Refugee

by Alan Gratz

  Cries of anger came from the passengers, and Josef joined in. The first officer had disappeared briefly, but now returned with more sailors in case there was violence.

  Josef wondered if he should bring his mother to hear this news, but he knew she was in their cabin, most likely in bed, crying. She blamed herself for her husband’s suicide attempt, and in the last two days she had become, in a way, as absent a parent as Josef’s father.

  No, Josef was the one who needed to be here right now. For his mother and for Ruthie.

  Captain Schroeder called for quiet again. “We are not going home. We will cruise the American coast and make appeals to President Roosevelt. If any of you have friends or family in the States, I beg you to ask them to exert what influence they can. No matter what, I assure you: I will do everything in my power to arrange a landing outside Germany. Hope must always remain. Now please, go back to your cabins. I must return to the bridge to make the ship ready for our departure.”

  The crowd mobbed the captain as he tried to leave C-deck, the passengers pushing and shoving their way around Josef. Josef fought his way to the passenger who had translated for Officer Padron the other day and pulled him to where the policemen stood.

  “What about my father?” Josef asked Officer Padron through the translator.

  “I saw him in the hospital,” the policeman told Josef. “He’s not well enough to come to the ship.”

  “Then can we go to him instead?” Josef asked.

  The policeman looked pained. “I’m sorry, Little Man. You cannot leave the ship.”

  “But the ship is leaving,” Josef said. He could feel the pulsing engines under his feet. “We can’t leave my father behind.”

  “I wish from the bottom of my heart that you will land soon, Little Man,” Officer Padron said again. “I’m sorry. I’m just doing my job.”

  Josef looked deep into Officer Padron’s eyes, searching for some sign of help, some hint of sympathy. Officer Padron just looked away.

  Josef was still standing there in the hot Cuban sun when, right before lunch, the policemen left on a launch. Officer Padron still wouldn’t look at him. Once the little boat was clear, the MS St. Louis blew its horn, raised its anchor, and left Havana Harbor, destination unknown.

  As he stood at the rail with the rest of the passengers saying a tearful good-bye to the only place that had ever promised them refuge, Josef said good-bye to his father as well. He took his shirt collar in both hands and ripped it along the seam, rending his garment as he’d done when Professor Weiler had been buried at sea.

  Josef knew Papa was still alive, but it didn’t matter. His father was dead to his family. And so, Josef realized, was their dream of joining him in Cuba.

  The night sky was so clear Isabel could see the Milky Way.

  Her gaze was on the stars, but she wasn’t really looking at them. She wasn’t really looking at anything. Her eyes were blurry from tears. Next to her, Señora Castillo sobbed in her husband’s arms, her shoulders heaving. Like Isabel, she had been crying ever since Iván died. Señor Castillo stared out over his wife’s head, his eyes vacant. Luis kicked out at the silent engine, rattling the bolts that held it down. He buried his face in his hands, and Amara hugged him tight.

  Iván was dead. Isabel couldn’t grasp it. One minute he had been alive, talking to them, laughing with them, and the next he was dead. Lifeless. Like every other Cuban who had ever died trying to get to el norte by sea. But Iván wasn’t some nameless, faceless person. He was Iván. Her Iván. He was her friend.

  And he was dead.

  Isabel’s eyes drifted down to where Iván’s body lay, but she still didn’t look right at him. Couldn’t. Even though Papi had taken down the shirt he’d draped over Mami to shade her and laid it across Iván’s face, Isabel couldn’t bear to look.

  She knew Iván’s face. His smile. She wanted to think of him that way.

  Lito sang a low, sad song, and Isabel retreated into the arms of her mother and father. The three of them huddled together, as if what happened to Iván might happen to them too if they came too close to his body. But the real threat was the sinking boat and the sharks that still circled it, following the trail of bloody water that started at Isabel’s feet.

  Fidel Castro had Iván’s blood all over him.

  Isabel remembered the wake for her grandmother. It had been a quiet, somber occasion. There hadn’t even been a body to bury. Those who had come had spent most of their time comforting Lito and Mami and Isabel, hugging them and kissing them and sharing their grief. Isabel knew she should do that now for the Castillos, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. How could she comfort the Castillos when she still needed comforting herself? Iván was their son, their brother, but he was Isabel’s best friend. In some ways she knew him better even than his family did. She’d played soccer with him in the alley, swum with him in the sea, sat next to him in school. She had eaten dinner at his house, and he at hers, so many times they might as well have been brother and sister. Isabel and Iván had grown up together. She couldn’t imagine a world where she would run next door and he wouldn’t be there.

  But Iván wouldn’t be coming over anymore.

  Iván was dead.

  The loss of him ached like a part of Isabel was suddenly missing, like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and all that was left was a giant, gaping hole. She shook again as her body was wracked with sobs, and Mami pulled her closer.

  After a time, Isabel’s grandfather finally spoke.

  “We need to do something,” he said. “With the body.”

  Señora Castillo wailed, but Señor Castillo nodded.

  Do something with the body? Isabel looked around. But what was there to be done with Iván’s body on this little raft? And then Isabel understood. There was only one place for Iván’s body to go: into the sea. The thought made her recoil in terror.

  “No! No, we can’t leave him here!” Isabel cried. “He’ll be all alone! Iván never liked to be alone.”

  Lito nodded to Isabel’s father, and the two of them stood to lift Iván out of the small boat.

  Isabel fought to get free of her mother, but Mami held her tight.

  “Wait,” Señora Castillo said. She pulled herself away from her husband, her face streaked with tears. “We have to say something. A prayer. Something. I want God to know Iván is coming.”

  Isabel had never been to church. When Castro and the communists had taken over, they had discouraged the practice of religion. But Spanish Catholics had conquered the island long before Castro had, and Isabel knew their religion was still there, deep down, the way Lito told her clave was buried beneath the audible rhythms of a song.

  Lito was the oldest, and had been to the most funerals, so he took charge. He made the sign of the cross over Iván’s body, and said, “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.”

  Señora Castillo nodded, and Lito and Isabel’s father picked up Iván’s body.

  “No—no!” Isabel cried. She reached out as if to stop them, then pulled her hands back and clasped them to her chest. She knew they had to do this, that they could not keep Iván on the boat with them. Not like this. But as she watched Lito and Papi lift up Iván’s body, the empty place inside got bigger and bigger, until she was more empty than full. She wished she was dead too. She wished she was dead so they would put her into the water with Iván. So she could keep him company in the deep.

  Señora Castillo reached out and took her son’s hand one last time, and Luis stood and put a hand to Iván’s chest—one last connection to his brother before he was gone for good. Isabel wanted to do something, to say something, but she was too overcome with grief.

  “Wait,” Luis said. He pulled his pistol from his holster. His face turned mean as he aimed it over the other side of the boat, at one of the fins that skimmed the surface. Isabel was ready for the shots this time, but they still made her jump. BANG! BANG! BANG!


  The shark died in a bloody, thrashing spasm, and the other sharks that had been following the boat fell on it in a frenzy. Luis nodded to Lito and Isabel’s father, and Señora Castillo looked away as they slipped Iván off the other side of the boat, away from the sharks, where he sank into the black sea.

  No one spoke. Isabel cried, the tears coming without end, flowing up from the hollow place in her chest that threatened to consume her. Iván was gone, forever.

  Isabel suddenly remembered Iván’s Industriales cap. Where was it? What had happened to it? It hadn’t been on him when he’d been put back in the water, and Isabel wanted to find it. Needed to find it. That was something she could do. A piece of him she could keep close to her. She pulled away from her mother and searched the little boat for it. It had to be somewhere … Yes! There! Floating upside down in the bloody water, underneath one of the benches. She plucked it up and held it to her chest, the only part of Iván she had left.

  “I wanted to open a restaurant,” Señor Castillo said. He was right next to her, and the sound of his voice, almost a whisper, made Isabel jump. “When we were talking that first night, everybody was telling each other what they wanted to do when we got to the US,” Señor Castillo went on, “but I never said. I wanted to open a restaurant with my sons.”

  Something sparkled on the dark horizon, and at first Isabel took it to be one of the stars in the white scar of the Milky Way twinkling in her watery eyes. But no—it was too bright. Too orange. And there were others just like it, all clustered in a horizontal line, separating the black waters from the black sky.

  It was Miami, at last. Iván had just missed seeing Miami.

  Mahmoud felt like he was back in Syria. Policemen with guns guarded the border from Greece into Macedonia, and he felt dirty again. Unwanted. Illegal.

  Even without travel papers, Mahmoud and his family had been able to exchange their Syrian pounds for euros and buy train tickets from Athens to Thessaloniki, and from there to a little Greek town near the border of Macedonia. Now they were headed for the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, where they hoped to catch a train north to Serbia, and from there to Hungary. But first they had to find a way to sneak across the border.

  Mahmoud pointed out a little tangle of tents and laundry lines just off the gravel road, and Mahmoud’s father pulled them into the camp to plan their next move. It was another little refugee village, the kind of makeshift town Mahmoud had seen again and again on the road out of Syria. Mahmoud and his father hunkered down behind a trash barrel and watched the border crossing. The Macedonian police weren’t turning people away, but they might be checking papers, and Mahmoud’s family hadn’t waited in Athens for official travel permits.

  Mahmoud’s dad pulled out his iPhone and consulted the map. “This whole area is farmland,” his father said. “Flat land. Too easy to be caught.” He scrolled sideways on the map, and Mahmoud leaned in closer. “It looks like there’s a forest here, to the west,” Dad said. “They can’t have every meter of the border guarded. We’ll slip through at night. Once we’re in Macedonia, we’ll be all right. Where’s your mother?”

  Mahmoud looked up. Mom was where she always was, working her way through the tents. Looking for Hana.

  Hana wasn’t there, though, and she wasn’t at any of the other little clusters of refugee tents they passed as they hiked farther into the countryside. At some place he’d picked from the map on his iPhone, Mahmoud’s father led them off a dirt road into a dark forest. It was late, well after midnight, and Mahmoud was weary from walking. But they still had two hours to walk to the Macedonian border.

  Waleed raised his arms to be carried, and Dad hefted him up against his shoulder. Mahmoud bristled. Waleed was being a baby. He was too big to be carried. Mahmoud was tired too, but nobody was carrying him.

  They walked along in silence, their way lit only by the occasional glow of the phone screen as Dad checked their position. The forest was full of tall pine trees that crowded almost everything else out, and the ground was covered with brown pine needles that smelled like a car freshener. Somewhere in the forest an owl screeched, and Mahmoud heard the scurrying of small animals. Every rustle made Mahmoud jump, every scuffle gave him goose bumps. He was a city boy, used to the lights and sounds of traffic. Here, every sound was like a gunshot in the unearthly dark and quiet. It terrified Mahmoud.

  At last they emerged from the dark woods and found the train station. It was a small, two-story, mustard-colored building, with a burgundy roof and rounded gables.

  It was also packed with people.

  Hundreds of people slept outside, using their backpacks and trash bags as pillows. They filled the train platform and the sidewalks in front of the station, and some even slept between the tracks. Plastic bottles and empty bags and discarded wrappers littered the ground.

  Mahmoud watched his father’s shoulders sag. Mahmoud felt the same way. But then his father stood taller and hiked Waleed up higher on his shoulder.

  “Hey, at least we know we’re on the right track,” he said. He grinned at Mahmoud. “The right track. Get it?”

  Mahmoud got it. He just didn’t think any of this was funny.

  “No? Nothing?” his father said. “I guess I need to train you better.”

  Mahmoud still didn’t laugh. He was too tired.

  Mahmoud’s mother had already left them, stepping carefully among the sleeping refugees like a ghost. Searching for Hana.

  “The train station looks closed,” Mahmoud’s father told him. “We’ll have to find someplace to sleep. We’ll come back in the morning and see if we can buy tickets.”

  They found a nearby hotel listed on TripAdvisor, and they collected Mahmoud’s mother and set out for the inn on foot. Mahmoud couldn’t wait to climb into a real bed. He felt like he could sleep for days.

  A car came up behind them, and this time Mahmoud didn’t jump out in front of it. But it slowed down and stopped beside them anyway.

  “You need taxi?” the man said in broken Arabic.

  “No,” Mahmoud’s father said. “We’re just going to the hotel.”

  “Hotel much money,” the man said. “You go to Serbia? I take you in taxi. Twenty-five euros each.”

  Mahmoud did the math. A hundred euros was a lot of money—almost 24,000 Syrian pounds. But a taxi ride straight to Serbia, without spending the night—or longer—in Macedonia? Mahmoud’s parents huddled together, and Mahmoud listened in. Train tickets were likely cheaper, and Mom worried about accepting a ride from a strange man in a country they didn’t know, but Dad argued there wasn’t another train until at least tomorrow, and there were already so many people waiting for the train at the station.

  “We’re all tired, and a taxi gets us closer to Germany. Sleeping on the ground doesn’t,” Mahmoud threw in.

  “That’s the deciding vote, then,” Dad said. “We’ll take the car.”

  It was a good decision. Two hours and one hundred euros later, they were at the Serbian border. It was still dark, but there were no border guards where the driver dropped them off. No roads, either. Mahmoud had slept a little in the car, but he felt like a zombie as he shambled with his family along the railroad tracks that would take them across the border from Macedonia to the nearest Serbian town. Since they were traveling, they were permitted to skip their early-morning prayers.

  They staggered into a town just after sun up. Mahmoud thought that if he didn’t lie down somewhere and sleep he would pass out on his feet and fall flat on his face. But there were even more refugees at this train station than there had been in Macedonia, and here there were no tents and no hotel rooms. People slept on the platform of the station or outside in the fields. There were no toilets, either, and no markets or restaurants. What little the local Serbs had they were charging a fortune for. One man was selling water bottles for five euros apiece.

  A group of men sat around a power strip charging their phones as though they were huddled around a campfire. Mahmoud had seen scenes like th
is everywhere along the route from Athens to Germany. He and his family paused just long enough to recharge their own phones again, and then they were on the move once more.

  Mahmoud was so tired he wanted to cry. His father found them a bus to Belgrade, and Mahmoud was thankful for the few hours’ sleep, uncomfortable though they were. It was almost sundown when they arrived in the Serbian capital, but they still couldn’t stop. The police there were raiding hotels for illegal refugees, so Dad found another taxi driver who promised to take them the two hours farther to the Hungarian border.

  Taxis were expensive, but so was trying to stay overnight in a city that didn’t want you.

  The silver four-door Volkswagen was driven by a middle-aged, olive-skinned Serbian man with a neatly trimmed black beard. He promised to get them to Hungary and keep them away from the police for thirty euros apiece—more than it had cost them to cross all of Macedonia.

  It was a tight fit in the car, with Mahmoud, his mother, and his father crammed into the back seat and Waleed in his father’s lap. This new driver seemed to find every rut and hole in the road and send them flying into each other. But none of that mattered to Mahmoud. He was asleep almost as soon as he’d closed his eyes, and he only woke again when he realized the car wasn’t moving. Had it really been two hours already? He felt like he’d just gone to sleep.

  Mahmoud’s eyelids fluttered and he looked out the windows. He expected to see the lights of a Serbian border town. Another tent city. Instead, they were stopped in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway surrounded by dark, empty fields.

  And the taxi driver was leaning over the backseat with a pistol aimed straight at them.

  Miami! They weren’t even a day out of Havana, and already the St. Louis was passing the American city. It was so close you could see it from the ship without binoculars. Josef and Ruthie hung over the rails like everyone else, pointing out hotels and houses and parks. Josef saw highways and white square office buildings—skyscrapers!—and hundreds of little boats at harbor. Why couldn’t they just pull in to Miami and dock there? Why wouldn’t the United States just let them in? There was so much land that didn’t have buildings on it. Miles and miles of palm trees and swamp as far as the eye could see. Josef would take it. He would live there. He would live anywhere so long as it was away from the Nazis.