LifeInNebraska Two

The apartment had two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom, each with a door opening into the hallway of the second floor of a three story building in downtown Lincoln Nebraska. There was a used-car garage, a small cafe and a grocery store on the ground floor. The kitchen stove served both as a cook-stove and as the only source of heat inside the apartment. The seeming inconveniences of the itchy bugs and no running water inside their apartment did not distress them. After all this was a big improvement in their standard of living over their "chicken coop" barrack dwelling in Germany. Word spread through the neighborhood that a new refugee family had arrived. Visitors came to meet the Frases and brought them pillows, old clothes, silverware, and dishes.
On the third day after his arrival in Lincoln, Jim went to the YMCA building in search of a piano. He found one in the Green Room on the second floor. He sat down alone and began to play. It was the end of the day, and he didn't bother to turn on the lights. As night fell, the neon lights from business buildings across the street cast multi-colored rays through the windows in subdued patterns that enabled him to see the keys in an atmosphere of near darkness. Jim had been playing improvisations, some German numbers, and a few American pieces for an hour or so when he stopped to light a cigarette. The silence of the musical pause was broken by the sound of two people clapping. The lights went on, and Jim saw a young couple walking toward him.
Bob Hoffman was a small, slow-moving man with slightly curly hair and a very calm personality. His fiancé Lee later became his wife. They both spoke to Jim in English but he could not understand them. Bob switched to the Czechoslovakian language and identified himself. He praised Jim's piano-playing ability. He translated the conversation to Lee and she expressed keen interest. They drove Jim home and he invited them into his apartment for an accordion concert. It was the beginning of a long special friendship.