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.
“Ma?ana,” they said. “Ma?ana.”
Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
Two days ago, the SS Ordu?a, 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 Ordu?a 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.