After the terrors of Kristallnacht, Imogen’s Jewish family must flee German-occupied Vienna. That morning, the Bernsteins had risen early, creating quite a commotion as they set about preparing breakfast and making sure nothing was going to be left behind. From the wailing of little Edna when she couldn’t find her stuffed bear to the clatter of silverware in the sink and the hurry to get out the door, there had been no room to think—not then and not in the past week either. Standing on the platform and waiting for her train, however, Imogen couldn’t help but think back to what started it all, and why she was standing there that crisp morning, turning her back on Vienna. 9th of November—Kristallnacht “Stop squirming, Edna,” Imogen chided her younger sister. “Hans! I want Hans!” “Hans will be back soon. Stop acting like a two-year-old and start behaving like the four-year-old girl you are.” Edna practically worshiped her older brother—if anyone could get her to stop crying, he could, so Imogen was looking forward to his arrival home too. “Where is Hans?” “I told you. He is just down the street with Mutti. Vater will be back from work soon. What do you think of that? The whole family will be home. Now dry your eyes. This is no way to behave. What would your friends think if they saw you now?” These words had a powerful effect. Edna wiped her snotty face and stopped crying immediately. She did so in perfect time—just after, the girls heard the door slam at the front of the apartment. “Is anyone home?” Their father was back from his grocer’s shop! Edna ran to the front of the home, squealing; Imogen followed at a more steady pace. “Mutti and Hans are out at the butcher’s. How was work?” “Fine, fine. An ordinary day.” *          *          * Forty-five minutes later, her mother and brother were still not back. Herr Bernstein grew worried, and questioned Imogen as to whether she was sure they had not planned to go anywhere else. As he scratched his head, Edna started to cry yet again for her older brother. After an hour, there was a faint—and then louder—noise and shouting down below. Running to the living room window, they could see men with and without uniforms smashing and looting the shops in the street below, every one of which was Jewish-owned. The men harassed people in the street who were hurrying to get to the supposed safety of their homes. Even more frightening was the steady crackling and orange hue on the horizon—the local synagogue was burning. There was no question what this was, or who these people were trying to scare. “Papa,” Imogen whispered. “What about Hans? And Mutti? They are not back yet.” A noise came from the stairwell. The party froze but breathed again when they heard a key in the lock—it was only Frau Bernstein. “I am back. Don’t you worry.” Imogen’s mother had come in breathlessly. “But Hans! He disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him.” Frau Bernstein had tears in her eyes. “He disappeared before it started . . . I don’t know where he went, or if he thought it was some kind of joke, disappearing on me.” Again, there was a noise on the landing. However, this time instead of the reassuring noise of a key turning, someone knocked on the door. “It could still be Hans!” Frau Bernstein cried, but Herr Bernstein stopped her. “But what if it’s not?” “Open up here or we’ll force our way in!”—pounding on the door. Despite her heart feeling as if it was in her throat, Imogen picked Edna up and ran to her bedroom at the back of the home. Their mother and father, meanwhile, surrendered and opened the door. “Stay right there. Do not move.” The voice was muffled from being all the way across the apartment but nevertheless loud and commanding. Imogen felt a shiver run down her spine. Flushed and breathless, Imogen and her sister huddled behind the bed, Imogen keeping wiggling Edna in place. The little girl opened her mouth to speak. “Be quiet, Edna!” It was said in a whisper, but Imogen still worried at the noise. “Do not move while we search the house.” Footsteps moving towards the girls. A man at the door, briefly framed by the light in the hall before he stepped into the room with a short bark of something like laughter. “What sort of hiding place is that?” There was no question what this was, or who these people were trying to scare. Imogen and Edna were pushed towards the kitchen and made to stand up straight next to their parents. Edna was trembling and crying as the two soldiers shoved her around. Hans was still not back. Imogen hung on to her one weapon: Do not move. Stare straight ahead. Do not let them bother you. Do not let them see how you are feeling. In the end, Herr Bernstein managed to get himself released from the threat of deportation. However, it came at a cost—he and his family must be out of Austria by the following week. Hans was gone—they heard from the butcher that he had been deported. This was a crushing revelation, but without any means to get him released, they had even worse things to worry about. Like the fact that they had no visas. Herr Bernstein had promised the soldier that they would get out, but the family had nowhere to go. *          *          * By the 15th of November, just two days before they had to be out of Austria, arrangements had been made. Herr and Frau Bernstein, along with little Edna, were going to Poland. In Poland, Imogen’s aunt lived with her husband and sons in Pastavy. There, they would be with close family. Imogen, on the other hand,

A girl learns strategies for life by playing a traditional Korean game with her grandfather. In traditional Korea, there is a game that requires both sharp wit and quick, nimble fingers. Called alkkagi and translated literally as “shooting eggs,” it is a game that is generally played by the older generation and enjoyed by the elderly, along with a glass of beer to wash the euphoria down. The gist of it is: A checkerboard Black and white “eggs” Sharp, strong fingers A voice to holler with The goal of this game is to knock the other players’ eggs out by flicking your eggs into the other players’, forcing them to skid off the checkerboard and become “eliminated.” The most slight miscalculations or awry positions can end a game; in the same way, a minuscule change of style can win it. To explain it broadly, it’s “a game of simultaneously keeping away and drawing to each other,” as my grandfather put it. “You can’t win by running away.” His eyes smiled gently at me, glasses nestled on a hawkish nose. “But you can’t win by running forward, either.” I straightened, my stubby legs curving with childish fat as I tucked them beneath me, the cushion shoved under my knees rubbing scratchily as I did so. “So, how do you win?” I demanded, glittering eyes fixed on the checkerboard. “How?” His lips were pale, and his teeth shaded beneath them. His face looked sketched-in and wavering. “You wait,” he said, his nose curving as he smiled, “and endure, and you take your chances as you get them.” He scooped the eggs from the board and separated them into a black pile and a white pile. “Because the goal is not to win as fast as you can,” he explained in his quivering, confused English. “It is just to have at least one chance left.” “Dad!” my mother complained, the left corner of her mouth curling up as she entered the dim, wooden room, “not now! Don’t lecture her, she’s just a little kid. She doesn’t need to hear all your lessons.” I kept to the fringes and hoped that my defense could be my attack as well She piled the papers into a stack and pushed them against the desk, slipping pens and pencils into a wooden drawer. Her eyes laughed brightly, devoid of unhappiness except for a lingering trace on her left palm, the tiny little crescent mark of fingernails biting angrily into her skin. “When else will she hear this? When she has already forsaken it?” he asked, plucking one black egg from the white pile and moving it to the black pile. “She will never listen to this except for when her ears are still open. Imagine if they are closed! My words will pound against them and only close them further. Now is the only time when my words can enter unattacked.” My mother shook her head with her mouth pressed and ironed into a smile, her arms curling around to grab for my hand and reaching for my hair, stroking the bouncy curl that stuck up on my head. Her hand engulfed mine as she herded me away, her voice whisking back to my grandfather, “Be ready for dinner at seven!” I reluctantly left, whipping my head back, my pigtails bouncing and battering the air, to see my grandfather’s humbling smile. He had some secret that allowed him sure victory; I had no idea what it was, but I never won, and he never lost. And so I grew up under the gentle governance of wisdom from my grandfather, the bright and colorful play of my grandmother, the complete and total, overwhelming love pouring from my mother, and the insistent kindness of my father. I grew without complaint and did so well; I was never reprimanded, and in turn, I refused to be. I loved the game of alkkagi even when it became obsolete; I stayed in the dining room and watched, fascinated, as my parents shrieked and hollered delightedly, roaring with fury and jumping up with glee. I’d join in too, feeling the human desire to be involved, included, and do whatever it took not to be outside the circle. I’d scream with delight, mock my father as he groaned, insist on having a few more eggs, and take all my opportunities. Then I grew to secondary school, and I changed my tactics—from that of a bumbling primary schooler who resorted to flicking eggs this way and that and only killing oneself—to keeping away. Running away, as my grandfather put it. I kept to the fringes and hoped that my defense could be my attack as well, and I rejected my chances as they laid themselves out on the board. I suppose I hoped that someone would be reckless, taking chances not meant to be taken, and fall on their own swords, flicking their eggs the wrong way and losing while attempting to win. And that was well and all, but when I met with someone strategic and talented and someone who could hit me out, I stood no chance. I stood at the edges, hoping they’d knock themselves out along the way, only to be disappointed. So neither way was the path to success. So then, what was it? Practice, perhaps. And the right opportunities. Seizing the moment, as my father would say. And so I practiced—at what, I don’t particularly know. I tried making the right decisions, choosing which battles to fight and which to accept. I sharpened my mind and sat down every week for a match of alkkagi with my parents. My grandfather would say I practiced at life. And then came a day when I didn’t feel ready at all, when my bones were tired and my muscles felt stiff and my eyes were dry and aching; my eyelids were sandpaper. My mouth tasted parched, like sand and desert lingering in the air, that awful feeling of having woken up