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  When I was about six years old, my mother and Daddy must have decided I should go to school, but I was shy and resisted being sent to the British school in the nearby town of Carcavellos. Instead, it was decided I should have lessons with an Englishwoman and former teacher, Mrs. Rebecca Bucknall, whose daughter, Henrietta, was my age. Henrietta had colitis and was considered too frail to go to the British school. My parents could not have known they were sending me into a kind of snake pit.

  Lessons were benign; Mrs. Bucknall was a kind and careful teacher. But Henrietta, the only child born to older parents, had a terrible temper. Because of her colitis, she was forbidden certain foods—fresh fruit, for one, which she stole from the fruit bowl in the dining room. We ate the cherries and threw the pits under the sideboard. If she was rebuked or refused anything, she was seized by an uncontrollable rage.

  At these times, her mother would forcibly restrain her and lock her in her room. My friend’s violence, the physical struggle, her screams and battering on the door terrified me. When this happened, I was sent home with a note that said Henrietta had become ill. No one ever explained, and each day began as if it would be a normal day, which it was, until one day Henrietta would again lose her temper, and there would be the struggle between mother and daughter that always ended in Henrietta being forcibly locked in her room, screaming and battering on the door.

  Most days, after lessons were over, we played with our dolls. They were the babies we dressed and took out under the trees in the garden and the fields nearby. Fairies were as real to us as the rest of nature. Many children’s books contained stories of fairies, and so the fact that we could not see them made no difference. We had documented proof of their existence (if we ever needed it), and why should we have thought they were less real than uncles or grandparents we never saw, or the God and Jesus Christ we sang about each Sunday morning at the Anglican Mission?

  This was one of the worlds I inhabited as a child—the non-adult one, ruled entirely by our imagination. In this world, Henrietta and I were absorbed and happy. I don’t remember any quarrels and certainly she never showed any of the anger that was part of the world inside the house. Outdoors was a place of liberation, indoors a place of rules.

  When we left for America, Henrietta, who was good at drawing, gave me a picture she had made of two fairies, one standing on the shore, the other flying away to America. I was eight years old, and it was the end of my European life. We returned briefly after the war, but by that time I had become an American.

  CHAPTER 3

  Flight

  I was eight in June 1940 when my mother, stepfather, sister, and I stood looking at the silver Pan American clipper ship rocking gently on its pontoons in the Lisbon harbor. The day had started very early when Mummy woke us to get washed and dressed. Until two months ago, Fraulein had been there in the morning to help us wash and to brush out our hair. She had been ordered back to Germany by her government. Janine and I both wore two long braids hanging over our shoulders. Mummy was not used to plaiting our hair and did it more slowly and gently than Fraulein who used to sometimes pull it too tight. I liked having Mummy braid my hair and wash my face. But when Fraulein left, we all cried. Nothing was the same after that.

  It’s only for a few months, Daddy had said. The war won’t last long. We knew Daddy was staying behind, that he was not going with us on the airplane, but he did not actually say that. We were to fly in this new luxury plane, the first to cross the Atlantic virtually nonstop, putting down briefly in the Azores to refuel. We did not stop at Ellis Island but flew directly into New York City. Even so, we became immigrants, joining the vast number of people displaced during World War II.

  On the dock, there were lots of people waiting to board the clipper ship. Some of them were hugging and crying. I remember it was sunny and very hot. Daddy had pushed his hat back on his head. Janine was clutching her white stuffed monkey, Tishi, a present from her Granny in England. Mummy was wearing her Persian lamb coat even though it was so hot. If we hadn’t been going to America, we would be going to the beach to swim and build sand castles until it was time to go home for lunch.

  After we were all strapped into our seats, the plane roared and sped over the water, then lifted up into the air. I had never felt anything like it except when I used to lie in bed and press the bottom of my tummy. This felt like that, but very sudden and deep. I loved it until suddenly my ears began to hurt a lot, and then I couldn’t hear anything anymore. When I began to cry, someone gave me some chewing gum which I was never allowed to have, but Mummy said it was all right. It tasted strong and rubbery, and I still couldn’t hear anything, which was worse than the pain.

  Later, we all went to sleep in little beds with net bags for our clothes. The roar of the engines put me to sleep even though my ears still hurt and I couldn’t hear anything. The next morning, we landed in The Azores, a place with lots of flowers. When I climbed down the gangplank, my legs felt wobbly and my head light from the roaring of the engine. It was sunny and very hot, and Mummy took off her fur coat and hat, and the three of us stood in the shade while the plane was being refueled.

  Mummy said that Mr. and Mrs. Green, friends of Daddy’s from work, were going to meet us in New York. When the plane took off again, I felt the same wonderful feeling in my tummy and this time, my ears did not hurt so much.

  New York was very hot but gray and black, and there were no flowers. We drove off in a car over a long bridge, into a city with very tall buildings. One had a huge picture of a man blowing real smoke rings. Everything was noisy. We finally got to a gray house where the cat had just had kittens. I had never seen newborn kittens before; at home we had Blackie, a cocker spaniel, but no cats. Now Blackie was living with Hamish and his family across the street. I put my finger in one of the tiny open mouths. The kitten immediately started to suck. I liked feeling that wet little mouth tugging at my finger.

  Sally in New York

  Before we left New York, our hosts took us to see the new musical Oklahoma! by Rogers and Hammerstein. We sat in the balcony. I remember being thrilled and awed, having never been in a large theater or to anything remotely like this.

  Before we left New York, I was taken to a doctor because of my earaches. He said I had to have my tonsils out: they were infected. I remember the operating room, with the nurses and doctors wearing masks. When the oxygen mask was placed on my face, I struggled and began to scream. I saw my mother somewhere nearby, but she could not get to me. Then I lost consciousness. When I awoke, I was in bed, and my throat hurt terribly. They had promised me ice cream, but it was summer and by the time the ice cream reached me it had melted. I was bitterly disappointed.

  After I recovered, we took a train to New Hampshire to stay with Daddy’s mother. She lived in the country in a large house called Sunnytop. At the station, we were met by a woman with short white hair. She said we were to call her June, not Granny. She didn’t seem like a grandmother.

  June drove us to a large sprawling house surrounded by grass and flower beds. It looked peaceful and safe. She took us into the kitchen, a large bright room with a modern stove and refrigerator and a table with six chairs. There were braided rugs on the floor and curtains on the windows. Through the window, I could see a cow and yellow buttercups in the field. There were two cats sleeping on the porch, and I heard a dog barking. I had never seen a kitchen like this. Ours was dark, with cupboards and a black stove. No one except the maids ever ate there.

  June asked Mummy what we would like and Mummy said tea please, and milk for the children. June opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of milk and poured two glasses. We had never been given cold milk before.

  Janine, Sylvia, and Sally in New York

  June told us Americans like cold milk. She put a large bowl of blueberries on the table for us. Both tasted cold and sour. I put down the milk and looked at Mummy, who was drinking her tea with her eyes closed. I had hoped Betty would be there, but June said she was away in boa
rding school and wouldn’t be home until her next holiday. There was a Jersey cow named Betty. June said the cow came with its name and had nothing to do with the other Betty, her granddaughter.

  June had run a successful business in the garment industry as a young woman after she left Oklahoma and Jack’s father. In middle age, she married a wealthy businessman, Barney Mulaney, and bought Sunnytop when they retired to New Hampshire. She was an unusual woman for that time, even for an American. She was strong, outspoken, independent, and a bully. She must have thought both Jack’s wives were helpless creatures who could not take care of themselves or their children. She did not have much confidence in her son, either, so took it on herself to step in and do what she thought needed to be done.

  She did a lot of harm to those she set out to help—like Betty, Jack’s first child. We were the second family he abandoned, but because one of us, my sister Janine, was Jack’s child, June came to our rescue twice, both times with strings attached.

  Mummy, of course, detested her mother-in-law, who reminded her of those gum-chewing American women she had known in Europe, with the harsh accents and common manners. (Why do they have to put down their knives to eat with their forks?) The two of them clashed almost as soon as we arrived at Sunnytop. It must have been desperation that caused Jack to send his wife and two children to stay with his mother. But it was a desperate time, with not many alternatives. We could not to go England, which was under siege. Portugal was full of refugees with nowhere to go, no money, and no valid papers. My mother and I had British passports and would have been deported, probably to a concentration camp, if the Germans marched into Portugal, which was expected. We were the lucky ones. We escaped.

  But once in the safety of America, not yet at war, on a farm in rural New Hampshire, the inevitable clash of personalities occurred. The war was not going well for the Allies; the Germans were bombing England and marching through Europe. Mummy listened to all the news broadcasts. She had letters from her husband, delivered via the Ingersoll-Rand Company, which said he was well and doing important work. He didn’t elaborate and didn’t mention when he would come to join us in America. Mummy was sure he was working for the Allies, doing his bit for the war effort.

  June did not seem impressed, and then one day she more or less admitted she was not entirely sympathetic to England and thought America would be mad to even consider entering the war. What quarrel did we have with Germany, after all? Mummy tightened her lips and said America was supposed to represent the free and the brave, and wasn’t Germany trying to enslave the rest of Europe? Romantic twaddle, was June’s response. German culture didn’t just represent but was the best.

  One night after Janine and I were in bed, I was woken by the sound of angry voices. I heard someone thumping the table and my mother shouting that June was a fascist and that she wouldn’t spend another night in her house. Then Mummy came upstairs, woke us up, and told us to get dressed; we were leaving. An hour later, the three of us were in a taxi with badly packed suitcases, going who knew where.

  June stood by the door as we left. “You’re a fool,” she said to Mummy. “Where do you think you are going with those children? You’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin,” said Mummy. I had not heard Mummy sound so happy since we left Portugal. I looked through the taxi window at Sunnytop. I hadn’t often seen it at night, and tonight there was enough of a moon to see by. It looked like a real home. One of the cats appeared in the driveway and started washing itself. Suddenly, I was afraid. “Mummy,” I said, “let’s stay. Please.” But the taxi had started, and no one heard me. We set off down the driveway and soon turned into the road, and the house disappeared into the dark.

  CHAPTER 4

  1940: America

  “What a relief!” said Mummy. As the taxi wound through the winding country roads in the summer moonlight, she explained why we had left Sunnytop and how lucky we were to be getting further and further away from that devil. The driver was sympathetic. Apparently he also had a wicked mother-in-law who deserved to be punished at least as severely as June. “She should not be allowed to have that child, Betty,” Mummy was saying. “No wonder she always seemed so unhappy. When we get home, I will insist on sending for her.”

  The driver nodded sympathetically. “Where to, Ma’am?”

  Mummy had no idea, of course, so the driver took us to a small hotel near the train station. The proprietor had to be woken up, but when he saw the three of us with our suitcases covered with international labels and heard Mummy’s British accent, he closed the window and soon appeared at the door in his bathrobe.

  “You refugees?” he asked, staring at the three of us standing by the taxi in our European clothes. Janine and I were wearing dresses made of Liberty cotton with smocked bodices—the first things we had found to put on—and Mummy was carrying her Persian lamb coat.

  Mummy hesitated. “Yes,” she said after a minute. “We’re here because of the war.”

  He looked at their suitcases. The stickers said Pan-American Clipper Lisbon-New York.

  “Lisbon”? He looked at the cabdriver as if he could explain.

  “My husband is American,” said Mummy. “He’s still in Portugal.”

  The landlord was uncomfortable. “Have you got money?” he asked finally.

  “I have traveler’s checks,” said Mummy. “We only want to stay a night. Tomorrow we are going to New York.”

  I could hear a note of contempt in my mother’s voice. She was not used to being treated with suspicion.

  Finally, he took the traveler’s check and put it in the safe before showing us to a room with three beds.

  The next morning Mummy sent a telegram to Jack and one to Tom Green in New York. Tom called back and advised—insisted, Mummy said angrily—that they return to Sunnytop, at least until Jack could advise them what to do.

  “Never,” said Mummy. “We’ll stay somewhere near New York City until Jack comes for us. He’ll be here soon.”

  “I’m not sure you can count on that,” said Tom. “There’s a war on, you know.”

  “Thank you, Tom,” said Mummy. “But I won’t return to Sunny-top.”

  The landlord finally decided we were bona fide refugees and offered to help us find an apartment near the City. He had a friend in Jackson Heights who found us a place in a large apartment complex that was clean and safe, with apartments to rent by the month.

  Mummy thanked the landlord and insisted on leaving a large tip to punish him a little for his initial suspicions. He seemed surprised, but did not give it back.

  Meanwhile, the Northeast was suddenly struck by a heat wave. Temperatures stayed in the 90s, the sun blazed every day, and no one was predicting relief.

  We arrived in Jackson Heights by taxi because Mummy could not cope with the local train and the suitcases. Fortunately, there was an apartment waiting on the fifth floor: one bedroom with a pull-out Murphy bed in the living room, plus a small kitchen and bathroom.

  “Perfect,” said Mummy, without even asking the rent. We only had $50 left in traveler’s checks and still no word from Jack. “Would you call Mr. Green for me?” she asked the manager. “I have to tell him where to forward my mail.” She now believed the telephone was the way to send messages in America.

  “There’s public phones outside, lady,” said the manager, shifting his cigar to the other side of his mouth.

  “But I don’t know how to use it.” Mummy sounded puzzled as if she had been asked to operate a complicated machine. The three of us were standing in the doorway of the manager’s apartment. The heat was unbearable, and the smell of cooked cabbage was very strong. I held my breath, something I had just started doing without realizing it. Mummy hardly looked like herself with her hair beginning to come down and her blouse sticking to her back.

  The manager’s wife came in to see why the door was open. “Come and sit in front of the fan,” she said, “while Pete calls your friend. My grandmot
her was English—from London. You sound just like her.”

  Mummy sank down and put her head back. “I don’t suppose you’d have a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “Hot tea in this weather?”

  “Yes, please,” said Mummy.

  The three of us huddled in front of the fan. It was bliss. I began to look around. The room was tiny, with a sofa and two chairs crowded together. There were piles of clothes on the chairs. Through the doorway, I could see the manager holding a telephone in his hand. Finally, he called Mummy to the phone. She got up and found Tom Green on the line. He did not sound pleased, she told me later, that they had not followed his advice to return to Sunnytop. Jack was still not to be found, he reported. He was undoubtedly up at the mines for a few days. Mummy gave him their new address after getting it from Pete and asked if her checks could be sent right away as she was out of money. None of us pretended not to listen.

  Then, for a while, Mummy didn’t say anything. “What do you want me to do in the meanwhile?” she finally asked. “I can’t expect this kind man, Mr. Pete, and his wife to take us in free of charge.” She looked up at Pete. He stared back. Mrs. Pete had gone into the kitchen. I thought she was nice and hoped she would come back soon.

  After some more back and forth about calling June (Mummy refused) and reissuing checks, she hung up. They all looked at her. “Tom is going to send a bank draft while he straightens things out.” Mummy looked like she might cry.