Mother and daughter lay beside each other on the twin bed. A siren howled. They had grown almost accustomed to the sirens, long screams in the night. Marta drew the blankets close, allowing herself only the barest touch of her mother’s body. Tomorrow night, Marta knew she would not sleep. She would be alone on a train somewhere in Germany or Holland. She squeezed into an even smaller ball. If she gave in to this gnawing need to lose herself in her mother’s softness, it would only hurt more tomorrow. The days of family closeness in the parlor with music weaving its magic throughout the house were like a dream now that everyone was gone. By tomorrow night, her mother would be alone in Nazi Berlin.

Slipping from between the quilts, Marta lifted her violin from its velvet case and brought it in bed, fitting the curves of the instrument to her body. Eva’s breathing came in short spurts. Marta wondered if she dreamed of how it used to be: evenings by firelight, when Mr. Lieb, Marta’s violin teacher, played Schubert quartets with the family.

Since Mr. Leib had been arrested, Marta had not been able to play. She caressed the smooth curves of the violin, her fingers meandering familiar paths through the ebony pegs and the shell-like geometry of the scroll. Even in the dark she could feel the purfling made of pear wood, crafted by Mr. Lieb’s own hands. Two weeks before he’d been arrested on Kristallnacht, he had presented it to her. To christen the instrument, they’d played together in the fading evening, the melding of their violins pure ecstasy. Tomorrow, she would hide this violin, dubbed Beethoven, in her suitcase, despite the rule against taking valuables out of Germany. She knew it was dangerous, but it was all she had of Mr. Lieb and she would not leave it behind.

She stifled tears as she remembered his promptings for her to play deeply, ever more passionately, to always seek the music’s possibilities deep within her own soul. The dark ache she would always feel for her lost loved ones crept over her like a cloud over the moon.

Marta dreamed of a field of snow. Huge, dark birds circled around each other, their wings etching triangles against the pale sky. A hunter’s red hat bobbed between new saplings. Shots were fired. She was half awake, blood pounded as she watched the birds lift off the ground only to fall back, crimson blood staining the white in sharp geometric patterns like swastikas. She tried to scream but no sound came out.

Marta swam into full consciousness to see her mother huddled in her nightgown at the window, rubbing her arms. “Mama, what is it?”

Eva’s speech was hurried. “We must go, now. They’re sweeping house to house tonight. Did you hear the shots?”

So, the gunshots in her dream had been real. Marta felt afraid, but her mind was somehow calm. She and Eva were the only family left. They had to survive. Marta quickly pulled on wool stockings and her best dress, checked her satchel for paper and pencil. She would start her first letter on the train. Only when she had her suitcase in hand, her rucksack on her back, did concern about the secret violin begin to whirl at the back of Marta’s mind. The deception made her feel frantic.

Eva eyed Marta’s frayed grey coat and wool scarf, shaking her head. “To think we have come to this.” Marta forced a smile to try to cheer her mother up and ease the dark sorrow in her eyes.

They stepped over friends who were wrapped in quilts on the floor. Most of the people they knew had lost their apartments. Mr. Stein, released from Dachau a years earlier, was rail thin, flesh melting from the bones of his face. Beside him slept the Freund brothers, Benjamin and Alfred. Since their parents were taken, the boys had been looked after by an uncle, a former professor of history before he was fired.

Eva whispered, “We have to wake them. They need to be ready to flee in case the soldiers come.”

Marta rubbed Benjamin’s shoulder. He sat up, his eyes wide. “What is it?”

“They’re down the block. Get dressed. Mama and I are leaving for the train through the back.”

He gave her a sweet, lingering smile. “Well,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Good luck. See you when you get back.”

Marta sensed she would never see Benjamin again, but she smiled and shook his hand. That feeling about the future she’d get in her belly had always been right. Now she wished she could be free of it. She had taken to humming Beethoven’s Ode to Joy when her intuition became too sharp for her to bear, but this was not a time for humming.

Marta and Eva stepped outside to face the shock of a night in 1939 Berlin. From around the block, they could hear male voices full of authority preceding the dull thud of club on flesh as Nazis rousted people from their houses. Hearts pounding, Eva and Marta stopped to check the street that paralleled theirs. It was empty. As they scurried forth, scattered street lights illuminated a city shrouded in darkness. They sneaked down alleyways and hurried through back streets, making their way to the station.

She remembered the smoke from burning synagogues, men beaten bloody in the streets. The night the Gestapo came for Alexander and Peter, her father, her grandfather, and Mr. Lieb. The soldiers burst in during a Beethoven Quartet. Instruments were shattered, bows snapped in half. Blood. Her mother’s screams.

The train station seemed a dark and brooding hulk despite the bright lights and Nazi flags. Soldiers not much older than her brother wearing swastika arm bands guarded the building. She remembered 1933 when Alexander had run home crying, “They’re burning books, they are burning Heine and Freud and Goethe. Thomas Mann is burning! How can they do this?”

That night books were burned all over the city, first by the Germans, then by Jews afraid of being persecuted for what they had in their libraries. Chimneys across Berlin spewed thick flakes of ash that blanketed the ground.

“Wait, I have to get the papers out of my coat.” Eva’s hand shook as she fished for the documents.

“It will be all right, Mama.”

Snowflakes whirled in circles in the sharpening wind. Perhaps England wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps it would be more peaceful there. With that hopeful thought blazing through her mind, she felt shame. Why should she escape while her mother remained in danger? Marta tugged her mother’s hand. “Mama, I should stay. I can work, I can take care of you.”

“Marta, don’t say that. Please, you must go. We’ve arranged everything. You can’t help me if you’re here, not really.” Eva touched Marta’s hair.

“Mama, I don’t want to go, I’ll miss you too much.” But even as she spoke, Marta knew she must give in to her mother’s plan. Eva needed her to be obedient now.

“Don’t worry, darling. I’ll write you, we can write every day. Eva picked up the suitcase, Kindertransport papers in her hand. They walked toward the soldiers, and were admitted.

Eva presented their papers at the proper table to a Jewish Refugee Movement worker. Parents were scrambling with packages and rucksacks, wiping tears, giving last-minute instructions. Soon all the children wore a cardboard number on a string around their necks.

Marta held her breath as soldiers opened random suitcases, scattering clothes and toys. A worker cautioned Eva, “We keep the rules. No valuables will be taken out of Germany, only one mark in the pocket.”

Finally, the conductors opened the train doors. Parents and children wept and clung to each other. Eva gazed at Marta, forcing a smile. “Promise you’ll write.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Marta nestled her face against her mother’s cheek, inhaling her perfume. Eva gently pushed her back. “Be careful and follow the rules. You know you must be good and polite.”

Marta looked into her mother’s smoky eyes. They had always conveyed deep feelings as she bent over the piano, the glow of candlelight making her look younger than her years.

“All aboard!”

Eva drew Marta tight against her body. Marta was so overcome that later she could hardly remember their last embrace.

On the train, the children rushed to find compartments. Everyone lined up by the windows to wave. Marta found herself holding a crying golden-haired girl as she tried in vain to find her mother’s face in the bobbing crush of parents wildly waving handkerchiefs. Billowing steam made them all disappear into a white cloud. Marta held the little girl against her chest, rocking her while she held back her tears.

The rolling motion of the train lulled some children to sleep while others spoke quietly, and still others wailed their misery. Every time she thought about the hidden violin Marta trembled. What if something happened to her mother because of her deception?

After group of soldiers boarded at the next stop, she heard a child protesting in the next compartment. Marta looked out to see a boy begging a soldier to give him back his clarinet. With a nasty grin, the man snapped it into pieces.

Marta’s heart raced as she closed the compartment door. What could she do to save herself? The door opened and the soldier demanded everyone open their suitcases.

“Do you have any valuables?” The soldier who had broken the clarinet barked at Marta.

“No.” She did her best to look casual.

A whistle blast sounded and the mean soldier hustled away. His underling, a young man with dark curls and blue eyes, took over. “I don’t have anything valuable,” Marta declared. He snapped open her suitcase and peeled back clothes to reveal the velvet-wrapped violin. Marta could hardly breathe.

“What is this, young lady?” He lifted out the burgundy violin and waved it back and forth.

She leapt to grab it. He mustn’t break it. She opened her mouth to protest, closed it again, seeing in his cool eyes and the set of his jaw that he was tougher than she was. He would win no matter what she said or did. A little bubble burst inside her, a shard of harsh reality that broke in the face of her innocent determination to get her way, to save her violin, to preserve all she had left of what she loved. Swiftly changing her strategy, Marta tried to appear grown-up and reasonable. “Please, it’s not valuable. It was made by a friend. It’s nothing.”

He lifted the miniature instrument to his shoulder, took out the bow, and made some scratching noises. “Very interesting. It’s so tiny. A toy, eh? It is a toy.”

“Yes, a toy.”

“That means you cannot really play it, yes?”

“Yes. No. I mean…”

“Come with me.”

She sat frozen in her seat. He wrapped the violin in its case and stuffed it under his jacket. “Go on,” he pushed her ahead of him. Where was he taking her? A sob caught in her throat. Lurching along past other soldiers, they reached a luggage car.

Balancing against the rocking train, he unwrapped the violin and bow. “Now, play.” His blue eyes seemed less cold now. A half-smile played at the corners of his thin mouth. He perched on a trunk and nodded at her.

“I can’t play. It’s just a toy.” The train lurched, she tried to get her footing.

“You will play.” He grabbed her arm. “See these calluses? I know you can play. Now, let’s see why this violin is worth your life.”

Marta tried not to panic, fitting the violin against her collarbone. She closed her eyes, imagining the living room of their home before Hitler. The fireplace glowed, her father smoked his pipe. Her mother, radiant in her burgundy velvet, played the piano. Mr. Leib winked at her. Every day, they had danced with Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. German musicians playing German music. Before the laws against Jews playing German composers.

Marta lifted her bow to begin the pure tones of a Bach partita. Her arm moved in a perfect arc, her fingers knowing the notes. The music chanted its magic. She glanced at the soldier. His eyes had changed. He was no longer a soldier but a young man losing himself in a landscape of beautiful music.

When she finished she stood as still as she could, clutching the violin. The smell of rosin, the heat of the strings, the warm varnish under her hands had restored her to herself, reminding her too of all she’d lost. Tears welled in her eyes but she blinked them away. The soldier sat speechless, the hard edges gone from his face. Then, his lips barely moving, he said, “More.”

Suddenly the grief rose up in her heart. The only piece she could think of to play, to erase what had happened to her, to her family, to honor them all, was Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the music that always brought her to God. As the melody built its splendor climax, the soldier began to sing, adding the woodwinds and brass in contrapuntal harmonies, a wild look of joy in his eyes as he conducted an imaginary symphony.

The last breath of the music lingered in the air as the train loped along the tracks. After several minutes of silence the soldier swallowed, gave her a tight smile, and wrapped the violin carefully in its velvet case, cradling it as if it were a precious jewel. “Thank you,” he said, bowing to her. “Now I will accompany you to your seat. We will tell no one of this, correct?”

Back in the car with the children, she curled up in her seat, lulled to sleepiness by the sound of wheels on the tracks. She thought about the eyes of the German soldier, wet with tears, and heard his voice again as she drifted off. “Thank you. I miss my little sister. She plays such a tiny violin like this. But you are very talented. You must practice when you get to England.”

Waking many hours later, Marta thought about the dream she’d had in the dark night before leaving her home, the terror of the birds fleeing the hunters. She had entered the dream, yet she was still alive.

She looked out at the rolling landscape of open fields and thick forests. Snow had fallen all night and throughout the day. The charcoal-gray winter trees were adorned with puffs of snow outlined against a sky turning pink and lavender. As if of one mind, a flock of birds flew up from the reaching fingers of trees, wings etching triangles against the sky, floating on beats of air as they swirled upwards in ever greater circles to safety.