The Last Rescue
by Jennifer Gunner
Miriam stared at the black smokestack slicing into the blue sky above her, trying to remember and forget her mother’s last words to her. The railway station had been frenzied with movement and noise and parents and children and suitcases and tears, and Miriam had only heard pieces of her mother’s assurances. Something about how the train ride would only take one day, and the boat ride just one day after that. How they’d land in some British town. How Miriam and her younger sister Bina had to get on this train with the other children so they could catch the children’s ship, and the next ship could come in for the parents.
Miriam knew this last part was not true. She had eavesdropped on Mama and Papa’s hushed conversations and quiet tears. They had said Kindertransport, not Elterntransport. The war was coming and the ships were stopping—at least, that’s what Mama had whispered last night, along with the words Nazi and now.
But she’d never tell Bina, who sniffled at Miriam’s side and clung to the coat that Mama had slipped onto Miriam’s shoulders at the last minute. Miriam pulled the large lapel to her face and inhaled her mother’s French perfume. She closed her eyes against the stinging December wind and wished for summer back in Berlin.
“Hello, Miriam.”
Miriam’s heart lurched with the ship as she heard Marcus, her next-door neighbor, behind her. Marcus was two years ahead of Miriam in school, but that hadn’t mattered during their afternoons together.
Miriam had seen Marcus on the train earlier that day, and he’d acknowledged her with a polite nod and a tip of his hat, the same way he had since he’d turned thirteen. He’d suddenly left their games—and Miriam, then a babyish twelve-year-old—to chat with his grown-up friends.
Lots of things had changed in those two years. Miriam emptied her mind of the list that got longer by the minute.
She turned to see Marcus’s concerned expression. He was much taller than her now, a recent growth spurt stretching his legs and flattening his stomach. His face was handsome, though still warm and gentle.
“Hello, Marcus.” Miriam hoped she sounded more grown-up than she looked—a child huddled in an adult woman’s coat, clutching a sniffling four-year-old’s hand.
“Are you cold?”
Miriam shook her head, but a shiver caught her by surprise. Marcus chuckled. “Let’s go downstairs with everyone else.”
“We’re fine,” said Miriam. Being with the other children made her feel like a kid.
“Well, I’m cold.” Marcus shuffled his feet and rubbed his hands together. “Will you at least come down and keep me company?”
His sideways grin was from the old days. The flutter in Miriam’s chest was something new.
Miriam and Bina followed Marcus down the corridors they’d ascended before, revisiting the memories she’d left in these halls. Thoughts of Papa. Wishes for Mama. Dread of the radio sputtering to life with more news that made them panic.
Miriam scanned the room where dozens of children huddled in varying layers of winter coats. Some of the smaller ones were still crying or sniffling, and the older ones stared ahead. Miriam knew what was passing before their eyes: their last moments with their parents, the unknown future beyond.
Marcus found a spot on the floor and gestured for Miriam and Bina to join him. Miriam hesitated. Did he feel obligated to help the neighborhood kids? Did he wish he could sit with the other boys his age? Maybe talk to Sarah Blau, the pretty girl from Hebrew school?
“Come on,” Marcus prompted, patting the floor.
Miriam sat and folded Bina into her lap. She tried not to think about Marcus’s discomfort with her existence as the ship slid back and forth across the surface of the sea, twisting her stomach and sending rivers of saliva into her mouth.
“I feel sick,” Bina complained.
Miriam held her hands to her sister’s belly as she tried to ignore the sloshing in her own innards. “She’s never been on a boat before,” Miriam confessed to Marcus, hoping her own inexperience wasn’t as evident.
“You both look a little green,” commented Marcus, brushing a lock from Bina’s small forehead. “Do you want to go back up to the main deck?
Miriam desperately wanted to go up to the main deck. “I’m fine,” she assured him, hoping her tone sounded womanly. “How are you?”
Her question resonated more than she’d intended it to. Marcus was quiet for a moment as he pondered the impossibility of his answer. In the end, he shrugged his teenage shoulders.
“Me too,” said Miriam.
“Do you have a sponsor in England?” he asked.
“No.” Miriam’s cheeks flushed with all the implications of this confession. There had been talk of a group home for her and Bina, but the details swam in front of her like fleeing fish in a swirling sea. “Do you?”
“My cousin. He lives in London. He’s getting me into school there.” Pride was missing from Marcus’s words, as if he knew he’d been the beneficiary of relative good fortune.
“That’s wonderful,” said Miriam.
They were quiet for a few minutes, the low chatter of other children and creaks of the ships filling the silence between them. Miriam sifted her fingers through Bina’s fine hair.
“You can go sit with your friends, if you want,” Miriam finally offered.
“No, that’s all right. I’m happier here.” He ruffled Miriam’s hair and pulled her closer.
Miriam’s heart danced.
“Remember when we broke the tree branch in my yard?” he asked after another quiet moment.
Miriam giggled. “I told you we wouldn’t both fit on the swing.”
“You were light as a feather,” countered Marcus. “It was poor swing construction.”
“Your mother was so angry. I’m surprised she didn’t ban me from your house.”
“Never. She wanted us to get married.”
Miriam’s cheeks flushed. “Really?”
“Yes. Though I think she just wanted to plan a wedding with your mother.”
“That would be a terrible wedding,” laughed Miriam. “Too many guests and not enough food.”
“‘We can’t forget the Goldmanns!’” mimicked Marcus in a feminine squeak. “Or anyone else from the temple!”
Miriam let out an inappropriate guffaw, making most of the other children look over at her. Her smile faded.
“Anyway, it never would have worked.” Marcus’s voice was softer now. “You were much too pretty for me.”
A thrill cascaded through Miriam’s cheeks, down her neck, through her arms and legs, and down to her fingers and toes. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Well, maybe not then. But I knew you would be someday.”
Miriam shoved him playfully.
Marcus cleared his throat awkwardly. “After my bar mitzvah, my mother said it wasn’t right for us to play together. That I needed to ask you on a proper date if I wanted to see you.”
Every word died on Miriam’s tongue. She stared up at him.
“And I started to, once,” Marcus added, rubbing his neck. “But I couldn’t …”
He glanced down at Miriam, their eyes meeting for the first time since the upper deck.
“I should have asked you before this,” he murmured. “I wish I had.”
Miriam could not reply. Instead, she clasped his hand and rested her head against his chest. They were quiet the rest of the night, rocked to sleep in each other’s arms by the unrelenting slap of waves against the ship’s stubborn hull.
* * *
Ten years later, Miriam was locking up the bookstore when she saw a familiar face across the street, one she hadn’t seen since they’d hugged on a British dock and promised to keep in touch. The years since had been a terrifying blur punctuated by moments of tragedy and brief interludes of relief.
She and Bina had spent the war in a British children’s home, their safety from German troops soon threatened by German planes above. They never talked about their parents, though Miriam thought of them every night, along with someone else.
Their parents had not arrived on the next ship, nor any ship that followed. Most of the children in the home found themselves in the same circumstance. As Miriam would learn during her fruitless search in later years, the children in the Kindertransport they had been the lucky ones, despite their unimaginable losses.
Now, as Miriam stared at the tall, dark-haired man in the suit, she felt the tears she’d held in—for every scary officer, every whisper she’d overheard, every fear she’d squashed—well up inside Miriam and spill into existence.
Marcus was at her side in an instant, pulling her into an embrace. She was back in the only moment of refuge she’d had since she could remember. His arms felt like home.
“See?” he asked.
Miriam sniffed and looked up at him. “What?”
“I told you you’d be pretty someday.”
Before Miriam could scoff, Marcus gently pressed his lips to hers, and the universe tilted slightly back into the right direction.
About the author
Jennifer Gunner is a freelance writer, a South Coast Writing Project fellow, and a 2023 Pushcart nominee. Her short poetry and prose have appeared in Sundial Magazine, Suddenly, and Without Warning, and the Santa Barbara Literary Journal. When she's not watching her kids' basketball games and band concerts, Jennifer loves participating in writing contests of all shapes and sizes.
About the illustration
The illustration is "Child refugees arriving at Harwich, Essex, from Germany". Photograph by Fred Morley, December 2, 1938.