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Ruthie skipped ahead of Josef along the sunny Promenade deck, happier than he’d ever seen her before. And why not? The MS St. Louis was a paradise. Banned from movie theaters in Germany because she was a Jew, Ruthie had seen her first cartoon on board during movie night and loved it
—even if it was followed by a newsreel with Hitler yelling about Jews. Three times a day they ate delicious meals in a dining room laid out with white linen tablecloths, crystal glasses, and shining silverware, and stewards waited on them hand and foot. They had played shuffleboard and badminton, and the crew was putting up a swimming pool, which they promised to fill with seawater once the St. Louis hit the warm Gulf Stream.
Everyone on the crew had treated Josef and his family with kindness and respect, despite his father’s repeated warnings that all Germans were out to get them. (In five days, Papa hadn’t come out of their cabin once, not even for meals, and Josef’s mother had barely left his side.) And the crew wasn’t just being nice because they didn’t know Josef and his family were Jews. No one wore their Jewish armbands on the ship, and there were no Js above any of the passenger compartments, because all the passengers were Jews.
All nine hundred and eight of them! They were all going to Cuba to escape the Nazis, and now that they were finally away from the threats and violence that followed them everywhere in Germany, there was singing and dancing and laughter.
Two girls around Ruthie’s age wearing matching flowery dresses were leaning over the railing and giggling. Josef and Ruthie went over to see what they were doing. One of the girls had found a long piece of string and was dangling it over the side, tickling the noses of passengers who were sleeping in chairs down on A-deck. Their current victim kept batting at his nose like there was a fly on it. He bopped his nose hard enough to jerk awake, and Ruthie laughed hysterically. The girls yanked up the string, and they all dropped to the deck behind the rail where the man couldn’t see them laughing.
“I’m Josef,” he told the other girls when they’d all gathered themselves together. “And this is Ruthie.”
“Josef just turned thirteen!” Ruthie told the girls. “He’s going to have his bar mitzvah next Shabbos.”
A bar mitzvah was the ceremony at which a boy officially became a man under Jewish law. It was usually held on the first Shabbos—the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest—after a boy’s thirteenth birthday. Josef couldn’t wait for his bar mitzvah.
“If there’s enough people,” Josef reminded his sister.
“I’m Renata Aber,” said the older of the two girls, “and this is Evelyne.” They were sisters, and, amazingly, they were traveling alone.
“Our father is waiting for us in Cuba,” Renata told them. “Where’s your mama?” Ruthie asked.
“She … wanted to stay in Germany,” Evelyne said.
Josef could tell it wasn’t something they were comfortable talking about. “Hey, I know something funny we can do,” he told them. It was a trick he and Klaus had played on Herr Meier once upon a time. Thinking about Klaus made Josef think about other things, but he blinked away the bad memories. The MS St. Louis had left all that behind.
“First,” Josef said, “we need some soap.”
Once they had found a bar, Josef showed them how to soap up a door handle so that it was so slick it was impossible to turn. They used it on the door handles of cabins up and down the passageway on A-deck, then hid around the corner and waited. Soon enough, a steward balancing a large silver tray came down the hall from the other end and knocked on a door. Josef, Ruthie, Renata, and Evelyne had to swallow their snickers as the steward reached down with his free hand and tried and failed to open the door. The steward couldn’t see because of the big platter he held, and as he fumbled with the knob he lost his hold on the tray and the whole thing came crashing down with a great clatter.
All four of them burst out laughing, and Josef and Renata pulled the two younger children away before they could be caught. They collapsed behind one of the lifeboats, panting and giggling. As Josef dried his eyes, he realized he hadn’t played like this, hadn’t laughed like this, for many years.
Josef wished they could stay on board the St. Louis forever.
