“Watch where you’re going if you don’t want problems,” said the tallest girl, who was wearing a grotesque sailor’s cap and dark glasses that kept sliding down her nose. “And you, what are you doing with this band of thugs? Why don’t you stay here with us? Frau Rosenthal wouldn’t be pleased if she found out you were going around with those boys.”
I halted for a moment, not because I had any interest in being friendly with these girls, who had been educated for just one thing in life—to get married—but because I was tired from running around so much. Leo would come find me.
The girl in dark glasses was a Simons. Her family had owned several stores in Berlin. In order not to lose their fortune, they handed over ownership of their businesses to a “pure” German who was related to them in some way. However, they ended up exactly the same as us, fleeing to Cuba at the last minute.
Mama had known Johanna Simons, the matriarch of the family. They once went to Paris on a shopping trip together, and after that, I had to be friendly to their daughter Ines for what seemed like an endless couple of hours in the Adlon tearoom while our mothers discussed the season’s drapes, designs, and colors. Ines had shot up since then, and I didn’t recognize her.
“Let’s go to the tearoom. They have cookies and cakes there,” she said, and walked off, sure that we would all follow her.
The tearoom looked as if it had never been used. How could such a huge ship, carrying a thousand passengers on each voyage and sailing for several months each year, be kept in such perfect condition? The carpets were spotless. The gilded braid on the chairs was as good as new, the lace tablecloths without a single stain, the silver spoons polished and engraved with the emblem of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. The lighting, which was quite dim at that time of day, cast a pale-pink glow over us. Mama would have said that, in a light like that, everybody could look beautiful.
“That’s how we Germans are,” Ines said proudly as she surveyed the room.
Oh, Ines. Germans? I felt like shouting at her: “It’s time you stop thinking you are one of them. Better remember where you find yourself!” We were about to begin a new life in some remote spot in the Caribbean Sea, where the rest of the world was no more than a hope we could not have.
“In Havana,” she said, “we’ll be in transit with the Rosenthal family. My mother told me we’ll be going first to the Hotel Nacional for a few days, and then we’ll settle in New York.” Ines lived Frau Simons’s fantasies. Her head was always in the clouds, Mama used to say.
At the far end of the room, a young woman was sitting on her own, a picture of sadness. She held a cup of tea in her hands, not once raising it to her lips or setting it down. Her dark dress made her look a little older than she probably was, but with her hair partially obscuring her eyes, I found it hard to tell. She must have been about twenty years old.
“It’ll be hard for her to find a husband now,” declared Ines, as if she were an expert with a line of suitors waiting outside her front door. “Her name is Else. Mama admits she has very pretty legs, but a girl who only gets compliments about her legs can’t be very pretty, can she?”
The two other girls laughed at her joke as they sipped their tea. I wanted to get out of there; it was worse than playing with dolls. Luckily, at that moment, Leo appeared in the doorway. He was looking for me and signaled that I should come follow him. My savior! There was no time to lose: we had less than two weeks left in a place where we could do whatever we liked.
Copies of Der Stürmer had been left next to the deck chairs. It looked as if some of the crew didn’t like us or were trying to intimidate us. I for one had no intention of reading the headlines, but Leo glanced at them and suddenly grew serious.
“They’re attacking us back in Berlin,” he said, adopting his typically conspiratorial tone and striding off. “They’re talking about us in the papers. This is going to end badly. They accuse those of us on the St. Louis of stealing money and looting works of art.”
Let them say what they like, Leo. We had managed to get away; they could not force us to return. We were in international waters and would soon arrive at an island where we had been given permission to stay indefinitely, although many of us would live in the tropics only for a few weeks. We would wait for the magic number to come up on the waiting list so that we could enter New York, the real island, with our immigrant visas.
A little later, Leo and I noticed the captain giving the stewards orders in a low voice. They quickly began to gather up all the newspapers.
Leo stood at attention and saluted him. The captain smiled at him and raised his hand to his brow.
GOOD RIDDANCE!
Headline in the German newspaper Der Stürmer
May 1939
Thursday, 18 May
The only people Mama felt comfortable with on board were the Adlers, although perhaps they were a little too old to share a late night with. Their cabin was two doors from ours, and every time we went out on deck, we had to say hello to them. Since he came on board, Mr. Adler had refused to get out of bed. His meals were taken to him, but he rarely tasted them. Mrs. Adler was very worried: she had never seen him like that before.
“It was very painful for him to have to send his son and daughter-in-law on ahead to America. He hasn’t recovered from that separation,” Mrs. Adler told us. “He thought things would settle down in a few months, but instead the situation grew worse. We’ve lost everything. Our whole lives!”
While she was talking to us, Mrs. Adler held cold compresses to the forehead of this old, white-bearded man who did not even open his eyes the whole time we were there. We watched as his wife gently looked after him. Now she was dabbing on some mentholated oil that brought tears to my eyes.
“He agreed to come only because I insisted. Ever since we left home he has been repeating that this trip makes no sense and that he doesn’t have the strength to begin again.”
Mrs. Adler looked as if she were straight out of some old-fashioned book. She had her hair piled high on her head and wore a petticoat under her long dress as well as a corset like a woman from the last century. Every time we visited, she gave me a gift, which Mama allowed me to keep. Sometimes it was a lace handkerchief; at others, a small gilt brooch, or some sugar-coated biscuits that were my favorites. Who knew where she got them, because they had disappeared from market shelves long ago.
We listened closely as Mrs. Adler told their story. In a way, it was the story of all of us.
“We’ve all lost something,” Mrs. Adler said, and paused with a sorrowful smile. “Nearly everything.”
The Adlers had lived to be eighty-seven, and so to me they had no reason to complain. Eight decades and seven years. We children, the ones who had our lives in front of us, were the ones who would be suffering.
The couple’s physical decline became increasingly obvious with each passing hour. The old man, immobile in bed; Mrs. Adler, all alone, watching as the love of her life—her great support—slipped away slowly as this ship sailed to the island that was to be our salvation. This was the only answer they could find at an age when all you could hope for was the peace to be able to say good-bye.
“We lived on illusions and woke up far too late,” said Mama, without expecting any comment from Mrs. Adler, who by now listened only to herself. “We should have seen what was going to hit us and left a long time ago.”
I didn’t want Mama to be sad. On board the St. Louis, she had become her old self again, while Papa sought refuge in music—the only true escape route that kept him sane. The old lady should have kept her sorrow to herself.
“Left for where, Alma?” Mrs. Adler replied firmly. “We can’t spend our lives constantly starting over. A generation goes by, they destroy us. We start over, and they destroy us again. Is that our fate?”
Both of them looked at me, realizing suddenly that I was in the room and listening closely. They needn’t have worried, though: I wasn’t scared by their pessimism. They had lived their lives. I was just st
arting out, and I had Leo. The nightmare was behind us.
Mr. Adler began to tremble, and a racking cough made his heavy but weak body quiver. He was going to die. It was as if he couldn’t breathe. We needed to call a doctor. They all looked nervous.
“He has these crises,” said Mrs. Adler, who was evidently used to them. “You go along now and look at the sea.”
She and Mama embraced without kissing. Their sorrow passed between them; their mutual compassion was evident.
I ran toward the corridor but heard Mama shouting my name, as if I were a little girl again. She knew very well that in a few days I would be twelve.
“Aren’t you going to say good-bye?”
I smiled from a distance—that was enough—at poor Mrs. Adler, who had not been able to enjoy a single day of our journey.
Every day, the sun beat down more strongly on deck and poured fiercely through our cabin portholes. We must have been drawing closer to the tropics. What a shame the Adlers were living in darkness. They had converted their stateroom into a funeral parlor: curtains drawn, everything gloomy, the atmosphere filled with the mentholated oil and alcohol used to bring down his fever, and the labored breathing of that feeble old man who had boarded the ship only to let himself die.
A gaggle of children ran behind a man on roller skates. As he swooped round like somebody on an ice rink rather than on the slippery promenade deck, it looked as if he were about to fall at any second. He was traveling at great speed, and we were worried he might crash into the rail, but at the last moment, he always braked with the tip of his feet and came to a halt, as if waiting for applause. Then he raised his arms and made an exaggerated bow.
The children rushed to try to knock him over. Leo laughed. The man danced like a circus clown. The swarm of boys and girls followed him everywhere, and he was obviously very proud of this great feat of his in a place where nothing ever happened.
“We have to learn to roller-skate!” Leo announced. I recognized the urgency in his tone of voice: I had to take note of this new project for our life in Havana.
“Mr. Rosenthal and my father are talking to the captain. Do you think there are problems with the ship? Will it sink like the Titanic?” he asked, as though telling a horror story not even he believed.
“Leo, it’s May. We’re in the mid-Atlantic, a long way from any icebergs.”
He took me to a corner of the deck far from the passengers in their deck chairs. Everything I touched on the ship was sticky with sea salt. We sat behind some lifeboats bearing the insignia HAPAG, the shipping company that owned the St. Louis. I was convinced there would not be enough of them for a thousand passengers if there were a shipwreck.
“I’m going to get something for you,” Leo blurted.
He was always changing topics like that. I couldn’t take my eyes off him when he was talking to me. I concentrated on his eyes, trying to work out what he was thinking. I felt happy he was devoting himself entirely to me, just like our days together in Berlin. But I couldn’t guess what project he was dreaming up now or what it was he wanted. He must have a plan.
“Papa promised me he’ll give me Mama’s wedding ring. With what it’s worth, we would be able to survive in Cuba, but I want the ring for you, Hannah. I have to convince him to give it to me as soon as possible. If anything happens to us, you should have it with you. We can adjust it to fit you.”
He said all this without looking at me. Lowering his head shyly, he began playing with his hands, pulling on his knuckles as if he wanted to tear them off.
Did that mean we were engaged? I didn’t dare ask him, but at the same time I couldn’t hide my delight. He must have seen how my eyes were shining.
“Danke,” I said as he placed his hands on my shoulders.
“From now on, you have to forget danke. It’s gracias, okay?” Sometimes Leo insisted on talking to me like a father giving advice to his little daughter.
“Gracias. ¿Comenzarás a hablar español?” I asked him in Spanish, knowing he would not understand a thing if I put on the accent I had polished after hours of practice.
He repeated gracias, stressing the g and the s in a very comical way. I burst out laughing: Leo was the only person on board who could make me forget the past, because he was so very present.
A gentle tune started to play over the loudspeakers. At first, I could make out only a few bars and didn’t recognize the music.
Our brief, happy interlude ended quickly, as Leo was worried about something. His father and mine were still on the bridge with the captain, and they would not let him near. They even avoided talking in front of him. They must have realized he had his ears pricked for any little detail; he was always on alert, and then came to me with his theories and half-truths.
While Leo paused, I could study him without upsetting him. He was taller now, with a more pronounced jaw, his eyes even bigger. The music became louder: it was “Moonlight Serenade,” by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, which was all the rage in Berlin.
“It’s American music, Leo!” I shouted, shaking him by the shoulders because I could see he was sad. Perhaps he was feeling nostalgic about everything we had left behind. Or possibly he was missing his mother.
“They’re welcoming us, Leo! America is receiving us with open arms!”
I could hear the trombones, then the string section entering. I stood up and started humming the tune.
“Let’s write some words to that music,” I suggested, but he still did not react.
A serenade in the silvery moonlight, which, out there on deck, was just for the two of us. Let’s invent the words. I started spinning around with my eyes closed, letting myself be carried away by the notes that drifted out over the ocean.
Leo took me by the hand. I opened my eyes and saw him smiling, spinning around very slowly with me. Our movements followed the rolling of the ship. I let myself go again, and the breeze ruffled my hair. So what? We were dancing. I followed the rhythm. I had no idea which of us was leading. The tune was about to come to an end. The notes lengthened. Yes, it was the end.
Now all we could hear was the ship’s signal telling us it was time to go have dinner.
Entry to Cuba restricted for all foreign nationals.
To enter the country, a bond of 500 pesos is required, together with a visa granted by a Cuban consulate abroad and authorized by the Ministry of State and Labor, not merely by the Immigration Service. All previously issued documents are hereby declared invalid.
As stipulated by Decree 937, signed by the president of the Republic of Cuba,
Federico Laredo Brú.
Gaceta de Cuba
May 1939
Friday, 19 May
The previous night had been difficult. We almost lost Mama. I knew I had to be prepared for that. I could lose my mother at any moment and become an orphan suddenly, before I was even twelve years old. That was impossible. Mama couldn’t do something like that to me, much less near my birthday, because whenever I celebrated it, I would remember her and be overcome with sadness.
Papa was shut until late with the captain in his cabin, and those mysterious meetings worried her. He always came back looking hunched, with drooping shoulders; the person who had once been the most elegant man in Berlin was now weighed down like a weary hunchback.
Mama was sick all night. I had to leave her on her own in the bathroom; I couldn’t bear to see her falling to pieces like that.
“It’s nothing. Go and sleep. I’ll explain in the morning.”
She obviously knew something she didn’t dare tell me. That we had lost all our money? That the Ogres were preparing to invade America and would soon cross the Atlantic? That there was no way out for us, and they would be waiting for us in the port of Havana?
I could hear her vomiting even through the closed door. Bent over the toilet bowl, shaken by sudden spasms, she looked so frail it frightened me.
An unbearable stench began to filter out of the bathroom, through her cabin, and into mi
ne. I pulled the pillow over my head to shut out the retching and the smell. Eventually I fell asleep.
The next morning, it was as if nothing had happened. She looked pale, with perhaps more elaborate makeup than usual. Her hair was freshly washed, and she was wearing a subtle perfume I did not recognize. This new fragrance, mixed with the smell of sea salt, confused me as much as her miraculous recovery. Mama realized this, and asked me and Papa to sit near her. Neither the perfume, nor the smell of her soap, nor whatever she had used on her hair, were enough to erase the smell of the previous night’s stench from my memory.
“I have some news for you,” she said, her voice dropping.
It was good news. It had to be. And at that moment, I recalled that, just before we’d boarded, she had promised me a surprise. Meeting up with Leo again had made me forget what she had promised to tell me.
She looked at Papa and then fixed her eyes on me. Just tell us your news, Mama!
“I waited until today because I wanted to be really sure.”
She paused again. Then she looked at us with a mischievous glint in her eye, as if challenging us to guess.
“Hannah,” she said, looking at me and ignoring Papa, “you won’t be an only child anymore!”
It took me several seconds to take in what she was trying to tell me.
Mama is pregnant! That’s why she’s been so sick! She wasn’t worried about Papa’s meetings with the captain—that was men’s business. I was going to have a baby brother—or sister!
“Where is it going to be born?” was the only thing I could think of to ask.
How silly of me. I ought to have said something far more suited to a girl my age. I should have become all emotional, leapt toward her, hugged her. Shouted to the four winds, “I won’t be an only child anymore! How wonderful!”
The German Girl Page 13