 |
Josef followed the small group of kids through the raised doorway onto the bridge of the St. Louis. The bridge was a narrow, curving room that stretched from one side of the ship to the other. Bright sunlight streamed in through two dozen windows, offering a panoramic view of the vast blue- green Atlantic and wispy white clouds. Throughout the wood-decked room were metal benches with maps and rulers on them, and the walls were dotted with mysterious gauges and meters made of shining brass.
There were a number of crewmen on the bridge, some of them wearing blue-and-white sailor uniforms like the stewards, and three more in brass- buttoned blue jackets with gold bands at the cuffs and blue officers’ caps with gold trim. One of the regular sailors stood at a spoked steering wheel the size of a truck tire with handles sticking out all around it. It looked like the steering wheels Josef had seen in paintings of pirate ships, but this one was metal and connected to a big rectangular pedestal.
The shortest of the three men in fancy uniforms strode over to the group with a big smile on his face. Josef recognized him from the Shabbos service.
“Welcome to the bridge, boys and girls,” he said. “I’m Captain Schroeder.”
The captain shook each of their hands, even though none of them was older than thirteen. One of the parents on board the ship had arranged for a tour of the bridge and engine room for any children who wanted to attend, and eight of them had signed up. Ruthie and Evelyne hadn’t been interested, but Renata was there, along with a few of the other older kids.
Captain Schroeder introduced them to his first officer and the other crew on the bridge, and showed them what some of the gauges and dials meant. Josef listened eagerly. “This is the engine control for the St. Louis,” Captain Schroeder explained. “When we want to change speed, we grip these handles, slide them all the way forward, and then pull them back to the new setting.” He smiled. “I’m not going to change the speed now, because we’ve got the engines set right where we want them.”
Josef noticed both handles were set to AHEAD FULL.
“Are we going full speed because we’re racing two other ships to Cuba?” Josef asked.
The captain looked surprised, and then a little angry. “Where did you hear that we were racing other ships to Cuba?” he asked Josef.
“Two stewards were talking about it the other day,” Josef said, feeling a little nervous. “They said if we don’t make it there first, they might not let us in.”
The captain pursed his lips and glanced meaningfully at his first officer, who looked concerned.
The captain turned on his smile again. “We’re not in any kind of race,” he said, looking from Josef to the other kids. “We’re just making best possible speed because we have calm seas and a following wind. You’ve
nothing to worry about. Now perhaps Petty Officer Jockl will show you the engine room.”
As high up as the bridge was on the ship, the engine room was just as far down. After stepping through a steel fire door that had CREW ONLY painted on it in big letters, Josef and the tour group went down staircase after staircase, and they still weren’t to the engine room yet.
Below decks was very different from what Josef was used to above decks. Where everything on A-, B-, and C- decks was airy and comfortable, there were no portholes here, no spacious cabins. The air was damp, and smelled of cigarettes and cabbage and sweat. Peeking into the rooms, Josef could see that the crew quarters below decks had two beds to a room, and barely enough space to turn around. The hallways were narrow, and the ceilings were low. Petty Officer Jockl had to duck as they went through doorways. Josef had never been afraid of tight places before, but the close living conditions made him uneasy. He felt like he was visiting an alien world. The seven other kids must have felt the same way, because they were all silent. Even Renata.
From down the hall came the sound of men singing, and Petty Officer Jockl slowed. As they got closer, Josef recognized the tune. It was “The Horst Wessel Song,” the anthem of the Nazi Party. Josef’s skin crawled, and he and the other kids looked at each other nervously. Josef had heard “The Horst Wessel Song” hundreds of times in the weeks following his father’s abduction. It had gone overnight from an obscure song the Nazis sang at rallies to the unofficial national anthem of Germany—and it was frightening. The last time Josef had heard the song was the day every one of his neighbors had lined the street to salute as Nazi soldiers marched by.
Petty Officer Jockl tried to slip the children past the little common room where the crewmen were drinking and singing, but suddenly someone in the
room called out, “Stop! Passengers aren’t allowed down here!” Jockl froze, and so did Josef.
One of the men got up from the table, a scowl on his face. He was a thickset man, with a bulbous nose, bulldog cheeks, and dark, heavy eyebrows. Josef knew that face from somewhere. Had he been their steward at dinner? Set up their beds one night? No—Josef remembered. This was the man he had seen in the balcony the morning of the Shabbos service. The man who had been angry that the portrait of Hitler had been taken down and removed.
The man staggered a little, bumping into things as he tried to move through the tight little room. Josef had seen drunk people leaving pubs in Berlin the same way.
“The captain has given these children special permission to visit the engine room, Schiendick,” Petty Officer Jockl told him.
“The captain,” Schiendick said, his voice dripping with disapproval.
Even from where Josef stood, he could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Yes,” Jockl said, straightening. “The captain.”
On the wall of the common room, Josef saw a bulletin board with Nazi slogans and headlines from the rabidly anti-Jewish newspaper Der Stürmer pinned to it. He felt a shiver of fear.
“Jewish rats,” Schiendick said, sneering at Josef and the other kids. Many of them looked at their shoes, and even Josef looked away, trying not to draw the big man’s attention. Josef clenched his fists, and his ears burned hot with frustration and embarrassment at his helplessness.
After a few tense moments, Schiendick staggered back to his seat, the threat of the captain’s rank still worth something even so far away from the bridge.
Petty Officer Jockl hurried the children along, and Schiendick and his friends broke into another Nazi song, even louder than before. Josef heard them sing, “When Jewish blood flows from the knife, things will go much better,” before Jockl ushered them down another flight of stairs. Josef’s legs felt weak, and he clung to the railing. He thought they had escaped all this on the St. Louis. But the hatred had followed them even here, to the middle of the ocean.
With its huge diesel engines and generators and dials and pumps and switches, the engine room should have been fascinating, but Josef had a hard time getting excited about it. None of the other children were excited, either. Not after what had happened with Schiendick. The tour ended solemnly, and Petty Officer Jockl returned them to the surface, being careful to take them back by a different route.
It was a different world below decks, Josef thought. A world outside the magic little bubble he and the other Jews lived in above decks on the MS St. Louis.
Here, below decks, was the real world.
