nods, go on. "German is threatening to invade, and we do not want to be caught in a war zone, particularly since-"

Maria interrupts, "Not too much detail, please, Elias." She smiles at them all. "We don't think it'll be safe, and we want keep you all out of harm's way until we know it's safe."

A hard, cold fist grips Erik's stomach. "You're not coming with us?"

Maria chuckles. "Oh, of course we're coming with you!" She walks over and gives Erik a hug. "You don't think we'd leave you all on your own, would you?"

Erik sighs, too relieved to mind the hug. America would not have been much fun otherwise.

"Sounds like they already know what's coming." Father puts him, crossing his arms.

Erik looks at his feet. "You want to go to New York."

"It's a safe place, my chick." Erik hears Mina and Misha snigger at the pet name and grits his teeth. "My sister lives there and says it's a lovely place, warm and welcoming and with lots of our people there." She sighs. "More now, probably. Anyway, she'll be coming to help us move and you like your aunt Rachel, don't you?"

General nodding. Mother's sister Rachel is fun, she always has the most interesting things to show them, and the funniest stories.

"And some of your cousins are coming along too, so it's not as though we'll be alone there."

"Where are we going to live?" Moshe asks, uncertainly.

There's a moment's hesitation, then Maria answers, "Now, don't you worry about that for now. We'll take care of it and before you know it, we'll have a lovely house. In the city. It'll be live visiting Warsaw, only even better because we'll live there-"

"We don't have a house, do we?" It's Mina, she's chewing her lips anxiously.

"We will have a house." His mother correct firmly. "We're sorting it out now-"

"What your mother means," Father breaks it, "Is that she's had my lout of a half-brother buy up the house and farm, and we'll be arriving in New York with only the clothes on our backs."

The silence is horrible and Erik starts edging towards the door, ready to bolt when the war starts. His mother is glaring daggers. "We settled this, Elias."

"They're allowed to know how thing stand." Father says stoutly.

Erik is almost at the door, he's not sure how to open it without them noticing.

"Not like this they don't." His mother's voice is a deadly whisper. Erik wishes he could be anywhere but here.

The door handle suddenly slaps into Erik's hand, and he leaps out just in time as his mother lets rip "HOW DARE YOU USE MY CHILDREN-"

Erik doesn't have time to hear anything else, because he's out and running down the path towards the woods, each breath of cold air beating out any-where-but-here-any-where-but-here. He can hear the footsteps of his brother and sisters in the snow behind him as they too make a quick escape from the house.

They only stop when they reach the road and the countryside around them is deceptively peaceful. "What did father mean?" Misha looks stricken, her hair is coming out of her braid and falling in streamers in front of her eyes.

"I wouldn't pay him much attention." Elsa puts in, doubling over to catch her breath. "He's hated the idea of leaving since mother suggested it. He was probably making it sound bad to annoy her."

"But if we don't have anywhere to live-"

"Rachel didn't have anywhere to live when she came to America." Elsa interrupts, "And now she's got a really nice place. I bet we'll stay with her. Father's just being an ass."

"You shouldn't say that." Moshe is glaring at her.

"So what? He's an ass. I bet Mother thinks so."

It's cold, and Erik is starting to shiver, but it's still early and the library should still be open. He doesn't want to sit around and listen to his siblings bicker, after having just escaped the Leaving Row of '38.

Packing isn't done at once, but slowly, piece by piece. Their summer clothes are first, anything they won't be needing for a while. But slowly it eats up everything they have, until it's almost second nature to put their clothes in the trunk rather than the wardrobe. Mother spends a lot of time down in the village on the post office's phone, Father splits his time between organising the packing and moping around the house, running hands over mantelpieces and slowly emptying bookshelves, as though trying to remember everything.

The day Rachel comes to stay with them is quite an event, and they all file out to watch her arrive in a long red hired car, the back seats full of packages and wrapped things. She hugs them all and promises a ride in the car the moment the weather becomes more bearable.

But it never comes. What does come are the ship tickets, branded the fourteenth of January. The year goes by in a flurry of snow, and the evening before the fourteenth Erik climbs into bed and realises, really realises that they are leaving. This is the last night he will spend in the house he was born in. Looking around at the familiar shadows, curls up in bed and tries not to cry. The tears splash on the sheets anyway. he tries to think of something else, of America and skyscrapers and cowboys and anything, but his mind keeps going back to the house around him, every corner, every wall and rickety stair.

He first climbed onto the roof when he was five, and found a birds nest wedged beside the chimney. His father had to borrow a ladder to carry Erik down kicking and screaming. He last fished in October, with Moshe and Elsa. He hadn't know that would be the last time he'd do so. Maybe he could have done something, like a little ritual to thank the stream and fish for having given them so many years of fun. He's not going back to school, and embarrassingly that's the last straw and Erik gets up, rubbing away tears that just well up again. He creeps out carefully (he knows the squeaky boards by heart now), and creeps into Elsa's room. He hasn't done this since he was ten, but he really wants his sister right now.

Moshe is already there, Elsa smiles at him and turns down her end of the bed. Erik climbs in gratefully, lying head to feet.

"Snore and I'll kick you." Elsa mumbles.

Erik manages something back, but is quickly falling asleep.

The taxis arrive the next day, and there's no time to feel sad, or indeed anything else. They scramble with trunks and suitcases and bags of all kinds, and the rest of the family turn out in droves with breakfast and food for the road and small going-away presents. Erik loses count of everyone he hugs, but then he's standing with his grandfather beside one of the cars, out of breath after carrying a heavy case. The old man smiles at him through his beard, his eyes are sad and Erik is horrified to see he's close to tears. Grandfather fought in the Great War, and didn't cry even when his wife died. His mouth moves, but he doesn't speak, instead pressing a wrapped package in Erik's hands.

"You already gave me something." It was a book on the last war, and Erik doesn't know if he'll ever read it.

His grandfather's mouth twists, and he nods, but he still doesn't speak, ruffling Erik's hair as he used to when Erik was small. "You look after your father." His voice is rough and a little hoarse. Erik is terrified he'll start crying and he hasn't the first idea what to do, so instead he just gives grandfather a hug made awkward by the package and goes back to help with the luggage.

They've loaded everything up and said goodbye when Erik suddenly remembers his box of special things, still upstairs under his desk. Father groans and Mother snaps "Go get it then! And quickly or we'll miss the train!"

"I'll go with him," Elsa offers, and they quickly dash back into a house made horribly empty and alien. Everything is hollow and gone, like walking through a dream version of the house, familiar and completely wrong. Erik climbs to his own room, and digs his box from under the desk.

"You know what we've forgotten?" Elsa says, looking around. "You remember what we used to do, before we went away?"

Erik smiles, and the both sit down on the stripped bed. It was mother's idea first, but they all used to do it. Before they leave, they imagine what it would be like to be there. It brought luck, she said. Think of it hard enough and the world will help you get there. It's when you don't know where you're going that accidents happen. Erik closes his eyes and thinks of the postcard, the skyscrapers, the Empire State Building. There's a honk from outside, and they both hurry out.

They make the train from Warsaw station, but only just. They just have time to jump in before the train pulls out, and by that time they're all frazzled and the baby is screaming. Rachel goes to walk in the corridor to calm her down as the rest of them cram into two compartments. There's fifteen of them; Erik's family, his rich goldsmith uncle and his wife, and three cousins. Erik doesn't remember much of the ride to Danzig, he spends his time staring out of the window and the sandwiches he's given don't seem to have a taste, although he must have eaten them at some point because they're gone now.

Rachel comes back in with the baby fast asleep in her arms. Mother is sitting with Misha and Mika snuggled up against her, and Moshe is asleep against Father. Erik must have slept too, arms still wrapped around his special box, because he's groggy and lost when Rachel shakes him awake. They've arrived at Danzig.

It's getting dark already, and Mother isn't in any mood to spend longer than she has to on German soil. They hail taxis, needing four to carry their small army and its luggage to the docks where the ship is waiting. It's freezing and Erik feels as though every part of his is shaking. They've leaving Poland, Europe, everything. Maybe only for a little while, but he doesn't want to leave at all. A light snow is starting to fall and the ship is a dark mass in the night air, speckled by brilliant lights through the portholes.

"Come on," Mother's voice is coaxing. "The sooner we're inside, the sooner we can get in our cabins and warm up."

The cabins are four bed ones, Erik cheers up when he realises he will be sharing with Elsa, Rachel and Moshe. The trip would take a week, it's good to know the company won't be bad. If he'd ended up with the twins one of them would have been thrown overboard before they'd even left harbour.

Still, the hollow empty feeling doesn't leave for long, and Erik takes off his shoes and curls up in the top bunk. He doesn't want to think that in a few hours they'll be leaving home behind for good. He doesn't want to think that if he just got off now, he could sneak aboard a train back to Warsaw and he can walk home from there. Home is a tight knot in his stomach and Erik clenches his eyes shut. He won't cry. He won't.

"Erik?" His mother touches his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he doesn't roll over. His latest attempt to hold back tears have been no more successful than the last.

"We're going to dinner, are you coming?"

"I'm not hungry." Maybe when the knotting goes away he'll feel hungry.

"Well, if you're hungry later, there's some sandwiches and apples in your bag."

"I'll be alright."

"If you're sure."

She pats his shoulder and Elsa, Rachel and Moshe leave with her. Erik turns the lights out. Maybe if he goes to sleep he won't think, and he'll dream of skyscrapers and of having lunch on iron girders instead.

Erik wakes up some uncertain time later, to a dull hoot and a shaking that rattles the whole ship. They're setting off. The room is still dark and the other three must have come in without waking him because they're all in their bunks. Erik sits up and tries to look out of the porthole above his bed, everything's dark, but he can see the lights of Danzig start to fade as they pull away. The shaking slows to a soothing rocking as they leave shore, and Erik fancies he can feel the engines churning the water below them.

He doesn't know what to think. Mostly he feels empty, and hungry. Mostly hungry. Erik carefully pads out of his bunk to the lockers where he stowed his things (stowed is the nautical term, not put away). He finds two cheese sandwiches and a slightly battered apple, and he is just closing the bag when his hand touches grandfather's gift.

Erik picks it up and shakes it, quickly stopping when it rattled loudly. No one seems to have woken up, thank goodness, and he retreats back to his bed with his spoils and a torch. He climbs in and pulls the covers over his head, only then switching on the torch. The sandwiches are quickly eaten and the crumbs scattered all over the sheets and Erik opens the porthole a crack and drops the apple core outside. He tries to hear the splash, but there's nothing but the dull roar of the engines.

He turns grandfather's gift over and over. It still rattles. It's neatly wrapped in old leather, probably from the old man's workshop. It's tied together with a strip of hide, and Erik picks at it with his fingernails until he manages to get the knot loose. The leather unrolls and a delicately carved box rolls out, bouncing on the mattress.

It's a beautiful old chess set.