Mahmoud's Journey 2015 PDF

Mahmoud stood in a wet parking lot with his family, a light drizzle making everything slick and damp. Down past a pebbly brown beach, the Mediterranean Sea churned like a washing machine. A huge black-and-red cargo ship slid by on the horizon. “No. No boat today,” the Syrian man who was working f...

Mahmoud stood in a wet parking lot with his family, a light drizzle making everything slick and damp. Down past a pebbly brown beach, the Mediterranean Sea churned like a washing machine. A huge black-and-red cargo ship slid by on the horizon. “No. No boat today,” the Syrian man who was working for the Turkish smugglers told them. “Tomorrow.” “But I was told it would be today,” Mahmoud’s father said. “We hurried to get here today.” The smuggler raised a hand and shook his head. “No, no. You have money, yes? Tomorrow. You will get a text tomorrow.” “But where are we supposed to go?” Mahmoud’s mother asked the smuggler. Mahmoud couldn’t believe it. They had spent two long days in cars and buses, trying to get here on time for the boat Dad had hired to take them across the sea to Greece. And now there was no boat. “There’s a hotel on the next block,” the smuggler said. “They take Syrians.” “We’re trying to save money. We’re going all the way to Germany,” Dad told him. “There’s a park nearby,” the smuggler said. “A park? You mean sleep outside? But I have a baby … ” Mom said, gesturing to Hana in her arms. The smuggler shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him. His phone rang and he turned away to take it. “Tomorrow,” he told Mahmoud’s parents over his shoulder. “You will get a text tomorrow. Be ready.” Mahmoud’s father huffed but immediately turned to his family and put on a smile. “Well, we always talked about taking a Mediterranean vacation,” he said. “We’ve got an extra night in Izmir. Who wants to go out dancing?” “I just want to find someplace dry where I can sleep,” said Mom. Dad led them in the direction of the hotel. All the shops were closing as they walked back through town, but Mahmoud marveled at how clean everything looked here in Turkey. There was no rubble, no twisted metal. The cobblestone streets were in perfect condition, and flowers grew in front of perfect little houses and shops. Shining cars and vans drove past on the road, and lights glowed in the windows of buildings. “Do you remember when it used to be like this in Syria?” Mahmoud asked his little brother. Waleed was gawking just as much as Mahmoud, but he didn’t say anything. Mahmoud took a deep, frustrated breath. He and Waleed had had their fights—they were brothers, after all—but ever since Mahmoud could remember, Waleed had been more like his best friend and constant companion. They played together, prayed together, shared a bedroom together. Waleed had been the hyper one, bouncing off walls and hopping on furniture and kicking soccer balls in the hall. As annoying as his brother had been sometimes, Mahmoud wished he would show a little of the old crazy again. Not even the Ninja Turtle that Mahmoud had bought for him in Kilis had cheered Waleed up. Later, in the hotel lobby, Mahmoud was still thinking about how he could get his brother back when he heard the desk clerk say they had no rooms left. “Maybe someone will share with us,” Mahmoud’s father suggested to the clerk. “You will forgive me,” said the desk clerk, “but the rooms already have three families apiece.” Mahmoud’s heart sank. Three families in each room! And the hotel was full. What were the chances they would find a room anywhere else? Dad searched on his phone and tried calling around, but it was the same story everywhere. “But how can they be so full?” Mahmoud’s mother said. “They can’t all be leaving tomorrow!” With nowhere else to go, they found the park the smuggler had told them about. But there was no room for them there, either. All the other refugees who had been turned away from the hotels were there, some sleeping on benches in the rain, others lucky enough to have tents—tents that looked like they had been there for more than a day or two. Mahmoud slumped in the rain. He was so wet. So tired. He just wanted somewhere warm and dry to sleep. “We should have stayed at the refugee camp!” Mom said. “No,” said his father. “No—we move forward. Always forward. And we don’t stop until we get to Germany. We don’t want to end up stuck in this place. Let’s just see if we can find a dry spot for the night.” Mahmoud spied a thin Syrian boy about his age approaching each of the families in the park, offering them something. Mahmoud wandered closer to have a look. The boy saw his interest and came over to him. “Want to buy some tissues?” the boy asked. He offered Mahmoud a small unopened plastic pack of tissues. “Just ten Syrian pounds or ten Turkish kuruş.” “No, thank you,” Mahmoud said. “Do you need water? Life vests? A phone charger? I can get it for you, for a price.” “We need a place to stay,” Mahmoud said. The boy looked Mahmoud and his family over. “I know a place,” the boy said. “I will show you for two thousand Syrian pounds or twenty- five Turkish lira.” Two thousand Syrian pounds was almost ten American dollars—a lot of money when you had a whole continent to cross. But the rain was getting stronger, and there was no place dry left in the park. When Mahmoud told his father the boy’s offer, Dad was willing to pay.  The boy led them away from the coast, to a neighborhood where weeds grew up through the cobblestones, and the houses had metal grates on the windows instead of flower boxes. One of the street lamps flickered, giving the street an ominous energy. The boy lifted a broken chain-link fence that led to a parking lot. “Here,” he said. Mahmoud’s father gave the rest of his family a dubious look and led them under the fence. They followed the boy to a large square building with boarded-up windows and graffiti-covered walls. One of the boards blocking the door from trespassers had been ripped off, and they pushed their way inside. It was a mall. Or it had been once. A large open courtyard with an empty fountain in the middle was ringed with storefronts that went up for four levels. A few of the shops were lit up with lamps connected to extension cords, and others burned kerosene lamps and candles. But most of the shops weren’t shops anymore—they were little apartments where people lived. Squatters in an abandoned shopping mall. The boy led them to an empty yogurt shop on the third floor, next to a former music store that was home to a Syrian family of six. They looked like they had been there a while. They had a tattered old couch and a hot plate, and sheets hung from ropes to quarter the space into little rooms. The yogurt shop had no furniture and a broken linoleum floor. Something skittered away in the darkness when they went inside. “It’s just for the night,” Mahmoud’s father said. “You leave tomorrow?” the boy said. “On a boat? Then you need life vests. Most definitely. Or else you drown when your boat flips.” Mahmoud’s eyes went wide, and he shivered in his soaking-wet clothes. He didn’t like any part of this plan. His father raised his hands to his family. “The boat isn’t going to flip,” he told them. “Or run out of gas. Or wreck on the rocks,” the boy said. “Then you drown.” Dad sighed. “All right. All right. Where do we buy life vests?” Josef’s mother grabbed for his father’s flailing arms, but Aaron Landau was too strong for her, thin as he was. “No. No! They’re coming for us,” he said, his eyes frantic. “The ship is slowing down. Can’t you feel it? We’re slowing so they can turn us around, take us back to Germany!” Josef’s father pulled his arm away and knocked over a lamp. It fell to the floor with a crash, and the light went out. “Josef, help me,” his mother begged. Josef pulled himself away from the wall and tried to grab one of his father’s arms while his mother went for the other. In the corner of her bed, Ruthie buried her face in Bitsy’s ears and cried. “No!” Josef’s father cried. “We have to hide, do you hear me? We can’t stay here. We have to get off this ship!” Josef grabbed his father’s arm and held on tight. “No, Papa. We’re not turning around,” Josef said. “We’re slowing for a funeral. A funeral at sea.” Josef’s father stopped dead, but Josef kept a tight hold on him. He hadn’t wanted to tell his father about the funeral, but now it seemed the only way to calm him down. Aaron Landau’s bulging, haunted eyes swept to his son. “A funeral? Who’s died? A passenger? It was the Nazis who did it! I knew they were on board! They’re after us all!” He began to thrash again, more panicked than before. “No, Papa, no!” Josef said. He fought to hold on to his father. “It was an old man. Professor Weiler. He was sick when he came aboard. It’s not the Nazis, Papa.” Josef knew all about it. Ruthie had begged him to go swimming in the pool with her and Renata and Evelyne that afternoon. But Josef was a man now, not a boy. He was too old for kids’ stuff. He’d been walking the outside boardwalk on B-deck instead, keeping an eye out for the man from the engine room, Schiendick, and his friends, when he’d heard a cry from one of the cabin portholes. Peeking inside, he saw a woman with long, curly black hair and a white dress sobbing as she lay across the body of an old man. Captain Schroeder and the ship’s doctor were there too. The man in the bed was perfectly still, his mouth open and his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. He was dead. Josef had never seen a dead body so close up before. “You there! Boy!” Josef had jumped. A woman walking her little dog on the boardwalk on B-deck had caught him peeping. He had sprinted away as the little dog barked at him, but not before Josef heard the ship’s doctor say that Professor Weiler had died of cancer. In his family’s cabin now a few hours later, Josef still clung to his father’s arm, trying to calm him down. “He was an old man, and he’d been sick for a long time already!” Josef told his father. “They’re burying him at sea because we’re too far away from Cuba.” Josef and his mother hung on to his father until Josef’s words finally got through. Papa stopped struggling against them and sagged, and suddenly they were holding him up off the floor. “He was sick already?” Papa asked. “Yes. It was the cancer,” Josef said. Josef’s father let them guide him to his bed, where he sat down. Mama went to Ruthie to comfort her. “When is the funeral?” Papa asked. “Late tonight,” Josef told him. “I want to go,” his father said. Josef couldn’t believe it. Papa hadn’t left the cabin in eleven days, and now he wanted to go to the funeral of someone he’d never met? In his condition? Josef looked worriedly to his mother, who held Ruthie in her lap. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Mama said, echoing Josef’s thoughts. “I saw too many men die without funerals at Dachau,” Papa said. “I will go to this one.” It was the first time his father had even spoken the name of the place he’d been, and it was like a winter frost covered everything in the room. It ended the conversation as quickly as it had begun. “Take Josef with you, then,” Mama said. “Ruthie and I will stay here.” That night, Josef led his father to A-deck aft, where the captain and his first officer waited with a few other passengers. The passengers’ clothes looked shabby, and it was only when he heard his father tearing his shirt that Josef understood—ripping your garments was a Jewish tradition at funerals, and they had torn theirs in sympathy with Mrs. Weiler. Josef pulled on his own collar until the seam ripped. His father nodded, then led him to the sandbox by the pool and had him take a handful of sand. Josef didn’t understand, but he did as he was told. The elevator to A-deck arrived, and Mrs. Weiler emerged first, a candle in hand. Behind her came the rabbi and four sailors, who carried Professor Weiler’s body on a stretcher. He was bound up tight in a white sailcloth, like an Egyptian pharaoh. “Hold on there.” The man from below decks, Schiendick, pushed through the small crowd with two fellow crew members. “I’m Otto Schiendick, the Nazi Party leader on this ship,” he said, “and German law says that a body buried at sea must be covered with the national flag.” Schiendick unfurled the red-and-white Nazi flag with the black swastika in the middle, and the passengers gasped.  Papa pushed his way forward. “Never! Do you hear me? Never! It’s a sacrilege!” He was shaking worse than ever. Josef had never seen his father this angry, and he was frightened for him. Schiendick wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to mess with. Josef grabbed his father’s arm and tried to pull him away. Papa spat at the feet of Schiendick. “That is what I think of you and your flag!” Schiendick and his men surged forward to avenge the insult, but Captain Schroeder quickly intervened. “Stop this! Stop this at once, Steward!” Captain Schroeder commanded. Schiendick addressed his captain but never took his eyes off Josef’s father. “It’s German law. And I see no reason for an exception to be made in this case.” “And I do,” Captain Schroeder said. “Now, take that flag and leave here, Mr. Schiendick, or I will relieve you of duty and have you confined to quarters.” The steward held Papa’s gaze a long moment more. His eyes shifted to Josef, giving him goose bumps, and then Schiendick turned and stormed away. Josef’s chest heaved like he’d been running a marathon. He was so wound up he was quivering worse than his father. Sand slipped from his shaking fist. The captain apologized profusely for the disturbance, and the funeral continued. The rabbi said a short prayer in Hebrew, and the sailors slid the body of Professor Weiler over the side of the ship. After a moment, there was a quiet splash, and the mourners said together, “Remember, God, that we are of dust.” One by one they stepped to the rail, where they released handfuls of sand— the sand Josef’s father had told him to take from the sandbox. Josef joined his father at the rail, and they scattered their sand in the sea. Captain Schroeder and his first officer put their caps back on and saluted. They touched the brims of their hats, Josef noticed, instead of giving the Hitler salute. Without words, the funeral service broke up. Josef expected his father to return to their cabin right away, but instead he lingered at the rail, staring down into the dark waters of the Atlantic. What is he thinking? Josef wondered. What happened to him at Dachau that he’s now a ghost of the man he once was? “At least he didn’t have to be buried in the hell of the Third Reich,” his father said. The ship rumbled softly, and Josef knew the captain had restarted the engines. They were on their way to Cuba again. But how much time had they lost? The tanker emerged from the darkness like some giant leviathan come to swallow them. It stood at least seven stories tall out of the water and was so wide it filled the horizon. Its pointed bow sent huge waves sluicing away, and two massive anchors stood out from the sides like the horns on a monster. Isabel quailed in fear. It was straight out of a nightmare. “A ship!” Lito yelled. “We’ve drifted into the shipping lanes!” But by now everyone had seen it. The rumble of the ship’s massive engines had awakened Mami and Señora Castillo, and everyone was scrambling around in the boat in a panic, making it rock dangerously. “It’s coming right for us!” Amara screamed. Isabel climbed over Iván, trying to get as far away from the tanker as she could. She slipped and fell with a splash into the bottom of the boat. “Everybody settle down!” Señor Castillo cried, but no one was listening. “We have to get the engine started!” Papi cried. He yanked frantically on the starter chain, barely giving the engine time to cough and die before he yanked on it again. “Don’t! You’ll flood it and it’ll never start!” Luis said, trying to wrestle the chain from him. “Where are the matches?” Lito cried. “We have to start a fire! They can’t see us in the dark!” “Here!” said Iván. He lifted a matchbox from the Styrofoam carton that held the few emergency supplies they’d brought. “No!” Papi yelled. He lunged for Iván’s outstretched hand, and together they fell against the side of the boat, tipping it. Isabel’s mother fell into the pool of water on the bottom and slid into the side of the boat with a thump. Isabel crawled to help her. Lito grabbed Papi by the shirt. “What are you doing?” he demanded. Papi held the matchbox out of Lito’s reach. “We don’t want to be seen, you old fool!” he yelled over the growing thunder of the tanker. “If they see us, they’ll have to rescue us! It’s maritime law! And if they ‘rescue’ us, they’ll send us back to Cuba!”  “Would you rather they send us to the ocean floor?” Lito yelled. Isabel couldn’t help looking up as she pulled her mother out of the water. “It’s getting closer!” Isabel cried. The tanker was still hundreds of meters away, but it was so huge it felt like it was on top of them. They were never getting out of its way. Isabel’s heart thumped so hard she thought it was going to burst right out of her chest. “If we don’t want them to know we’re here, maybe we shouldn’t start the engine!” Amara yelled. “They’ll never hear us no matter what we do!” Señor Castillo said. The tanker was so loud now it sounded like a jet engine. He and Luis flipped a switch on their own engine and yanked the starter chain again. A puff of gray smoke poofed out from the engine, but it didn’t catch. The tanker loomed larger. Closer. Isabel cringed. It was going to hit them! Luis yanked on the chain. A cough. A sputter. Nothing. Cough. Sputter. Nothing. Cough. Sputter. Nothing. The sea swelled in front of the tanker, pushing them higher and away, and for a fleeting moment Isabel’s hopes rose with it. But then the swell passed, and they were pulled back in by the tanker’s massive draw. Their little blue boat spun sideways, and they zoomed toward the big ship’s prow. The tanker was going to tear them in half, right down the middle. Isabel looked up into the terrified eyes of Iván as he realized the same thing, and they screamed. Then suddenly they were both thrown to the bottom of the boat, and something buzzed like a mosquito underneath the howl of the tanker. Luis had gotten the engine to start! Their little boat shot forward in the water, darting out of the way of the tanker’s prow. But the waves thrown off by the big ship lifted up the back end of Isabel’s boat and dumped an ocean of seawater on top of them. Isabel swallowed a mouthful of salty water and tumbled across the boat. She slammed into something hard, and her shoulder exploded with pain. She came up spluttering. She was hip-deep in water and the engine had stopped again, but none of that mattered right now. Iván’s father had fallen overboard. Isabel saw his white-haired head rise up out of the water. Señor Castillo gulped for air, then disappeared as a wave from the massive tanker’s wake rolled over him. “Señor Castillo!” Isabel cried. “Papá!” Iván shouted. “Where is he? Do you see him?” Isabel and Iván frantically searched the dark water, watching for Señor Castillo to surface again. They had missed the huge ship’s prow by mere meters, but the waves the behemoth created as it passed were just as dangerous. The ocean heaved and sank, the little boat tipping over sideways as the waves caught it amidships. Everyone was just getting back up from the floor of the boat when they were sent tumbling again. Iván rolled to the other side of the boat, but Isabel hung on. There! She saw Señor Castillo’s head pop up from under the water, but only for a gasping second—too quick to get enough air. In a flash, Isabel remembered her grandmother disappearing under the waves just like that two years ago, and without another thought, Isabel dove in after Señor Castillo. Mahmoud screamed. He howled louder than a fighter jet, and his parents didn’t even tell him to hush. Lights came on in houses nearby, and curtains ruffled as people looked out at the noise. Mahmoud’s mother broke down in tears, and his father let the life jackets he carried drop to the ground. The smuggler had just told them their boat wasn’t leaving tonight. Again. “No boat today. Tomorrow. Tomorrow,” he’d told Mahmoud’s father. It was exactly the same thing he’d told Mahmoud’s father the day before. And the day before that. And every day for the last week. A text would come, telling them to hurry—hurry!—out to the beach, and every time they would pack up what few things they owned, grab the life jackets, and rush through the streets of Izmir to this parking lot, and every time there would be no boat waiting for them. First it was the weather, the smuggler said. Then another family that was supposed to go with them hadn’t arrived yet. Then it was the Turkish Coast Guard patrols. Or the boat wasn’t ready. There was always some reason they couldn’t leave. It was like some cruel school-yard game of keep away. Mahmoud and his family were at their wits’ end. This off-and-on-again business was tearing them apart. All except for Waleed. Lifeless Waleed, who didn’t flinch when bombs exploded. “I want to go back to Syria! I don’t care if we die,” Mahmoud said after he’d let out his scream. “I just want to get out of here!” Even as he said it, he heard the whine in his voice, the pathetic, toddler-like frustration. Part of him was embarrassed—he was older than that, more mature. He was almost a man. But another part of him just wanted to stomp his feet and pitch a fit, and that part of him was getting harder and harder to keep quiet. Little Hana started crying too, and Mahmoud’s mother tried to calm them both by pulling Mahmoud into a hug. “Look at it this way,” Dad said, “now we have more time to practice our Turkish.”  No one laughed. “Let’s get back to the mall before someone takes our place,” Mom said wearily. Mahmoud carried the life jackets so his father could carry Waleed, who quickly fell asleep on his father’s shoulder. His mother carried Hana. Even though Mahmoud hated the desperate feeling of defeat in going back to the mall, at least it meant not sleeping outside in the park. But this time, someone was waiting for them at the mall entrance. There were two of them, both Turkish men, in matching blue tracksuits. One of them was muscular, with curly black hair, a thin beard, and a thick gold chain necklace. The other was overweight and wore mirrored sunglasses, even though it was night. He was the one with the pistol stuck in the waist of his pants. “You want inside, you gotta pay rent,” the burly man told them. “Since when?” Mahmoud’s father said. “Since now,” the man said. “We own this building, and we’re tired of you Syrians freeloading.” More bullies, thought Mahmoud. Just like in Syria. Mahmoud’s legs went numb, and he thought he might fall over. He couldn’t bear the thought of walking any farther. Looking for a place to live again. “How much?” Mahmoud’s father asked wearily. “Five thousand pounds a night,” the muscular man said. Dad sighed and started to put Waleed down so he could pay the man. “Each,” the man said. “Each? Per night?” Dad said. Mahmoud knew his dad was doing the math in his head. There were five of them, and they’d already been here a week. How long could they afford to pay twenty-five thousand pounds a day and still have enough for the boat, and whatever came afterward? “No,” Mahmoud’s father said. Mom started to protest, but he shook his head. “No—we already have all our things. We’ll find someplace else to stay. It’s only until tomorrow.” The big man chuckled. “Right. Tomorrow.” Mahmoud staggered along behind his parents as they roamed the streets of Izmir, looking for someplace to sleep. His parents carried Waleed and Hana, but not him. He was too old to be carried anymore, and for the first time he wished he wasn’t. They finally found the doorway of a travel agency set back from the street, and no one else was sleeping there. They were just settling in when a Turkish police car came down the street. Mahmoud shrank back into the corner, trying to be invisible, but the police car’s lights came on and it beeped its electronic siren at them—blurp-blurp. “You can’t sleep there,” a police officer told them through a loudspeaker. And so they had to get up and walk again. Mahmoud was so tired he started to cry, but he did it softly, so his parents wouldn’t hear. He hadn’t cried like this since that first night when the bombs had started to fall on Aleppo. Another car came down the road, and at first Mahmoud worried it was another police car. But it was a BMW sedan. On a whim, Mahmoud darted out into the car’s headlights and waved the life jackets on his arms. “Mahmoud! No!” his mother cried. The BMW slowed, its lights bright in his face. The driver honked at him, and Mahmoud hurried around to the driver’s-side window. “Please, can you help us?” Mahmoud begged. “My baby sister—”  But the car was already shooting away. Another car followed it, and it drove right past Mahmoud. “Mahmoud! Get out of the street!” his father called. “You’ll get yourself killed!” Mahmoud didn’t care anymore. There had to be someone who would help them. He waved the life jackets at the next car, and miraculously it stopped. It was an old brown Skoda, and the driver rolled the window down by hand. He was an elderly, wrinkled man with a short white beard, and he wore a black-and-white keffiyeh headscarf. “Please, can you help us?” Mahmoud asked. “My family and I have nowhere to go, and my sister is only a baby.” Dad jogged up and tried to pull Mahmoud away. “We’re very sorry,” Mahmoud’s father told the man. “We didn’t mean to bother you. We’ll be on our way.” Mahmoud was annoyed. He’d finally gotten somebody to stop, and now his father was trying to send him away! “My house is too small for all of you,” the man said, “but I have a little car dealership, and you can stay in the office.” Arabic! Mahmoud was thrilled—the man spoke fluent Arabic. “No, no, we couldn’t possibly—” Mahmoud’s father started to say, but Mahmoud cut him off. “Yes! Thank you!” Mahmoud cried. He waved his mother over. “He speaks Arabic, and he says he will help us!” Dad tried to apologize again and refuse the offer of help, but Mahmoud was already climbing in the backseat with the load of life jackets. Mom got in beside him with Hana, and Mahmoud’s father shifted Waleed in his arms so he could reluctantly sit in the front passenger seat. “Mahmoud … ” his father said, unhappy. But Mahmoud didn’t care. They were off their feet, and they were on their way to someplace they could sleep. The little Skoda’s gears ground as the man got them underway. “My name is Samih Nasseer,” the man told them, and Mahmoud’s father introduced them all. “You are Syrian, yes? Refugees?” the man asked. “I know what it’s like. I am a refugee too, from Palestine.” Mahmoud frowned. This man was a refugee, and he owned his own car and his own business? “How long have you lived in Turkey?” Mahmoud asked Mr. Nasseer. “Sixty-seven years now!” Mr. Nasseer said, smiling at Mahmoud in the rearview mirror. “I was forced to leave my home in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war. They are still fighting there, but someday, when my homeland is restored, I will go home again!” Dad’s phone chimed, surprising them all and making Waleed stir. His father read the glowing screen. “It’s the smuggler. He says the boat is ready now.” Mahmoud had learned not to get excited about these texts, but even so, he still felt a little flutter of hope in his chest. “You take a boat to Greece? Tonight?” Mr. Nasseer asked. “Maybe,” Mahmoud’s father said. “If it’s there.” “I will take you to it,” Mr. Nasseer said, “and if it is not there, you can come back and stay with me.” “You’re very kind,” Mom said. Mahmoud didn’t know why, but his mother pulled Mahmoud close and gave him a hug.  It took very little time for the car to take them back to the beach, and when they pulled to a stop, they were all quiet as they stared. This time, finally, a boat was there. 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.” Isabel hit the water and sank into the warm Gulf Stream. It was pitch-black all around her, and the ocean was alive. Not alive with fish—alive like the ocean was a living creature itself. It churned and roiled and roared with bubbles and foam. It beat at her, pushing her and pulling her like a cat playing with the mouse it was about to eat. Isabel fought her way back to the surface and gasped for air. “Isabel!” her mother shrieked, her arms stretching out for her. But there was no way her mother could reach her. The boat was already so far away! Isabel panicked. How was it so far away already? “We have to get the boat turned!” Isabel heard Luis cry. “If we don’t meet the waves head on, they’ll roll us over!” “Dad!” Iván yelled. Isabel spun in the water, and a wave slammed into her, filling her mouth and nose with salty water and sweeping her under again. The wave passed and she broke the surface, gagging and choking, but she was already moving toward the place where she had seen Señor Castillo’s head before it went under. Her hand struck something in the dark water, and Isabel recoiled until she realized it was Señor Castillo. The sea was tossing him around, but he wasn’t moving on his own, wasn’t fighting to get back out of the water. Isabel took in as much air as she could and dove down beneath an oncoming wave. She found Señor Castillo’s body in the dark, wrapped her arms around him, and kicked as hard as she could for the surface. The ocean fought her, sweeping her legs out from under her and spinning her all around, but Isabel kicked, kicked, kicked until her lungs were about to burst, and at last she exploded up into the cold air, gasping. “There! There they are!” Iván cried. Isabel couldn’t even try to look for the boat. It was all she could do to keep Señor Castillo’s lolling head above water and catch quick breaths before the waves rolled over them both.  But the waves seemed to be smaller now. Still deadly, but not as high and fast. Isabel began to feel the rhythm of the sea, the singsong lullaby of it, and it was easy to close her eyes, to stop kicking, to stop fighting. She was so tired. So very, very tired … And then Iván was there in the water with them, his arms around her, like they were back in their village playing together in the waves on the beach. “Here! Here! They’re here!” Iván shouted. Their boat was now alongside her, and her head thumped into the side of it as a wave washed over her. Hands lifted Señor Castillo from her, and soon they dragged her over the side too. She splashed back down into the half-meter of water that filled the boat. But she was away from the waves, the never-ending waves, and she collapsed into her mother’s arms. “Rudi! Rudi! Oh, God,” Señora Castillo cried, clutching her husband’s hand. Señor Castillo was unconscious. Luis and Papi had laid him out on one of the benches, and Isabel’s grandfather was pumping his stomach like an accordion. Seawater burbled up out of Señor Castillo’s mouth, and he suddenly lurched, coughing and spluttering. Lito and Papi and Luis rolled him over, and he retched up the rest of the ocean he’d swallowed. “Rudi—Rudi!” Señora Castillo said. She wrapped him in her arms and sobbed, and then everything was quiet and still, but for the gentle lapping of the sea against the side of the boat and the sloshing of water inside it. The tanker had passed. Amara stood at the back of the boat, keeping the rudder straight against the waves. But the engine was dead again. Like everything else, it had been swamped. Señora Castillo reached for Isabel’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Isabel.” Isabel nodded, but it came out more like a shudder. She was freezing cold and soaked from head to toe, but at least she was back in her mother’s arms. Mami hugged her close and Isabel shivered. “We need to get the water out of the bottom of the boat,” Papi said. It was strange to Isabel to hear her father talk about something so normal, so practical, when Señor Castillo had almost drowned and the boat had almost rolled over and sunk. But he was right. “And get the engine running again,” Iván said. “The water first,” Lito agreed, and together they gathered up bottles and jugs and began the tedious work of filling them and pouring the seawater back into the ocean. Isabel stayed buried in her mother’s arms, still exhausted, and no one made her get up. “Where’s the box with the medicine in it?” Luis asked. There weren’t too many places it could be in the small boat, and they quickly decided it must have fallen overboard in the confusion. Gone were their aspirin and bandages, and Señor Castillo was still dazed and weak. It was bad, but if they got the boat bailed out and if they got the engine running and if they got back on track with the sun tomorrow and if they didn’t run into any more tankers, they could make it to the States without needing the medicine or matches. If, if, if. They bailed water the rest of the night, taking turns dozing in the uncomfortable, crowded little boat. Isabel didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until she jerked awake from a nightmare about a giant monster coming for her out of the dark sea. She cried out, looking this way and that, but there was nothing but blue-black water and gray skies tinged with the red of the sun all around them for miles and miles and miles. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. The boat rocked again, and Amara struggled to keep the rudder steady. She had taken over as pilot while Señor Castillo recovered, but they still hadn’t gotten the motor running again. The Gulf Stream would carry them north, toward Florida, but they would need the engine to reach the shore. Isabel’s mother leaned over the side of the boat and threw up into the sea. When she slid back down inside, she looked green. The boat was rocking so much now Isabel couldn’t sit on the bench without holding on. The waves were growing higher and higher. “What is it?” Iván said sleepily. “Another tanker?” “No. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” Lito said, looking up into the red-tinged clouds. “A storm is coming.” “God help us—that is what we’re to ride in?” Mahmoud’s father said. The boat wasn’t a boat. It was a raft. A black inflatable rubber dinghy with an outboard motor on the back. It looked like there was room for a dozen people in it. Thirty refugees waited to get on board. They all looked as tired as Mahmoud felt, and wore different-colored life jackets. They were mostly young men, but there were families too. Women with and without hijabs. Other children, some who looked to be about Mahmoud’s age. One boy in a Barcelona soccer jersey didn’t have a life jacket but clung instead to a blown-up rubber inner tube. A few of the other refugees had backpacks and plastic bags full of clothes, but most of them, like Mahmoud’s family, carried whatever they owned in their pockets. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” one of the smugglers said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand Syrian pounds or one thousand euros per person! Children pay full price, including babies,” he told Mahmoud’s father. There were two more Turks in tracksuits like the ones who had turned them away from the mall, and they stood apart, staring at the refugees like they were something disgusting that had just washed up on the beach. Their scowls made Mahmoud want to disappear again. Dad handed out their life jackets, and they put them on. Mom stared out at the black dinghy bobbing in the gray-black Mediterranean seawater. She grabbed her husband’s arm. “What are we doing, Youssef? Is this the right decision?” “We have to get to Europe,” he said. “What choice do we have? God will guide us.” Mahmoud watched as his father pushed the cash they’d saved into the hands of one of the smugglers. Then Mahmoud and his family followed his dad to the dinghy, and they climbed on board. Waleed and his mother sat down in the bottom of the dinghy, his mother holding Hana tight in her arms. Mahmoud and his father sat on one of the inflated rubber edges, their backs to the sea. Mahmoud was already cold, and the wind off the waves made him shiver. A big bearded man wearing a plaid shirt and a bulky blue life jacket sat down right next to Mahmoud, almost squeezing Mahmoud right off the edge. Mahmoud slid a little closer to his father, but the big man next to him just settled into the extra space. “How long will we be on the boat?” Mahmoud asked his dad. “Just a few hours, I think. It was hard to tell on the phone.” Mahmoud nodded. The phones and chargers were safely sealed away in plastic bags in his parents’ pockets, just in case they got wet. Mahmoud knew because he’d been the one who’d dug through the trash for the resealable zipper bags. “We don’t have to get all the way to the Greek mainland,” Dad said. “Just the Greek island of Lesbos, about a hundred kilometers away. Then we’re officially in Europe, and we can take a ferry from there to Athens.” When the smugglers had packed the dinghy full of refugees, they pushed it out to sea. None of the smugglers came with them. If the refugees were going to get to Lesbos, they were going to have to do it themselves. “Does anyone know if dinner is served on this cruise?” Mahmoud’s father asked, and there were a few nervous laughs. The outboard motor roared to life, and the refugees cheered and cried. Dad hugged Mahmoud, then reached down to hug Mom, Waleed, and Hana. They were finally doing it. They were finally leaving Turkey for Europe! Mahmoud looked around in wonder. None of this seemed real. He had begun to feel like they were never going to leave. Mahmoud had been so tired he could barely keep his eyes open before, but now the thrum of the motor and the chop of the boat as it hit wave after wave flooded him with adrenaline, and he couldn’t have slept if he’d wanted to. The lights of Izmir dwindled to glittering dots behind them, and soon they were out in the dark, rough waters of the Mediterranean. Phone screens glowed in the darkness—passengers checking to see if they could tell where they were. The roar of the engine and the whip-blinding sea spray made it impossible to have any kind of conversation, so Mahmoud looked around at the other passengers instead. Most of them kept their heads down and eyes closed, either muttering prayers or trying not to get sick, or both. The dinghy began to toss not just front to back but side to side, in a sort of rolling motion, and Mahmoud felt the bile rise in the back of his throat. On the other side of the dinghy, a man shifted quickly to vomit over the side. “Watch out for the Coast Guard!” the big man next to Mahmoud shouted over the noise. “Turks will take us back to Turkey, but Greeks will take us to Lesbos!” Mahmoud didn’t know how anybody could see anything in the dark, cloud-covered night. But it helped his seasickness to look outside instead of inside the boat. It didn’t help his growing sense of panic, though. He couldn’t see land anymore, just stormy gray waves that were getting taller and narrower, like they were driving a boat through the spiky tent tops at the Kilis refugee camp. More people leaned over the side to throw up, and Mahmoud felt his stomach churn. And then the rain began. It was a hard, cold rain that plastered Mahmoud’s hair to his head and soaked him down to his socks. The rain began to collect in the bottom of the dinghy, and soon Mahmoud’s mother and the others were sitting in centimeters of shifting water. Mahmoud’s muscles began to ache from shivering and holding the same tight position for so long, and he wanted nothing more than to get off this boat. “We should turn back!” someone yelled.  “No! We can’t go back! We can’t afford to try again!” Mahmoud’s father yelled, and a chorus of voices agreed with him. They pushed on through driving rain and roiling seas for what felt like an eternity. It might have been ten hours or ten minutes, Mahmoud didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted it to end, and end now. This was worse than Aleppo. Worse than bombs falling and soldiers shooting and drones buzzing overhead. In Aleppo, at least, he could run. Hide. Here he was at the mercy of nature, an invisible brown speck in an invisible black rubber dinghy in the middle of a great black sea. If it wanted to, the ocean could open its mouth and swallow him and no one in the whole wide world would ever know he was gone. And then that’s exactly what it did. “I see rocks!” someone at the front of the dinghy yelled, and there was a loud POOM! like a bomb exploding, and Mahmoud went tumbling into the sea. A strong hand grabbed Josef by the arm and swung him around. It was a sailor, one of the ship’s firemen, and Josef knew right away he was in trouble. The firemen were big, churlish brutes who were supposed to be on board to put out fires. But lately they’d been walking the decks, harassing the Jewish passengers. They’d been making trouble ever since the Cubans had told them they couldn’t leave the ship. For three days the St. Louis had sat at anchor kilometers from shore. For three days, while port officials came and went, the Cuban police who guarded the ladder off the ship told the passengers they couldn’t leave today. “Mañana,” they said. “Mañana.” Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Two days ago, the SS Orduña, a smaller English passenger liner, had arrived and anchored nearby. Josef guessed it was one of the other two ships they’d been racing to Cuba. He and the other passengers had watched as launches went to and from the ship, as the yellow quarantine flag went up and then down. And then the Orduña had lifted anchor and cruised in to dock at the pier and let off passengers! Why had they been allowed to dock and not the St. Louis? The St. Louis had gotten there first! Captain Schroeder wasn’t around to ask, and the officers and stewards had no answers for the passengers. And then today the same thing had happened with the French ship SS Flandre. It arrived, anchored nearby, passed quarantine, docked at the Havana pier, and let off its passengers. Now it was sailing back out to sea. The passengers on the St. Louis had grown more and more restless, cornering sailors on deck and berating their stewards at dinner. Josef had felt the tension mounting all over the ship, the pandemonium threatening to boil over every time the crew dealt with the passengers. It was as suffocating and oppressive as the 100-degree heat. Apparently, Schiendick and his Nazi friends had felt the tension too, because that’s when the firemen patrols had begun. It was nothing official, Josef was sure, because the captain hadn’t made an announcement. It was just certain members of the crew who had taken it upon themselves to police the ship like they were all back in Germany. “For the safety of the Jews,” Schiendick told them, the same way the Gestapo took Jews into “protective custody.” Another fireman stood beside the one who held Josef’s arm, blocking out the sun. And between them was Otto Schiendick himself. “Just the boy we were looking for,” Schiendick said. “You are to come with us.” “What? Why?” Josef asked, looking up at the two big men around him. Josef felt guilty, and he was immediately mad at himself for it. Why should he feel guilty? He hadn’t done anything wrong! But he remembered feeling this way back home too, whenever he passed a Nazi on the street. In Germany, just being Jewish was a crime. And here too, apparently. “Your parents’ cabin must be searched,” Schiendick said. “You have a key?” Josef nodded, even though he didn’t want to. These men were adults, and they were Nazis. One he’d been taught to respect. The other he’d learned to fear. The big fireman still had Josef’s arm, and he pulled him toward the elevator. Josef couldn’t believe he’d let himself be caught. He’d warned his little sister, Ruthie, to avoid the firemen, who loved to intimidate the children on board, and she’d managed to stay out of their way. But he’d lost himself watching the Flandre sail out of Havana Harbor, his back turned to the promenade, and that’s when they’d caught him. Schiendick and his firemen hustled Josef down the stairs, and Josef’s stomach sank when they ordered him to open the door to his cabin. Josef’s hand shook as he put the key in the lock. He wished there was some way he could get out of this, some way he could keep these men away from his mother and father. Otto Schiendick reached down and turned the handle for him, throwing the door open. Papa lay on a bed in his underclothes, trying to stay cool in the stifling heat. Mama sat in a chair nearby, reading a book. Ruthie, Josef was glad to see, was still up at the pool. When she saw the men, Rachel Landau stood. On the bed, Josef’s father propped himself up, a look of panic on his face. “What’s going on here?” Mama asked. “Josef?” “They made me bring them here,” Josef said, his eyes wide, trying to warn her of the danger. “Yes,” Schiendick said, spotting Josef’s father. “There he is.” Schiendick and the two firemen stepped inside. Schiendick closed the door and locked it behind them. “For your safety, this cabin must be searched,” Schiendick said. “On whose authority?” Mama asked. “Does the captain know about this?” “On my authority,” Schiendick told her. “The captain has other things to worry about.” Schiendick nodded, and the two firemen ransacked the room. They swept Mama’s makeup and perfume off the vanity and smashed the mirror. They knocked the lamps off the bedside tables and cracked the washbasin. They opened up the family’s suitcases, which were carefully packed and ready to go to Cuba, and threw their clothes all over the cabin. They tore the head off Ruthie’s stuffed bunny. They snatched the book from Mama’s hands and ripped out the pages, tossing them in the air like ashes from a bonfire. Josef’s mother cried out, but not so loudly that anyone else would hear. Papa wrapped himself in a ball and threw his hands over his head, whimpering. Josef huddled against the door, angry at his helplessness but scared that if he fought back, he’d only be punished more. When there was nothing left to smash or scatter, the firemen stood behind Schiendick at the door. Schiendick spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of you and your race,” he said, and suddenly Josef understood—this was payback for his father’s words to Schiendick at the funeral. Schiendick snorted dismissively at the cowering man on the bed. “It’s time you had your head shaved again,” he told Josef’s father. Otto Schiendick let himself and the two firemen out, leaving the door wide open. Josef’s mother slid to the floor crying, and Papa blubbered on the bed. Josef shook as he buried his face in his hands, trying to hide his own tears. He wanted nothing more than to run to his mother’s arms, but she felt a million miles away from him. So did his father. They were three lonely islands, separated by an ocean of misery. Of all the things Schiendick and his fireman had broken, the Landau family was the one thing Josef wasn’t sure they could put back together. “You said if I was quiet, if I stood very still, they wouldn’t come for me,” Papa said. It took Josef a moment to realize his father was talking to him. Josef’s breath caught. His father was talking about the medical inspection. When Josef had scared his father to get him to straighten up. Papa looked up at him, his eyes red from crying. “You said they wouldn’t come for me. You said they wouldn’t send me back. You promised, and they came for me anyway.” Josef felt like his father had slapped him, even though Papa hadn’t touched him. Josef reeled. He backed into his mother’s little makeup table, and one of the bottles Schiendick hadn’t smashed rolled off and shattered on the floor beside him. Josef didn’t even jump. He had lied to his father. Betrayed him. Made him think he was back at that awful place. Terrified him all over again. But that wasn’t the worst thing he had done. Josef had made his father a promise he couldn’t keep.