by Shmuel David
“We weren’t really told what to expect. Have you also paid a lot for this pleasure cruise?” asked Mother, who by now was somewhat restored.
“I didn’t pay anything,” said Inge. “We came here as a group. Perhaps the group paid as a whole, but no one has asked us to pay.”
While Mother and Inge were talking, the frantic activity on deck continued. Sweaty dock hands pushed carts filled with coal and shouted at everyone to clear the way. Others, their clothes stained with coal, carried heavy sacks on their shoulders and shouted loud cries of encouragement as they heaved and tossed the sacks into an opening leading straight to the belly of the boat.
The hours passed, but the ship did not set sail. The sun emerged from among the clouds, and it became warm.
Mother suggested Pauli and I explore the boat while she and Father rested a bit on the bench.
Pauli disappeared before I could turn my head.
“Come, Hanne,” Inge told me. “I’ll take you to the storage room. Let’s see if they have some warm blankets for the night. It’s going to be awfully cold.”
“It sounds as if you’ve been here a while. When did you come on board?” I asked.
I tried to keep up with her. She managed to walk very quickly, in spite of her long skirt, which I guessed was part of the Mizrahi girls’ uniform. Her ponytail swung to and fro as she walked.
“It’s a long story. We’ve been on the road for more than a month. I joined on November nineteenth in Berlin. Everything was done in a highly secretive way. They gathered us together in the community building and didn’t even let us call home. I so badly wanted to say goodbye to my mother, but they wouldn’t let me. They said we’d travel by train to Vienna early in the morning and warned us that we must not be recognized as a group while on the train.” Suddenly, she stopped, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Oh, no! I completely forgot! I was on my way to the Kraljica Marija to bring Yokel some soap and cleaning utensils. You can come with me. I’m doomed…”
She pulled me down a long corridor that ended in a heavy iron door.
Inside the corridor, the sound of engines and machinery was so loud I could hardly hear her.
“Right here,” Inge pointed at a sink containing large bars of soap and a brush, with a bucket and a mop next to them. “Yokel sent someone here, but he couldn’t find anything, so he asked me to come and look, but then I saw people crowding around your mother and forgot all about it. Never mind. There’s still time to bring it to them.”
“Aren’t you afraid the boats will start moving while you’re still here?” I asked in shock.
“Don’t worry. They sound a loud horn before they sail. It’ll give me a few more minutes to run.”
She handed me a bucket and a rag and took the broom and mop.
“Let’s run. I’ll show you something else on the way,” she said, panting. “There’s a place on the boat I love to sit when it’s cold, especially when the sun goes down.”
She continued to run along a maze of passageways filled with large pipes. The noise of heavy machinery became louder by the moment, and the heat was insufferable. By the time we reached the engine room, I couldn’t hear her at all. I tried to tell her she wouldn’t hear the horn blast from there, but she pointed at a door to her left and asked me to open it. I needed a lot of force to open it. Behind it, stairs were revealed, leading to a hidden corner with a wooden bench and a small table.
“This is the turbine engineers’ rest room. They hardly come here, because they prefer to rest in their cabins,” she said, sitting down on the bench for a moment.
“Isn’t it nice? It’s pretty quiet here,” she said, immediately getting up and setting off at a run.
“So why didn’t we make a corner for ourselves down there?” I asked, trying hard to keep up with her.
“Not many people know about this place. We’re not actually supposed to be here.”
“Pity. We could have been very comfortable there.”
“Let’s go back up now. I’m really afraid the horn will sound soon, and I still need to get to the other ship.”
“In summer, almost every Sunday, our entire family used to sail down the Danube on a boat just like this one. Then, we were just a few families and a gypsy musician. No wonder Mother had a seizure when she saw how crowded the boat was.”
We ran up a spiral staircase, Inge with the bucket and me with the broom and mop.
“What do you mean by ‘seizure’? Has she ever had such seizures before?”
“No, but that’s what the doctor said, a panic attack or a seizure.”
“Yes, that’s what it looked like to me.”
“How do you know so much medical stuff? You acted just like a real hospital nurse.”
“I’ll tell you some other time.”
“Can’t you tell me now?” I pleaded with her.
“Last summer, I took a two-month first-aid seminar, in preparation for nursing school.”
“Really? So you already know what you want to do when you grow up?”
“Do I look like a child to you?”
“No, I meant a real grown-up, with a profession and everything.”
“I only have one year left in high school. I was thinking of studying at a nursing school in Berlin after that.”
“I still have no idea what I want to study.”
Meanwhile, we returned to the deck and heard a loud horn blast from the next boat. It was immediately followed by a loud horn blast on our boat. A large cloud of black smoke rose from the chimney.
Excited shouts rose everywhere on deck.
“We’re sailing! It’s about time!”
The enthusiasm proved to be contagious and spread to everyone on board.
“Oh, now I really must run. Yokel will be so angry. He’s such a stickler for order. It wasn’t for nothing that he asked for cleaning materials for his boat. Everything always has to be spick-and-span over there.”
I wanted to go with her, but she’d already run off.
“Goodbye, Hanne. I’ll see you this evening! We’re on the same voyage, after all.” She lifted the front of her long skirt so she could run faster.
A few minutes later, shamefaced, she returned with the broom and bucket. When she reached me, she placed them on the floor, stamped her foot angrily, and said, chokingly, “I was just about to set foot on the gangway, but they stopped me. The Kraljica Marija has already pulled away from our boat. What will I do now? You don’t know what Yokel is like when he’s angry.”
“So the boat will be a little dirty. What harm is there in that? It’s all so crowded and filthy here anyway,” I tried to calm her down.
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “You don’t know us German Jews. We’re not like Viennese Germans. Viennese people are very disorganized, but with us everything has to be spick-and-span.”
We stood side by side on the deck, looking into the water below. Inge finally settled down and continued, “At first, I also had a hard time with the crowded conditions and the filth on board. These are very small boats, and they aren’t equipped to hold so many people.”
“A real cataclysm,” I used the word that seemed appropriate to describe this nightmare.
“What did you say? What’s a cata…?”
“It’s just a word describing something terrible that’s about to happen, even worse than a catastrophe.”
“Oh, I get it,” she said and burst out laughing. “I’ve never heard it before. Where were we, then?”
“You started telling me how you got to these crowded boats,” I tried to get the conversation back on track.
“In Bratislava, we boarded Uranus, which is a really large ship. Everything happened at night and in extreme secrecy. They let us know we’d be divided according to our youth movements, or something like that. We Mizrahi an
d Brit Chalutzim youth got Emil Shechter as our supervisor. He’s a great guy. So we were ready to board ship when an urgent message was suddenly received, telling us we had to wait twenty-four hours at the Bratislava community center. People became restless and didn’t understand what was going on or why we’d been delayed.”
“And did you find out?” I asked.
“No. We didn’t know anything. So of course, all sorts of rumors began…”
“What rumors?”
“You know—rumors. It doesn’t matter. And so we spent another night and a day in Bratislava before we finally boarded.”
“I guess people went wild with joy.”
“Wild is the right word to describe it. Everyone joyously yelled that we’d finally managed to get out, that now we could finally scream without fear.”
“And that was that? It’s all been smooth sailing since then?”
“No, not really smooth sailing…”
“What happened?”
“We moved on pretty quickly. They told us we were already close to Hungary. Then, suddenly, we felt the boat slowing down, almost to a halt. Then, we actually saw the bow turn around. We couldn’t believe we were going back. The singing and celebrations stopped. Everyone became nervous and restless again. We realized we were heading back to Bratislava, and there were more scary rumors. It was really frightening.”
I turned my head aside and noticed a woman standing close to us, leaning over the rail, her head turned down toward the water and her hand clutching her stomach.
“It happens pretty often here,” Inge told me. “No need to get excited. All this rocking doesn’t suit everyone. I wish I could help each and every one of them, but Dr. Bezalel finished his metoclopramide right on the first night of the voyage.”
“I’m not surprised. I feel sick to my stomach just from the smells here.”
“And not only that. Poor Dr. Bezalel. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”
“So you headed back. Then what happened?”
“After two more days nervously waiting at the community house, with rumors constantly flying and without anyone really knowing why we’d returned, only then, at night, of course, did we finally board Uranus and begin to sail down the Danube again.”
“And was that the last time?” I asked, hoping it was indeed the end of her misadventures.
“I think so. When we crossed the border into Hungary, we realized that was that—it was final. We all danced the hora like we’d never danced before. Everyone sang and congratulated each other. I’ll never forget the moment we arrived in Budapest and saw the great bridge over the Danube for the first time. It was a spectacular sight. We could see the green and yellow lights from a distance, twinkling like stars, and as we approached, we saw the arches between the high masts. Only when we were really close did we see the huge construction of the steel bridge towering above the Danube. Emil Shechter told us it’s called the Liberty Bridge. Our ship sailed under that mighty bridge. There were more bridges after that, but none as impressive.”
“So when did you transfer to these small ‘luxury’ boats?”
“In the middle of the river, in the middle of the night, again. Suddenly, they told us to separate into our original groups and move to the smaller boats.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Of course I was afraid. My teeth were chattering with cold or fear or both. We walked along a short bridge that connected the ship to the smaller boat, and it swung from side to side. I thought I’d fall into the water.”
“It sounds as though you’ve had quite an adventure so far,” I said. “Perhaps everything will go smoothly from now on and there won’t be any more stops or turnarounds.”
“Oh, no, Hanne. Now I really need to get going. Emil Shechter has some sort of social activity planned for us at nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Perhaps we could meet later on?”
“Sorry, today I’m on cleaning duty. It was my turn yesterday, but…”
“This evening, then. I’ll be waiting on the bridge.”
“I’ll see,” said Inge and kept me guessing.
The sun had meanwhile climbed in the sky, sending golden rays into the water and transforming its surface into thousands of glittering, gold-tinted glass shards. We saw the gray buildings on the shore gradually disappear to the sound of the cheering crowd on deck. But the joy did not last long. Every time the boat slowed down, a wave of increasingly loud grunts and complaints was heard. Suddenly, the bow began to change direction, and it appeared the boat was turning back. “We’re going back again. God in heaven!”
Numerous cries of resentment could be heard on deck. People began to lose their patience. Mother, Father, and Pauli sat on the benches, their downcast faces saying it all.
“We were worried about you, Hanne. Where have you been for so long?” Mother asked.
“There are rumors going around that we won’t be continuing,” said Pauli, and then added, “I didn’t like the idea of this voyage in the first place.”
“Patience, Pauli,” said Father. “We’ve hardly even started out, and you’ve already got something to say.”
“Just listen to what people around us are saying,” answered Pauli. “Haven’t you been listening at all?”
“Do you mean all those rumors? There are two dubious characters here who keep trying to frighten everyone and spread panic,” answered Father.
People around us began to get up and walk in a particular direction.
“Lunch!” a woman wearing a headscarf and black clothes called to us. “You’d better come now, because in a few minutes, there won’t be much left.”
When we found the long line next to the staircase at the other end of the boat, we realized we’d come to the right place.
“I’m not even hungry,” Mother said. “After what I’ve been through this morning, the last thing I need is food.”
“I’m not hungry either,” said Father. “But who knows when they’ll be giving out food again.”
“Some people are quick. They get there first and take more than everyone else. I bet the Fleishmans are there already, right next to the pots,” said the woman in front of us angrily.
“You’re talking nonsense,” said her husband, a large man. “They give everyone exactly the same portions. Besides, who’s stopping you from getting there first?” He turned to Father, “I see you’re new here on the boat. Where are you from?”
“We’re from Belgrade,” Father answered. “We boarded this morning.”
“I’m Abraham, but the young people here call me Mr. Goldman,” he said. He pointed at his skinny little wife and added, “And this is my wife, Rebecca. We boarded in Bratislava about a week ago, on December ninth. What’s the date today? I’ve lost track of time with all this sailing back and forth.”
“Today is the seventeenth. You mean to tell me you’ve been going back and forth for the past eight days?” asked Father.
“You thought this would be a picnic, did you? At first, we advanced very quickly and got all the way to the city of Győr in Hungary. Everyone was in a good mood and singing pioneer songs, but then we suddenly changed course and sailed back to Bratislava.”
“Why did you sail back?”
“Well, as you can imagine, there were a lot of rumors, and rumormongers had the time of their lives. They said the German shipping company wouldn’t continue, because there wasn’t a ship to take us further into the Mediterranean. So Sime Spitzer, you’ll hear a lot about him, he’s the General Secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia. Well, he contacted a Yugoslav shipping company that brought the queen and the two princes, that’s what Naftali Bata Gedalja, Spitzer’s deputy and all-powerful aide, calls the boats. He’s the one looking out for us here.”
“I know Sime Spitzer personally. He was the one who recommended this
voyage to me,” said Father, and then added, “So where did you board the boats?”
“It was the night… Wait a minute, let me think. I’m confused… Yes, the night before last. If today’s the seventeenth, it must have been on the fifteenth or so.”
“Did you dock at the Hungarian or the Yugoslav port?”
“That’s the thing. We never even docked. We were in the middle of the river, next to Bazden, a town in Yugoslavia. Suddenly, three riverboats appeared. We couldn’t believe they wanted us to move to such small boats. We’re more than a thousand people here.”
“You were divided into groups, weren’t you?”
“They gathered everyone before we boarded the boats, and Naftali Bata Gedalja, who represented the Federation of Jewish Communities, explained that there were already about a thousand people altogether and that we’d be divided into groups, based on the organizations we belong to. This is how several groups were created, each with its own supervisor and deputy. All this happened even before the three boats arrived.”
“And who decided on the groups?”
“The voyage management appointed in Vienna. It included the brothers Emil and Jozsi Shechter, and Arye Dorfman, the beloved leader of the Blau-Weiss and Netzah7 youth movements. They divided us into three groups, based on our organization’s origin; each group boarded a different boat. They must have known there’d be three ships even before we sailed. Yokel received the largest group, all members of Hechalutz and Blau-Weiss who boarded the Kraljica Marija. Emil received the Mizrahi youths from Vienna and Germany, as well as families with children. This is our group, here on board the Tzar Nikolai. The rest are members of the Youth Aliyah and young couples, about three hundred people, headed by Jozsi Shechter, on board the Tzar Dusan.
“That’s such a disappointment! To sail off only to return.”
“Why don’t you tell him why,” Rebecca, Abraham’s wife, interrupted.
“There were all sorts of rumors and prophecies of doom: that there was no more money to pay for the voyage, that the German shipping company had gone bankrupt, and the scariest rumor of all—that Agami8 hadn’t managed to arrange a ship to transfer us from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and that there was probably a long line of refugees waiting at Sulina without a boat to take them across. It all begins and ends with Sime Spitzer. He’s the one who’s supposed to arrange everything, but there is such chaos around here that no one really knows what’s happening anymore,” Abraham added.