Serenade for Nadia

by Zülfü Livaneli

  The passengers were horrified when they saw the Struma. When they complained, the shipowner allayed their fears by saying that the real ship was waiting outside Romanian waters. They only discovered that this was a lie when it was too late to turn back.

  The ship was packed to many times its capacity. There wasn’t enough room for everyone on deck, so the passengers were cramped in the stuffy hold and allowed up for air for only fifteen minutes at a time. The provisions were inadequate. They began experiencing problems with the engine almost as soon as they left Costanţa, and broke down completely as they were approaching the Bosporus. In reply to an SOS, a Turkish rescue ship towed the Struma to the harbor.

  Sadık Bey told him that the ship could not continue to Palestine in the state it was in. “Well, what’s going to happen?”

  “We’ll wait and see.”

  “But my wife was coming to Istanbul. I have to get her off the ship.”

  “I’m sorry but you can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “The government has given strict orders; no one is to leave the ship.”

  In the following days he learned more about what was going on from the newspapers.

  The Turkish government believed that the refugees’ real destination was Istanbul and not Palestine, and they had no intention of accepting 769 Jews. They wanted the ship to continue to Palestine after the engine was repaired. However, the British, who were then in control of Palestine, were determined to limit Jewish immigration for fear of antagonizing the Arabs. They pressured the Turkish government not to allow the refugees to proceed to Palestine, and rejected a proposal to allow the refugees to continue their journey overland.

  Maximilian went to the docks every day with his binoculars in hopes of catching a glimpse of Nadia. Meanwhile, he was growing increasingly frustrated and puzzled by all the intrigue and delay. None of it had anything to do with him and Nadia, and it seemed absurd that these people should suffer because of this ridiculous bureaucratic mentality.

  Once again, Maximilian took the same taxi to the docks and scanned the ship with his binoculars. He waited on the shore and the passengers waited on the ship, and nothing was being resolved. The newspapers reported that two young people had jumped ship but had been caught and returned. Max had missed this; he still had to meet his classes at the university and wasn’t free to spend his entire day on the docks.

  At first no one but a few officials was allowed onto the ship. Later, some members of Istanbul’s Jewish community were granted permission to do what they could to help the refugees. They brought the engine ashore to have it repaired and brought food and medical supplies to the ship.

  Consequently, more information about conditions on the ship began to circulate. Max heard that the only toilet had become blocked and that disease was beginning to spread. There was little food or medicine and no fuel for heating, and the passengers were becoming desperate. Occasionally people on the shore could hear them shouting, begging for help.

  Maximilian had little trouble learning that Simon Brod and Rifat Karako were the two people allowed to come and go to the ship.

  He approached them through the Arditis, explained the situation, and asked Mr. Brod to deliver a letter to Nadia.

  In the letter he’d asked her to stand at a specific place on deck at exactly three o’clock. He was in place; he’d been there for a long time, making a supreme effort not to look at his watch. When he finally did, he saw that there were two minutes left. He picked up his binoculars and looked, and yes, there she was!

  She was much thinner and she looked tired, but she was still beautiful. Indeed, she stood out so much from the others that he was amazed he hadn’t seen her before. Had she not been up on deck at all? Now, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  Nadia waved to Max and then blew him a kiss. She also had a pair of binoculars. He wondered whether the people who’d taken the letter had given it to her or if she’d found it on the ship.

  Max began to wave and blow kisses. He yelled, “I love you!”

  Yes, Nadia had definitely seen him; she was waving.

  The next day Max found Simon Brod again. He couldn’t contain himself. He took the piece of paper he gave him. It was something like a shopping list, a yellow piece of paper with Romanian words on it. When he turned it over he immediately recognized his wife’s handwriting. It was written in excitement, in haste. “Wait for me! Nadia.”

  Brod told him that conditions on the ship were getting worse, and that they feared people might soon begin to die.

  “Well, what are you going to do, Mr. Brod?”

  “We haven’t been able to get through to the Turkish government. The only thing is to repair the engine as soon as possible, fuel the ship, and send it on its way.”

  “But the British won’t allow that either.”

  “Yes, our friends are lobbying in London. We’re talking with the embassy here. It’s a difficult situation and we’re doing all we can.”

  The professor laughed out loud. His nerves were shot.

  “This is worse than I thought. It drives me crazy to be able to see her but not reach her.”

  Max was at his wits’ end. There was nothing Schummi could do to help him, but perhaps Father Roncalli could. Perhaps he could get someone with a baptismal certificate off the boat. But Father Roncalli told him that there was nothing he could do; that he’d already tried and failed to rescue people from the ship. Then one day as he was waiting by the docks, he saw a motorboat leaving the ship and bringing some people ashore.

  So, it seemed that some of the passengers were being rescued. But what about those who remained on the ship? What about Nadia?

  The following day he learned that a wealthy businessman named Vehbi Koç had managed to get Martin Segal, the Romanian representative of the Standard Oil Company, and his wife and two children off the boat. And two days later a motorboat brought a sick woman ashore. The professor learned from Simon Brod that the woman was about to give birth and she had been admitted to the Or-Ahayim Hospital in Balat because she was bleeding. At the request of his friends from his own university’s medical school, he got an appointment with Or-Ahayim’s chief physician.

  The hospital was on the banks of the Golden Horn. Max told the chief physician that his wife was on the ship and that he’d like to see the lady who’d been brought to the hospital. Again, he was struck by how sympathetic and obliging all the Jews he’d sought help from had been. After all, he was a German and they had reason not to trust him.

  When Maximilian tiptoed into her room, the woman was sleeping with a drip attached to her arm. She’d had a hemorrhage and miscarried. He just stood there, without disturbing her, waiting for her to wake up. She had a fine-featured face with dark hair and fair skin. Her face was very thin, her cheeks sunken, and she had black circles under her eyes. Looking at her, Max understood more fully how bad things were on the ship.

  Finally the woman awoke. Her name was Medea Salomovici, and fortunately she spoke German.

  Her eyes rested for a moment on Maximilian’s face, as if she were trying to remember who he was.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Salomovici, I’m afraid I woke you up.”

  The woman gazed at Max a while longer without responding.

  She looked at him for a long time, and then in a barely audible voice said, “Hello, Herr Wagner!”

  The professor was stunned. How could she know who he was? She said something else, but he couldn’t make it out so he leaned in closer.

  “Nadia helped me a great deal,” she said. “She did everything she could to ease my pain.” She took a breath. Then she took Max’s hand and fixed her huge black eyes on his.

  “She always talked about you. She showed me your picture, that’s how I recognized you. Save her from that hell as quickly as you can. I can’t tell you how bad things
are, people are going to start dying. My husband is on the ship too.”

  She began to weep inconsolably muttering again and again that Nadia would die if he didn’t save her, that her husband was going to die and there was nothing she could do to help him.

  Maximilian left the hospital with a sense of deep hopelessness, yet he was determined to remain strong. He couldn’t give up; he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of despair. He had to do something. He had to fight for Nadia.

  The newspapers were following the negotiations between the Turkish and British governments. The latest development was a statement by Winston Churchill that on no account would the ship be allowed to continue on to Palestine.

  Exactly seventy days had passed. Maximilian was watching as usual through his binoculars when he saw a large number of policemen board the ship. Something was happening. The passengers began to resist the police, who were herding them into the hold. Then they cut the anchor and a large tugboat started towing the ship away. They turned the bow and started towing it up to the Black Sea. How could they do this? How could they tow the ship to sea without an engine or an anchor?

  The taxi driver, Remzi, who’d been with Max all this time and who’d begun to see Max’s mission as his own, let out a cry of alarm, took Max by the shoulders and shook him, then pointed to the ship, as if Max hadn’t seen.

  They drove along the shore road, keeping pace with the ship, until they could go no further. They watched it being towed into the Black Sea, and then to the east, in the direction of Riva and Şile.

  Max wanted to take the next car ferry to the Asian side and try to continue to follow the Struma, but the taxi driver dissuaded him. They wouldn’t be able to find their way in the dark, nor would they be able to see the ship. On top of that, they wouldn’t be able to get back because the car ferries stopped running in the evening. Max agreed reluctantly to set out at four in the morning, and thus made a decision that he was to regret deeply for the rest of his life.

  After a long, hellish, and sleepless night, they took the first car ferry and headed north toward Şile. When they reached the sea they followed the coast, and Max got out from time to time to scan the horizon with his binoculars. Finally, at Yom Point near Şile he saw the Struma. It looked abandoned, and the tugboat was gone.

  They went down to the shore to the same spot he would visit fifty-nine years later with his violin. There were some fishermen nearby, and he ran over to see if he could get them to take him out to the ship. The sea was rough and they were reluctant, but he was able to offer enough money to convince one of them.

  The taxi driver said he would wait on the shore, so Max got into the boat and they started struggling out through the waves to the ship. Despite the rocking, Max stood up and started shouting to Nadia that he was coming to get her. There were no police around, there was no one to stop him, and in half an hour at most he would be back ashore with Nadia.

  The fisherman kept trying to get Max to sit down, saying he was making it difficult to steer. He finally took Max by the arm and sat him down, and just at that moment, there was a violent explosion aboard the Struma.

  For a moment, the world was ripped apart. Debris flew through the air, and Max could feel the force of the blast. There was a terrible gurgling sound as the ship’s stern disappeared under the sea, and then suddenly there was a terrible silence. For a moment Max and the fisherman just stared at the place where the ship had been, and at the wreckage and the human bodies bobbing about on the waves. Then the fisherman gunned the engine, turned the boat around, and started racing toward the shore. Max rushed back and forth in the tiny motorboat.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Go back, go back!”

  The fisherman didn’t pay any attention, so he tackled him and tried to grab the tiller. They struggled, and the fisherman fell overboard. Then as Max was trying to turn the boat around, a large wave hit it broadside, and the next thing Max knew, he was flailing in the freezing sea and the waves washed him toward the shore.

  When Max came to, he wasn’t sure at first where he was. There were men gathered around him, and all of them were gesticulating. One of them was completely wet, and was trying to attack him. The others seemed to be holding him back. Suddenly, he heard the sound of the waves and of the men shouting. Then, when he looked out to sea, he saw the wreckage and the bodies.

  More people had arrived, as well as several official-looking vehicles and men in various uniforms.

  Max shouted something unintelligible, jumped up, and began running toward the sea. Almost immediately a man tackled him. He recognized the man—it was Remzi, the taxi driver who’d been with him for over two months now. Why was his friend hurting him, why wouldn’t he let him go?

  Eventually the police arrived, handcuffed Maximilian, and took him to Istanbul. He kept asking them if anyone had survived. Eventually one of them told him that only one person had been rescued. One person out of all 769 passengers and the additional crew members. Of course he prayed that Nadia had been the only survivor. But no, it had been a young man called David. As soon as Max heard this he began to shout and scream.

  “Murderers, murderers, murderers!”

  They threw him into a cell in the basement of the police station. It was damp and smelled of mold. A bright light was left on and, because the cell had no windows, he didn’t know if it was day or night.

  He alternately banged his head against the wall and lay curled up on the floor, and he refused to eat. Whenever he closed his eyes he could see the bodies floating on the waves. Where had Nadia been when the explosion occurred? Had she been waiting on deck, had she seen him coming to save her? Or had she been in the hold? What was the last thing she’d thought? Had she died instantly? Had she had time to be afraid? Had she survived for hours, flailing in the freezing water?

  Whenever a guard came to check on him he shouted, “I’m going to spend my life telling people about this. I’m going to make sure the whole world knows about this murder.” It was 24 February 1942.

  Within days, rumors began to circulate about who had sunk the Struma. Some said that the Turks had torpedoed it, and others that the Germans had blown it up by attaching a mine or concealing explosives aboard. Years later an investigator for the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office discovered that it had been torpedoed by the Soviet submarine SC-213, which was under orders to sink all unidentified shipping in the Black Sea. The submarine commander, Lieutenant Denezhko, radioed the Struma several times asking for identification. But the Struma had no radio, and when he received no reply, Denezhko gave orders to fire the torpedo.

  They released Professor Wagner from prison and took him home, telling him that he was under house arrest until they had completed their inquiries. A few days later they informed him he was to be deported. They asked him where he wanted to go, and he told them the United States.

  He was given no time to pack his things, and among the possessions he had to leave behind was the score of Serenade für Nadia. He was allowed to make one final telephone call, so he called the university and asked them to give his belongings to the Arditi family.

  When he left Istanbul he never imagined he would return fifty-nine years later. When he arrived in the United States he did not maintain any ties to Turkey or anyone he’d known there. For some months he remained in a state of shock and depression; then he slowly began to recover. Then, unexpectedly he received a letter that turned his life upside down again. It was a letter from Nadia.

  My darling,

  Please don’t be upset when this unfortunate woman, I mean, Medea, gives you this letter. Whatever she tells you, don’t believe her. This young woman is in a very sensitive state because of her pregnancy and illness. The situation on the ship has affected her more than any of us.

  I’m not writing this to reassure you. Believe that I am well. I know that I will manage to escape.

  Two days
ago I looked up at the sky and closed my eyes. I begged God to send me a sign. When I opened my eyes I was afraid I would see an empty sky, but that is not what happened. God heard me. Right over my head I saw a flock of birds flying in a perfect V formation. Yes, they were right over my head. I believed this was the sign I had asked for.

  God, who is both your master and mine, and master of all people, sent me a victory sign from heaven. I was filled with gratitude and joy. I know that this is not just a feeling. I know without a doubt that I will be rescued and reunited with you. Then I can hear you play the Serenade I’ve missed so much.

  It gives me such joy to know that we’re so close, that we’re in the same city, that we’re breathing the same air.

  We will be united soon, we will tell each other everything.

  But in the meantime, please don’t be upset. I’m well, I’m in good health, we are warm and we have enough to eat.

  I long for the day when we’re together again.

  Your wife,

  Nadia

  Nadia had given the letter to Medea knowing that Max would go see her, but at that moment Medea had forgotten about the letter. When she recovered and was allowed to travel on to Palestine, she sent the letter to the university, and from there it began its long, circuitous journey to the United States, by way of Egypt, South Africa, and Argentina.

  After he read the letter, Maximilian returned for some time to a state of listless despair. The only thing that finally began to draw him out was the effort he made to remember all the notes of Serenade für Nadia.

  CHAPTER 15

  You have read the heartrending story of Maximilian and Nadia as a separate section of my book in a form that is very often encountered in Eastern literature. To place sections that can be read as part of the book or as independent stories was extremely popular with Feridüddin-i Attar, in One Thousand and One Nights, and in the Mesnevi. Of course, I do not aspire to be a professional writer or claim to represent Eastern literature. But in this humble narration, there can be no harm in my exploring avenues in keeping with the tradition to which I feel close. I shall now continue my story from where I left off.