Josef watched from the deck as another little boat snuck through the flotilla of reporters and fruit sellers and Cuban policemen surrounding the MS St.
Louis. This boat held a familiar-looking passenger, and Josef realized with a start that it was Dr. Aber, Renata and Evelyne’s father, who already lived in Cuba. Josef ran through the ship until he found the sisters in the movie theater, watching serials.
“Your dad’s coming to the ship!” Josef told them.
Renata and Evelyne hurried after him. When they got back to the ladder at C-deck, they got an even bigger surprise—Dr. Aber had gotten on board the St. Louis! Officer Padron was looking over some papers Dr. Aber had brought with him, and a small crowd had gathered to see what was happening.
Renata and Evelyne ran to their father, and he swept them up in his arms. “My beautiful daughters!” he said, kissing them both. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
Officer Padron nodded and said something in Spanish to Dr. Aber, and Dr. Aber smiled at his daughters. “Come! It’s time for you to join me in
Cuba.”
“But what about our things? Our clothes?” Renata asked.
“Forget about them. We’ll buy you new clothes in Cuba,” Dr. Aber said.
His eyes darted to the policemen, and Josef understood. Somehow Dr. Aber had gotten someone official to let him come get his daughters off the ship, but he didn’t want to wait around any longer in case the policemen changed their minds. He carried Renata and Evelyne to the ladder, and Renata barely had time to yell “Good-bye!” to Josef and wave before they were gone over the side.
Josef was speechless, but the rest of the crowd wasn’t. Angry passengers surrounded Officer Padron and the other policemen, demanding answers.
“How come they got off the ship and not us?”
“Can you help us?”
“How did they do it?”
“Let us off the ship!”
“My husband is in Cuba!”
“They have papers! Right papers!” Officer Padron tried to explain in broken German, but that only made the crowd madder.
“We have papers! Visas! We paid for them!”
Josef was scared for Officer Padron, but he shared the passengers’ frustration. Why had Dr. Aber been able to take Renata and Evelyne off and none of the rest of them could go? It wasn’t fair! Josef clenched his fists and began to shake. Then he realized it wasn’t him that was doing the shaking. It was the metal deck of the ship.
The ship’s engines were rumbling to life for the first time since they had dropped anchor. Which could mean only one thing: The St. Louis was going home to Germany, and they were all going with it.
Without a word from anyone, the passengers rushed the top of the ladder as one.
Officer Padron drew his pistol, and Josef gasped.
“Paren!” the policeman cried. “Halt!” He swept the gun back and forth, and the other policemen drew their pistols and did the same. The angry passengers pulled back but didn’t run away. Josef’s heart was in his throat.
Any second now the mob was going to attack the policemen, Josef knew it.
They would rather die than be sent back to Germany. Back to Hitler.
The ship’s first officer and the purser arrived and threw themselves in between the guards and the angry crowd. They begged for everyone to remain calm, but no one listened. As the vibrations of the ship’s engines below grew louder and more insistent, more people rushed to the ladder to demand to be let off the ship. Josef was caught in the middle now. If the mob pushed forward into the guns of the policemen, Josef would have no choice but to push with them.
It was hot—well over a hundred degrees on deck already—and the temperature of the crowd was rising. Josef was a ball of sweat, and the close-packed mob only made things worse. The situation was just about to boil over when a small white man in a gray suit climbed up the ladder behind the policemen. It was Captain Schroeder! But Josef wondered why was he out of uniform. And why had he been off the ship?
For a moment the mob was so surprised it stopped surging forward.
Captain Schroeder was surprised too. As soon as he saw the angry crowd and the guns drawn, he lost his temper. He yelled at the policemen to lower their weapons or he would order them off the ship, and at last they obeyed.
“Why have the engines started?” one of the passengers yelled.
“Tell us what’s happening!”
Captain Schroeder put his hands in the air and called for calm so that he could explain. He took off his hat and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “I have just been to see President Brú, to appeal to him personally for you to be allowed to disembark,” the captain said. “But he would not see me.”
There were dark mutterings among the passengers, and Josef felt himself getting angrier. What was going on? Why had the Cubans promised the passengers they would let them in, only to turn them away now?
“Worse,” Captain Schroeder said, “the Cuban government has ordered us to leave the harbor by tomorrow morning.”
Leave by tomorrow? Josef thought. And go where? And what about his father? Would he be leaving with them?
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.