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A day out from Cuba, the St. Louis threw a party. Streamers and balloons hung from the ceiling and decorated the gallery rails of the first-class social hall. Chairs and tables were pushed aside to make room for dancers. There was a feeling of wild relief, as though they were dancing away all the stress of leaving Germany. The stewards smiled with the passengers as though they understood, but none of them could really understand, Josef thought. Not until their shop windows had been smashed and their businesses had been shut down. Not until the newspapers and radio talked about them as subhuman monsters. Not until shadowy men had burst into their homes and smashed up their things and dragged away someone they loved.
Not until they had been told to leave their homeland and never, ever come back.
Still, Josef enjoyed the party. He danced with his mother while Ruthie, Renata, and Evelyne ran in and out between people’s legs all evening long. Josef had been nervous about Cuba at first, scared of the unknown, but now he was excited to reach Havana, to start a new life—especially if it was like this.
Josef’s father stayed hidden away in their cabin the whole night, sure this was all just another Nazi trick.
The next morning, breakfast in the ship’s dining room was interrupted by the thundering, clanking sound of the anchors being dropped. Josef ran to the window. Dawn had broken, and Josef could see the Malecón, Havana’s famous seaside avenue. The stewards had told them all about its theaters and casinos and restaurants, and the Miramar Hotel, where all the waiters wore tuxedos. But the St. Louis was still a long way off from there. For some reason, the ship had anchored kilometers out from shore.
“It’s for the medical quarantine,” a doctor from Frankfurt explained to the small crowd who had gathered with Josef at the porthole to look at Cuba. “I saw them run up the yellow flag this morning before breakfast. We just have to be approved by the port’s medical authorities first. Standard procedure.”
Josef made sure he was on deck when the first boat from the Havana Port Authority reached the St. Louis. The Cuban man who climbed the ladder to C-deck from the launch was deeply tanned and wore a lightweight white suit. Josef watched as Captain Schroeder and the ship’s doctor met the man as he came aboard. The captain swore an oath that none of the passengers was insane, a criminal, or had a contagious disease. That was apparently all that should have been required, because when the port doctor insisted he still be allowed to examine each and every passenger, Captain Schroeder looked angry. He balled his fists and breathed deeply, but he didn’t object. He gave a curt order to the ship’s doctor to assemble the passengers in the social hall and then marched away.
Josef ran back to his cabin and burst in on his mother packing the last of their things. Ruthie was helping her while Papa lay on the bed.
“The—the doctor from Cuba—he’s going to make all the passengers— go through a medical examination,” Josef told his mother, still panting from his run. “They’re gathering everybody in the social hall right now.”
Mama’s shocked look told him she understood. Papa was not well. What if the Cuban doctor said he was too mentally disturbed to be allowed into Havana? Where would they go if Cuba turned them away? What would they do?
“Gathering us?” Papa said. He looked even more frightened by the prospect than Josef’s mother had. “Like—like a roll call?” He stood up and backed against a wall. “No,” he said. “The things that happened at roll call. The hangings. The floggings. The drownings. The beatings.” He wrapped his arms around himself, and Josef knew his father was talking about that place. Dachau. Josef and his mother stood like statues, afraid to break the spell. “Once, I saw another man shot dead with a rifle,” his father whispered. “He was standing right beside me. He was standing right beside me, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound, or I would be next.”
“It’s not going to be like that, dear heart,” Mama said. She reached out to him, tentatively, gently, and he didn’t flinch under her hand. “You were strong once before, in that place. We just need you to be strong again. And then we’ll be in Cuba. We’ll be safe forever. All of us.”
It was clear to Josef that his father was still lost in his memories of Dachau as they led him to the social hall. Papa looked frightened. Jittery. It scared Josef when his father got this way, but he was even more scared that the doctor would see Papa’s condition and turn them away.
Josef and his family joined the other passengers standing in rows, and the doctor walked among them. Papa stood beside Josef, and as the doctor got closer, Josef’s father began to make a low keening sound, like a wounded dog. Papa was starting to attract the attention of the passengers
around them. Josef felt a bead of sweat roll down his back underneath his shirt, and Ruthie cried softly.
“Be strong, my love,” Josef heard his mother whisper to his father. “Be strong, like you were before.”
“But I wasn’t,” Josef’s father blubbered. “I wasn’t strong. I was just lucky. It could have been me. Should have been me.”
The Cuban doctor was getting closer. Josef had to do something. But what? His father was inconsolable. The things he said he saw—Josef couldn’t even imagine. His father had only survived by staying quiet. By not drawing attention to himself. But now he was going to get them sent away.
Suddenly, Josef saw what he had to do. He slapped his father across the face. Hard.
Papa staggered in surprise, and Josef felt just as shocked as his father looked. Josef couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Six months ago, he would never have even dreamed of striking any adult, let alone his father. Papa would have punished him for such disrespect. But in the past six months, Josef and his father had traded places. Papa was the one acting like a child, and Josef was the adult.
Mama and Ruthie stared at Josef, stunned, but he ignored them and pulled his father back in line.
“Do you want the Nazis to catch you? Do you want them to send you back to that place?” Josef hissed at Papa.
“I— No,” his father said, still dazed.
“That man there,” Josef whispered, pointing to the doctor, “he’s a Nazi in disguise. He decides who goes back to Dachau. He decides who lives and who dies. If you’re lucky, he won’t choose you. But if you speak, if you
move, if you make even the slightest sound, he will pull you out of line. Send you back. Do you understand?”
Josef’s father nodded urgently. Beside him, Mama put a hand to her mouth and wept, but she didn’t say anything.
“Now, clean yourself up. Quickly!” Josef told his father.
Aaron Landau dropped his wife’s hand, dragged his oversized coat sleeve across his face, and stood rigidly at attention, eyes forward.
Like a prisoner.
The doctor came down their row, looking at each person in turn. When he got to Papa, Josef held his breath. The doctor looked Josef’s father up and down, then moved on. Josef sagged with relief. They’d made it. His father had passed the doctor’s inspection!
Josef closed his eyes and fought back tears of his own. He felt terrible for scaring his father like that, for making Papa’s fears worse instead of better. And he felt terrible for taking his father’s place as the man in the family. All Josef’s life, he had looked up to his father. Idolized him. Now it was hard to see him as anything but a broken old man.
But all that would change when they got off this ship and into Cuba. Then everything would go back to normal. They would find a way to fix his father.
The Cuban doctor finished his rounds and nodded to the ship’s doctor that he approved the passengers. Josef’s mother wrapped his father in a hug, and Josef felt his heart lift. For the first time all afternoon, he felt hope.
“Well, that was a sham,” said the man standing in line next to him. “What do you mean?” Josef asked.
“That was no kind of medical inspection. The entire business was a charade. A giant waste of time.”
Josef didn’t understand. If it wasn’t a proper medical inspection, what had it all been for?
He understood when he and his family lined up at the ladder on C-deck to leave the ship. The Cuban doctor was gone, and he’d left Cuban police officers behind in his place. They were blocking the only way off the ship.
“We’ve passed our medicals and we have all the right papers,” a woman passenger said to the police. “When will we be allowed into Havana?”
“Mañana,” the policeman said in Spanish. “Mañana.”
Josef didn’t speak Spanish. He didn’t know what mañana meant. “Tomorrow,” one of the other passengers translated for them. “Not
today. Tomorrow.”
