Yes
You go, kids, - says Grandma. - Calm down and stop whimpering, daughter, - she says to Mom, - I’ve already lived my life, little is left. Children must someday leave their old parents and start their own life. So stop sobbing and start living.
Little I remember from that trip. Only the horror, when the train stopped at the Italian border and the customs officers beat up a man who had some banknotes sewn into his jacket. Only the woman who took out her earrings while waiting for an inspection and put them into her little daughter’s coat pocket. The family of the man hiding the money, the relatives of the woman who took out her earrings too late - all of them were left behind the border, no one was allowed back on the train. I thought my black belt buckle would burn a hole in my stomach and the shoes would catch fire - I was so afraid that we wouldn’t succeed either.
Grandma’s prayers must have saved our family because not only did we arrive at the port of Genoa, but the sea didn’t seem terrible at all. Only Mom’s silence was terrible. Mom didn’t say a word the whole trip.
She was silent on the train, silent as Aaron happily announced - “look, it’s Africa, it’s Suez Canal”, silent on the ship all the way to Kobe, where maybe one third of the passengers got off the ship. Dad explained that it’s safe in the Japanese Kobe Jewish community, only Kobe is not for us, as we are heading to visa-free Shanghai.
After listening to Aaron’s tales, I thought Shanghai was China, so there would be dragons, yellow people, men with long braided hair, and the roofs of the houses would be red and curved like the wings of a swallow, but the city looked the same as other cities. No long-haired men and certainly no dragons. When we stepped out of the ship, we were warned not to drink unboiled water, to brush our teeth only with boiled water, to bow down in front of any Japanese soldier, not to eat fruits and vegetables if they were uncooked. They checked our hair for lice, they checked even our teeth, we all got a painful vaccine and only then could we line up at the buses taking us to the new life without Grandma. Mom was still silent.
