A Parachute in the Lime Tree by Annemarie Neary Page A

decision to leave. ‘It’s not that we have anything left here. If we go to Hanne and Rudi in Amsterdam, at least we’re with family. We can look out for one other.’
    By the time Holland became a real possibility, it seemed almost local after Argentina, America and all those other places Papa had talked of. The relations there were Mama’s. For allthat, Elsa worried more about Mama than Papa when it came to living in Holland. Mama had always said there didn’t seem to be a lot of point to Holland. In fact, none at all that she could think of other than tulips and she could manage to grow those well enough herself, thank you very much.
    After Beate left, there was a change in Mama. Her convictions about even the most minor things had become stronger but they were always short-lived. She moved the furniture around incessantly and changed the curtains from winter to summer and back again every other week. She engaged in frenzied activity about the house; dusting, sweeping, emptying cupboards. She bristled when Elsa suggested they visit the shop for some food for the long journey to Holland.
    ‘Shop? What shop? Hirsch, with his face crushed like a tomato? Or Goldmann? No more Hirsch. No more Gold-mann, either, to let us live on credit.’
    On the last morning in Zweibrückenstrasse, Mama and Elsa walked through the house to see if there were any last items they might try to fit in. Mama took a silver locket with a hollow centre from a drawer in the writing desk. She turned it over and over in her palm. ‘If you put something you treasure in it, you’ll keep it safe.’ She smiled a little uncertainly as she handed it to Elsa.
    Elsa went to her bedroom, to the old cigar humidor in which she’d kept her treasures ever since childhood. Most were things she didn’t value any more and she could hardly remember why she’d ever kept them: Salzburg sweet wrappers, a wooden peg doll, an autograph book with the names of people long forgotten. From a small fold of tissue paper, she took the lock of Oskar’s hair, fairer then than now, and placed a strand inside the locket.
    Downstairs, Mama was selecting some volumes of Schiller from the bookcase for Papa. Elsa stood in front of the mantel-piece, as if trying to decide which photograph she couldn’tbear to leave behind. Finally, she chose a photograph of her great-grandparents, surrounded by all seven of their sons, and left it on the hall table. Great Grandpapa was sitting open mouthed, a black slick of hair across his forehead. Great Grandmama looked like a stuffed doll, with fierce little eyes and a large hat.
    It wasn’t until they were on the train that Elsa realised she’d forgotten to pack the photograph. She had pinned the amulet to her underclothes but her great grandparents had been left all alone on the hall table. She felt ashamed to have remembered Oskar when her own people had been left behind.

Guest
    From the moment they arrived in Amsterdam, the Frankels took up too much space. Mama seemed too wide for the narrow hallway and Elsa’s limbs too unruly with so much china about. Aunt Hanne lost no time in getting everyone organised. She had lots of very neat friends with scrubbed faces and weak smiles: friends who knew things. In no time at all, one of these brought news of the Kindertransports. It seemed Elsa was still young enough to qualify as a Kind even though she was almost eighteen and had been wearing foundation garments for three years at least. Elsa would go to Belfast.
    One evening, they all sat around the atlas. They looked for Belfast on the map of England. Elsa had never heard of Belfast before: no composer, no performer, not even a conservatoire. Mama drew a spiral around London with her finger then ran it up the coast to Scotland. It was a while before they realised that Belfast was not in England at all.
    ‘So, Ireland then.’ Elsa must have looked blank.
    ‘Come on Elsa, it’s just the next island along. The last one before