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Finally, Shabbos arrived. It was the day Josef would leave his childhood behind and become a man, and he could hardly contain his excitement. The ship’s bulletin board announced that the first-class social hall would be converted to a synagogue, a Jewish house of prayer, which meant Josef might have his bar mitzvah after all. He was careful not to show his eagerness in front of his father, however. What would once have been a happy occasion in the Landau home was now fraught with anxiety, thanks to his father’s paranoia.
“A synagogue, on board the ship?” Papa said. He shook his head as he paced their little room in his oversized nightclothes.
“The captain himself has arranged it,” Mama said.
“Ridiculous! Did no one else see the Nazi flag overhead as we came on board?”
“Will you not go to your own son’s bar mitzvah, then?” Josef’s mother and Ruthie were already dressed in their nice Shabbos dresses. Josef wore his best shirt and tie.
“Bar mitzvah? There won’t be enough men there to form a minyan!” Papa said. By tradition, ten or more Jewish men, a minyan, was needed for a public service. “No. No one who has lived in Germany for the past six years would be so foolish as to go to a Jewish service aboard a Nazi ship.” Papa ran a hand over his shaved head. “No. It’s a trap. Meant to lure us out. That’s when they’ll snatch us. A trap.”
Mama sighed. “All right, then. We’ll go without you.”
They left him pacing the room, muttering to himself. Josef felt like someone had yanked his heart from his chest. In all the times he’d dreamed of this day, his father had always been there to recite a blessing with him. But maybe this is what becoming a man is, Josef thought. Maybe becoming a man means not relying on your father anymore.
Josef, his mother, and Ruthie stopped short just inside the first-class social hall. There weren’t the required ten men for the service—there were a hundred men, probably more, all wearing yarmulkes on their heads and white-and-black tallisim—prayer shawls—around their shoulders. The card tables had been pushed to the sides of the room, and stewards were adding more chairs to accommodate the crowd. A table at the front held a Torah scroll.
Josef stood and stared. It felt like ages since he’d been inside a synagogue. It had been before Kristallnacht, before the Nuremberg Laws that made Jews second-class citizens, before the boycotts and book burnings. Before Jews were scared to gather together in public places. Josef’s parents had always taken him to synagogue with them on Shabbos, even when other parents left their children with their nannies. It all came flooding back to him now—swaying and humming along with the prayers, craning his neck to see the Torah when it was taken out of the ark and hoping to get a chance to touch it and then kiss his fingers as the scroll
came around in a procession. Josef felt his skin tingle. The Nazis had taken all this from them, from him, and now he and the passengers on the ship were taking it back.
Gustav Schroeder, the ship’s diminutive captain, was there to greet them at the door. In the gallery above the room, a number of the off-duty crew had gathered to watch.
“Captain,” asked a rabbi, one of the men who was leading the service, “I wonder if we might take down the portrait of the Führer, given the circumstances. It seems … inappropriate for such a sacred moment to be celebrated in the presence of Hitler.”
Josef had seen paintings of the Nazi leader all over the ship, and the first-class social hall was no exception. A large portrait of Hitler hung in the middle of the room, watching over them all. Josef’s veins ran with ice. He hated that man. Hated him because of everything he’d done to the Jews, but mostly because of what Hitler had done to his father.
“Of course,” Captain Schroeder said. He quickly called over two of the stewards, and soon they had the portrait down and were taking it from the room.
In the gallery above, Josef saw one of the crew slam a fist down on the railing and storm off.
Josef’s mother gave him a kiss on the cheek, and she and Ruthie went to sit in the section reserved for the women. Josef took a seat in the section with the men. The rabbi stood in front of the crowd and read from Hosea. Then it was time for Josef to recite the blessing he’d been practicing for weeks. There were butterflies in his stomach as he got up in front of such a large audience, and his voice broke as he stumbled through the Hebrew words, but he did it. He found his mother in the crowd. Her eyes were wet with tears.
“Today,” Josef said, “I am a man.”
There were many hands to shake and many congratulations after the ceremony, but it was all a blur to Josef. He felt like he was walking in a dream. For as long as he could remember, he’d wanted this. To no longer be a child. To be an adult.
Josef’s mother and sister left to go back to visit his father in their cabin.
Josef walked the Promenade deck by himself, a new man.
Renata and Evelyne jumped out from behind a lifeboat and grabbed Renata by the hand. Without their parents on the ship, they had skipped synagogue to play.
“Josef! Come stand guard for us!” Renata cried.
Before he could protest, the girls dragged him to a women’s restroom. He was afraid they were going to pull him inside, but instead they deposited him by the door.
“Yell if you see someone coming,” Renata said breathlessly. “We’re going to latch all the stalls from the inside and crawl out under the doors so no one can use the toilets!”
“No, don’t—” Josef tried to tell them, but they were already gone. He stood there awkwardly, not sure if he should stay or go. Soon the sisters ran back outside, hanging on to each other with laughter.
A young woman staggered past them, clutching her stomach and looking green. Renata and Evelyne got quiet, and Josef could hear the woman desperately rattling the stall doors, looking for a toilet. The woman lurched out of the bathroom, looking even more green and desperate, and wobbled away.
Renata and Evelyne burst into laughter.
Josef raised himself up. “This isn’t funny. Go in there and unlock those doors this minute.”
“Just because you had your bar mitzvah doesn’t make you an adult,” Renata told him, and Evelyne stuck her tongue out at him. “Come on, Evie
—let’s do the bathrooms on A-deck!”
The girls tore away, and Josef huffed. They were right. A bar mitzvah alone didn’t make him an adult. Being responsible did. He walked on along the promenade, looking for a steward he could tell about the bathroom stalls. He saw two stewards who had stopped to look over the side at the sea and came up behind them.
“Must be doing sixteen knots, easy,” said one of the stewards. “Captain’s got the engines maxed out.”
“Has to,” the other said. “Them other two ships is smaller and faster. They get to Cuba first and unload their passengers, and who knows? Cuba might decide she’s full-up with Jews when we get there and turn us away.”
Josef looked out to sea. There wasn’t another ship on the horizon as far as he could see. What other ships were they talking about? More ships full of refugees? And why did it matter which one got there first? Hadn’t everyone on board already applied and paid for visas? Cuba couldn’t turn them away.
Could they?
One of the stewards shook his head. “There’s something they’re not telling us, the shipping company. Something they’re not telling Schroeder. The captain’s in a tight spot, he is. Wouldn’t want to be him for all the sugar in Cuba.”
Josef backed away. He’d already forgotten about the stalls in the women’s bathroom.
If he and his family didn’t make it to Cuba, if they weren’t allowed in, where would they go?
