Huge waves battered and tossed us. A woman vomited in her lap. A deep rumbling sounded from the ship as it slid farther beneath the water. The wandering boy stood up in our lifeboat, his tiny arms stretched up toward the ship. “Opi,” he wailed. “Opi!”
A tuft of white hair appeared. “I’m coming, Klaus!” echoed from above. The shoe poet leapt feetfirst off the ship, plummeting toward the sea.
“Poet!” I screamed.
He plunged into the water nearby. Florian handed me the baby and jumped up to dive in after him. A wave threw our boat and Florian stumbled, slamming onto the pin holding the oar. The wandering boy grabbed his coat. The boat pitched and hurled.
“Row away,” someone yelled. “When the ship goes under it will suck us down with it.”
“Wait,” said the wandering boy, frantically searching the water. “Wait for my Opi.”
“Heinz!” Florian called into the darkness, his voice breaking with emotion. “Heinz, are you there?”
But the shoe poet did not reappear.
Florian grabbed my arm. “The sack of coins. The old man tied the bag to his belt. He gave me his life vest.”
“Opi!” sobbed the wandering boy. “No, please, Opi.”
Poet.
Our blessed shoe poet. Our Opi.
Our one light in the darkness.
He was gone.
alfred
The lifeboat was in the water. I was not in it.
No operable boats remained.
Some people had jumped down after the lifeboats. I was not a good jumper.
I was afraid to jump.
Shouting. Crying. Gunshots.
The ship slid deeper into the sea.
And then someone was pulling, yanking at me.
The young Latvian woman who gave birth was screaming in my face and dragging me. The ship’s list increased and so did my terror. I stumbled behind the girl, my back feeling so heavy. And then we passed two rafts, stuck together with ice. She began kicking at them frantically, to dislodge them from the deck. One of the rafts came loose. The girl pulled me down onto it.
And then we began to slide.
emilia
The raft was sheet steel with large buoyancy floats on each end. Planks of wood stretched across the tanks with netting in between. The ship tilted and our raft began to skid. Like a winter sled racing down an icy hill, we skated across the deck.
Metal scraping. People screaming.
I grasped tightly to the netting. Our raft launched out into the sea.
Items tumbled into the water behind us with a splash. Luggage. Empty rafts. Empty bodies.
A crowded lifeboat floated nearby. Drowning people in the water clung to the edges of the boat, desperately trying to pull themselves in.
“Please,” begged a teenage boy. “I’m so cold. Please let me in.” He gripped the side of the lifeboat, struggling to pull himself up.
“It’s too crowded. It will capsize,” argued the people in the boat.
“Could you please warm my hands then? Please, help me?”
They did not warm his hands. They beat at the teenager’s fingers until he released his grip and slipped beneath the surface with a few small bubbles.
“Come!” I yelled to the people in the water. “We have room on the raft.” And then an enormous wave lifted the raft and pulled us away from the sinking ship.
How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky. I watched from the raft as the beautiful deep began to swallow the massive boat of steel.
In one large gulp.
joana
The baby. The wandering boy. What was I to do?
florian
The Polish girl. My pack. Where were they?
emilia
The knight. He had the baby. I knew he’d be a savior.
alfred
Bodies were strewn like human confetti. Would I still get my medal?
florian
The tail of the ship was all that remained sticking out of the water. People dangled from the railings, their legs swinging wildly. The glass-enclosed sundeck at the back of the ship was packed with hundreds of trapped passengers. They banged their desperate fists against the glass. The water inside rose higher and higher. A brave sailor, balancing on the stern, hacked at the glass with an ax, trying to free the trapped people. The glass would not break. He swung harder, then lost his balance and fell into the sea. We watched in horror as the people behind the glass began to drown.
A lifeboat floated near the back of the Gustloff. In it sat a captain and several sailors.
Thousands of lifeless bodies floated around us. I searched for Heinz and the sailor with my pack. A young girl kicked and shrieked in the water next to our lifeboat.
I removed my life vest and threw it to her. “Grab my hand,” I told her.
“No!” yelled a woman in our boat. “She’ll turn us over!”
I stood and leaned over the side. Our lifeboat tipped toward the water. Everyone screamed. I reached down and grabbed the girl by her hair. She gripped my arm and I pulled her into the boat. She fell, soaked and exhausted at our feet.
A woman in a fur coat yelled at me. “You had no right! You’re endangering everyone!”
“Shut up!” I roared. My body shook with anger. “Do you hear me? Shut up!” Everyone fell quiet. The wandering boy hid his crying face in the crook of his arm. Joana reached up to me.