“Yes, love.”
“Thank you.”
MAY 1941: Brazil’s dictator, Getúlio Vargas, begins issuing restrictions on the number of Jews allowed into the country, calling them “undesirable and non-assimilable.” Infuriated by the number of visas Souza Dantas has granted without permission in France, Vargas begins turning away refugees seeking freedom in Brazil, and issues Law 3175, forcing Ambassador Souza Dantas to retire.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Addy
Casablanca, French-Occupied Morocco ~ June 20, 1941
Addy surveys Casablanca’s port, the column of buses parked just off the pier, the dark-skinned soldiers who have formed a human tunnel at the foot of the gangplank. The Alsina’s captain had told his passengers that the ship was sent north from Dakar to Casablanca “for repairs.” But the heavily armed men ordering the refugees off the boat don’t remotely resemble a repair team.
So this is Morocco, Addy thinks to himself.
In the end, the Alsina had spent nearly five sweltering months docked in Dakar. By the time she finally pulled up anchor in June, most of the passengers’ ninety-day visas to South America had long since expired. What are we to do? What if Vargas won’t renew our papers? Where will we go? Retracing their route north toward Europe didn’t help the mood on board, which grew increasingly frantic by the day. No one believed that they were going to Casablanca for mechanical reasons. To quell the refugees’ hysteria, the Alsina’s captain promised to contact the appropriate authorities in order to guarantee passage to Rio—he would wire the Brazilian embassy in Vichy, he said, with the request for passenger visas to be extended to make up for the weeks they’d spent helplessly idle. But whether or not that telegram was ever sent or received, no one knew, for the captain, along with the crew and the refugees on board, were ordered off the boat soon after docking in Casablanca. The few passengers who could pay for a hotel were offered the option to stay in the city center, but most were to be escorted to a detention camp outside of town to await a decision by Morocco’s Axis-friendly government on whether the Alsina would be allowed to sail again.
As Addy descends the ship’s gangplank, the soldiers wave their rifles toward the buses, shouting at the mob of foreigners spilling out onto the pier: “Allez! Allez!” Addy boards a bus and finds a seat by a window facing the pier, searching for the Lowbeers, who are no doubt among the cluster of first-class passengers gathered in the shadow of the Alsina’s bow awaiting transport to the city. He scans the crowd, but it’s impossible to see much of anything through the dirt-smudged pane. Kneeling on his seat, he ratchets the window down a few inches, peers through the opening. As the bus pulls away, he spots Eliska—or at least he thinks he sees her, the top of her blonde head; she appears to be standing on her toes, looking in his direction. Pushing his hand through the crack in the window, he waves, wondering if she’ll know it’s him. A moment later, the bus lurches away, kicking up a cloud of dust and fumes in its wake.
They drive for forty-five minutes before the caravan slows to a stop at a patch of desert hemmed in with barbed wire. As Addy makes his way inside, he glances at the wooden sign over the entrance: KASHA TADLA. The camp is fly infested and cloaked in the inescapable scent of excrement, thanks to several holes dug in the dirt that serve as toilets. Addy lasts two uncomfortable nights sleeping head to toe with a pair of Spaniards in a tent built for one before deciding he’s had enough of Kasha Tadla. On the morning of his third day, he sidles up to a guard at the camp’s entrance and, in perfect French, offers to go to the city for a few desperately needed supplies for the group. “We are out of toilet paper, and soap. We are dangerously low on water. Without these things, people will be sick. They will die.” He flips to the page in his pocket notebook where he’s scribbled papier hygiénique, savon, eau embouteillée. “I speak your language, and I know what we need. Take me to town; I’ll purchase a few provisions.” Addy rattles the change in his pocket, and adds, “I have some francs; I’ll buy what my satchel here can hold, and pay for everything myself.” He smiles, and then shrugs, as if he’s just offered up a generous favor—take it or leave it. After a moment’s pause, the guard acquiesces.
Addy is dropped at the top of Ziraoui Boulevard and told to meet back in the same place in an hour, with supplies. “One hour!” Addy calls as he sets off, dodging donkey carts and taking in the sharp, unfamiliar aromas of a colorful spice market as he weaves his way through Casablanca’s center. Of course, he won’t be returning in an hour. His only intention is to track down the Lowbeers, which fortunately isn’t nearly as difficult as he worried it might be. He finds them at an outdoor café, sipping French 75s from tall glass flutes; perched among a gaggle of long-faced men in robes cradling mugs of tea, they stand out like a couple of parakeets in a flock of doves. Eliska leaps from her chair when she sees him. After a quick celebratory reunion, Addy suggests they go back to their hotel, where he can keep a low profile. It feels presumptuous to ask for their protection, but surely the guard who is expecting him on Ziraoui Boulevard will soon come looking for him, realizing he’s been duped. Madame Lowbeer reluctantly agrees, on the condition that Addy sleep on the floor while they await news on the Alsina’s fate.
Five days later, Moroccan authorities declare the Alsina an enemy ship, claiming they’d discovered contraband on board. Addy and the Lowbeers find this charge hard to believe, but whether or not the ship is, in fact, carrying illegal goods, the authorities have made up their minds. The Alsina will not be leaving Casablanca. The detainees at Kasha Tadla are released and, along with those who had been spared the tent camp, are refunded 75 percent of the cost of their tickets. The passengers are left to fend for themselves. Addy and the Lowbeers consider staying in Casablanca, on the chance that the authorities might issue them Moroccan visas, but then think better of it. Casablanca has already seen its fair share of warfare, and Morocco, now under Vichy governance, is likely no safer an option than France.
They have to move quickly. There are six hundred refugees, most of whom are desperate for a way out. They need a plan, and they need one fast. After several days of gathering information from every possible source—expats, government officials, dockhands, journalists—they learn that there are ships sailing for Brazil from Spain. Spain and Portugal, according to the newspapers, are still neutral. Addy and the Lowbeers decide right away to travel north to the Iberian Peninsula, where the only boats headed for South America, they discover after further research, depart from Cádiz, a port in western Spain. To get there, however, will first require finding a way to Tangier, a city on the North African coast, 340 kilometers from Casablanca, and then crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow stretch of water funneling virtually all traffic into and out of the Mediterranean from the Atlantic—a stretch of water that had been bombed heavily the year before by the Vichy French Air Force, and which is now under strict surveillance and fortification by the British Navy. If they are able to cross the Strait to Tarifa, they’ll have to make their way north another hundred kilometers to Cádiz. It won’t be easy. But from what they can tell, it’s their only option. They pack quickly and Addy goes about arranging transportation to Tangier.