by Alan Gratz
An airplane circled the ship, its propeller buzzing like a hornet. Newspaper photographers, one of the other passengers guessed out loud. Josef knew by now that the St. Louis was big news the world over. Newsreel camera crews had followed the ship out of Havana Harbor on little boats, yelling out the same questions all the passengers had: Where would they land? Who would take the Jewish refugees?
Would they end up back in Germany?
That afternoon, a US Coast Guard cutter cruised alongside the St. Louis, its officers watching them through binoculars. One of the other children guessed the cutter was there to protect them, to pick up anyone who jumped overboard.
Josef thought it was to make sure the St. Louis didn’t steer for Miami.
Some of the children, like Ruthie, still played games and swam in the pool, and they were close enough to America for some of the teenagers to pick up a New York Yankees game on their radios. But most of the adults walked around like they were at a funeral. The happy mood of the voyage to Cuba was gone forever. People spoke little, and socialized less. The movie theater was deserted. No one went to the dance hall.
Except for Josef’s mother.
For days she had mourned Josef’s father, had become Josef’s father by locking herself in their cabin. But with the announcement that the St. Louis was leaving Cuba—leaving without her husband—something in her flipped like a light switch. She cleaned herself up. Put on makeup. Did her hair. Dumped the contents of her suitcase on her bed, put on her favorite party dress, and went straight to the dance hall.
She’d been there ever since.
Josef’s mother was dancing by herself when he went to find her. A paper moon and stars still hung from the ceiling, decorations left over from the party when they all thought they’d be leaving the ship for Cuba. Josef’s mother saw him in the doorway and hurried over to him. She pulled Josef with her onto the dance floor.
“Dance with me, Josef,” she said. She took his hands in hers and led him in a waltz. “We didn’t pay for all those dance lessons for nothing.”
The dance lessons had been a lifetime ago, back before Hitler. Back when his parents thought Josef would be going to dances as a teenager, not running from the Nazis.
“No,” Josef said. He was too old to dance with his mother, too embarrassed. And there were more important things to think about right now. “What’s going on, Mama? Why are you doing this? It’s like you’re happy Papa’s gone.”
She twirled in his arms. “Did I ever tell you why you’re named Josef?” she asked.
“I— No.”
“You’re named after my older brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Josef’s mother danced like her life depended on it.
“Josef died in the Great War. My brother, Josef. At the Battle of the Somme, in France.”
Josef didn’t know what to say. His mother had never talked about her brother before. His uncle, he realized. He would have had an uncle.
“You can live life as a ghost, waiting for death to come, or you can dance,” she told him. “Do you understand?”
“No,” said Josef.
The song ended, and Josef’s mother took his face in both her hands. “You look just like him,” she said.
Josef didn’t know what to say to that.
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” the bandleader said, “but I’ve just been told there will be a special announcement in the A-deck social hall.”
Josef’s mother pouted because the music had stopped, but Josef knew it was worse than that. He couldn’t have said why, but he was sure, deep down in the pit of his stomach, that this would only be bad news.
The worst.
His mother took his hand and squeezed it. “Come on,” she said with a smile.
The social hall was already full when they got there. In the front of the room, under the giant portrait of Adolf Hitler, stood a committee of passengers who had been working with the captain on a solution to their problem. From the looks on their faces, they had not come up with one. When the head of the committee spoke, he confirmed all of Josef’s worst fears.
“The United States has refused us. We are heading back to Europe.”
The outburst was instantaneous. Cries, gasps, tears. Josef cursed—the first time he had ever cursed in front of his mother. She didn’t react at all, and it made Josef feel both a little ashamed and a little bolder at the same time.
“You mean we’re going back to Germany!” someone yelled.
“Not necessarily,” a committee member said. “But we must stay calm.”
Calm? Josef thought. Was the man insane?
“Calm? How can we stay calm?” a man asked out loud, echoing Josef’s thoughts. The man’s name was Pozner. Josef had seen him before on the ship. “A lot of us were in concentration camps,” Pozner went on. His face was twisted in anger, and he spat his words. “We were released only on condition that we leave Germany immediately! For us to return means one thing—going back to those camps. That could be the future of every man, woman, and child on this ship!”
“We will not die. We won’t return. We will not die,” the crowd chanted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Josef saw Otto Schiendick lingering in the doorway. Schiendick grinned at the panic in the room, and Josef felt his blood begin to boil.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the head of the committee, “the news is bad. That we all realize. But Europe is still many days away. That gives us, and all our friends, time to make new attempts to help us.”
Josef’s mother pulled him away. “Come, Josef. Somebody will think of something. Let’s dance.”
Josef didn’t understand why his mother wasn’t upset, why she suddenly didn’t seem to care anymore. They were about to be taken back to Germany. Back to their deaths. Josef let his mother pull him to the door, then broke away. “No, Mama, I can’t.”
She smiled sadly at him and ducked past Otto Schiendick, who leaned against the doorframe.
“You should do as your mother says, boy,” Schiendick said. “These are your last free days. Enjoy them. When you go back to Hamburg, nobody’ll ever hear from you again.”
Josef went back to the yelling passengers, his anger rising like the tide. There had to be something they could do. Something he could do.
The passenger who’d spoken up, Pozner, pulled him aside.
“You are Aaron Landau’s son, Josef, yes? I’m sorry about your father,” he said.
Josef was tired of hearing people’s condolences. “Yes, thank you,” he said, trying to move on.
The man grabbed his arm.
“You were among the children who went to the engine room and the bridge, yes?”
Josef frowned. What was this about?
“And you’re a man now. You had your bar mitzvah that first Shabbos on the ship.”
Josef stood taller, and the man let go of his arm.
“What of it?” Josef asked.
The man looked around to make sure no one else was listening.
“There’s a group of us who are going to try to storm the bridge and take hostages,” he whispered. “Force the captain to run the ship aground on the American coast.”
Josef couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He shook his head.
“It’ll never work,” Josef said. He’d seen how many crew there really were on this ship, and what a lot of them below decks really thought about Jews. They wouldn’t go down without a fight, and they knew this ship better than any passenger.
Pozner shrugged. “What choice do we have? We can’t go back. Your father knew that. That’s why he did what he did. If we succeed, we’re free. If we fail, at least the world will realize how desperate we are.”
Josef looked to the floor. If they failed—when they failed—the captain would take the ship back to Germany, and then Pozner and the rest of the hijackers were sure to be sent to concentration camps.
“Why are you telling me this?” Josef asked.
>
“Because we need you with us,” Pozner told him. “We need you to show us the way up to the bridge.”
Miami.
It was like a dream. Like a glittering vision of heaven, as if Iván had opened the gates for them. Everyone stared, stunned, as though they had never thought they would ever actually see it. When the lights on the horizon became the faint shapes of buildings and roads and trees and they knew for sure they were looking at Miami, they cried and hugged each other again.
Isabel cried again for Iván, cried because he had been so close and hadn’t made it. But her tears for him were mixed with relief that she would make it to the States, and that made her feel guilty and cry even harder. How could she be sad for Iván and happy for herself at the same time?
Crunk. Something bent and broke under Papi’s foot, and the boat lurched. Water streamed in from a new crack in the hull, and suddenly all feelings of relief ended.
The boat was sinking.
“No!” Papi cried. He dove to try to shore up the hole, but there was nothing he could do. The weight of the ship and its passengers was pulling it apart at last. They all scrambled to the front of the boat, but the back end sank deeper and deeper under the weight of the heavy engine. The top of the hull was almost to the waterline at the back. When the two met, the ocean would flood in over the side and there would be no going back. They would drown.
Or end up like Iván.
Terror rose in Isabel like the water filling the boat. She couldn’t drown. Couldn’t disappear beneath the waves like Lita. Like Iván. No. No!
“Bail!” her grandfather cried.
Mami was lying in the prow of the boat, as far away from the rising water as possible, her breath coming harder and shorter now. But everyone else dove for their cups and jugs. It wasn’t going to be enough, though. Isabel could see that. There was too much water. Too much weight.
The engine. Isabel suddenly remembered the way it had been working itself loose from its bolts. She threw herself at it, trying to knock it loose. When she couldn’t wrench it free by hand she wedged herself in between it and the next bench, down in the water, and kicked at it with her feet.
“Chabela! Leave the engine alone and help us bail!” her father called. Isabel ignored him and kicked. If she could just get the engine free—
Another foot joined hers. Amara! She understood! Together they kicked at the engine until Isabel finally felt the wet wood around the bolts give. The engine tumbled to the bottom of the boat, covering up Fidel Castro’s commandment to them.
Fight against the impossible and win, Isabel thought.
“One, two, three!” Amara said. Together she and Isabel rolled the motorcycle engine up the side and almost over—until Isabel slipped and it rolled back down with a splash into the water inside the boat.
“Again!” Amara told her. “One, two, three!”
Up, up, up they rolled the engine, and onto the top of the side, where it pushed the hull down below the surface of the sea. Water gushed in, and Isabel felt the boat sinking under her feet, pulling her with it down into the black depths, down with Iván and the sharks—
“No—wait!” Señor Castillo cried—
—and with one last good push Isabel and Amara tipped the engine over the side. It slipped into the water with a slurp and dropped like a stone, and the back end of the boat shot back up out of the water, the weight of the engine no longer dragging it down.
“What have you done?” Señor Castillo cried. “Now we’ll never make it to shore!”
“We weren’t going to make it if we sank!” Amara told him.
“We’ll row,” Lito said. “When we’re close enough in, the tide will take us the rest of the way. Or we’ll swim.”
Swim? Isabel worried. With the sharks?
“Just bail, or we won’t be doing anything!” Luis cried. “Bail!”
BWEEP-BWEEP!
An electronic siren made them all jump, and a red swirling light came on a few hundred meters to their left.
A person speaking English said something over a bullhorn. Isabel didn’t understand. From the confused looks on everyone else’s faces in the boat, they didn’t, either. Then the same voice repeated the message in Spanish.
“Halt! This is the United States Coast Guard. You are in violation of US waters. Remain where you are and prepare to be boarded.”
Mahmoud stared at the gun pointed at him. Was this real, or was he still asleep and having a nightmare?
The Serbian taxi driver waved the pistol at Mahmoud’s family. “You pay three hundred euros!” he demanded.
This wasn’t a dream. It was real. Mahmoud had been groggy just seconds before, but now he was wide-awake, his heart hammering. His eyes felt dry even though his shirt still clung to him with sleep-sweat, and he blinked rapidly as he looked at his parents. They were already awake, his father hugging the still-sleeping Waleed protectively.
“Don’t shoot—please!” Mahmoud’s father said. He threw one of his arms protectively across Mahmoud and his mother.
“Three hundred euros!” the taxi driver said.
Three hundred euros! That was more than twice what they had agreed to pay the driver!
“Please—” Dad begged.
“You not die, you pay three hundred!” the taxi driver yelled. His arm shook, and the gun danced between the two front seats. Mahmoud’s mother closed her eyes and shrank away.
Mahmoud’s father threw up his hand. “We’ll pay! We’ll pay!” They were being held at gunpoint in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country. What else could he do? Mahmoud’s heart thundered in his chest as his father handed Waleed to Mom and fumbled with the money hidden inside his shirt under his belt. Mahmoud wanted to do something. To stop this man from threatening his family. But what could he do? Mahmoud was helpless, and that made him even madder.
With shaking hands, Mahmoud’s father counted out three hundred euros and shoved them at the taxi driver. Why he didn’t demand the whole stash of money, Mahmoud didn’t understand.
“You get out. Get out!” the taxi driver said.
Mahmoud and his family didn’t have to be told twice. They threw open the car doors and scrambled outside, and before the doors were even fully closed again the Volkswagen tore off down the dark road, its red taillights disappearing around a curve.
Mahmoud trembled with anger and fear, and his mother shook with quiet sobs. Mahmoud’s father pulled them all into a hug.
“Well,” Mahmoud’s father said at last. “I’m definitely giving that driver a bad review on TripAdvisor.”
Mahmoud’s quivering legs gave out, and he sank to the ground. Tears streamed down his face, as though they’d been held back by a dam before and now the floodgates had suddenly been opened. He’d had a gun pointed right at his face. As long as he lived, Mahmoud would never forget that feeling of paralyzing terror, of powerlessness.
His mother sat down in the road with him and hugged him. Mahmoud’s tears came harder, fueled by everything that had come before—the bombing of their house, the attack on their car, struggling to live in Izmir, the long hours in the sea, and of course, Hana. Mostly Hana.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” Mahmoud blubbered. “I’m so sorry I made you give Hana away.”
His mother stroked Mahmoud’s hair and shook her head. “No, my beautiful boy. If the boat hadn’t come along when it did, if you hadn’t convinced them to take her, she would have drowned. I couldn’t keep us above water. You saved her. I know you did. She’s out there somewhere. We just have to find her.”
Mahmoud nodded into his mother’s shoulder. “I’ll find her again, Mom. I promise.”
Mahmoud and his mother cried and held each other until Mahmoud remembered they weren’t getting any closer to Hana or to Germany. He dragged a sleeve across his wet mouth and nose, and his mother kissed him on the forehead.
“That thief took us about halfway to Hungary, at least,” Mahmoud’s father said, looking at his phone. “We’re on a back road abo
ut an hour’s drive from the border. I think we’re close to a bus stop. It means we have to walk again, though.”
Mahmoud helped his mother stand, and his father hefted Waleed up higher on his shoulder.
Mahmoud’s little brother had slept through the whole thing.
Mahmoud worried again about his brother. Air raids, shoot-outs, taxi holdups—nothing seemed to faze him anymore. Was he just keeping all his tears and screams pent up inside, or was he becoming so used to horrible things happening all around him that he didn’t notice anymore? Didn’t care? Would he come to life again when they got to Germany?
If they got to Germany?
They made it to the bus stop in time to catch the late bus to Horgoš, a Serbian city on the Hungarian border. Even more Syrian refugees had collected there, but no one was getting through. Not by road or rail, or even out in the countryside the way Mahmoud and his family had crossed into Macedonia and Serbia.
The Hungarians had a fence.
It wasn’t finished yet, but even now, at night, Hungarian soldiers were hard at work driving four-meter-tall metal poles into the ground along the border and stretching chain-link fencing between them. Once the fence was hung, another group came behind them and attached three tiers of razor-wire coil to it, to keep people from climbing over.
The Hungarians were closing their border.
“But we don’t even want to go to Hungary,” Mahmoud said. “We just want to get through to Austria.”
“The Hungarians don’t care, I guess,” Dad said. “They don’t want us in their country, whether we’re coming or going.”
A group of refugees suddenly rushed a part of the unfinished fence, trying to get through before it was done. “We’re not terrorists!” someone cried. “We’re refugees!”