But if the man was dead, that meant he didn’t need his life jacket.
Mahmoud fought down his fear and fumbled with the straps on the dead man’s life jacket. Mahmoud’s fingers moved, but he couldn’t feel them. His hands were like blocks of ice. He only knew he was touching the straps because he could see it happening. Finally, he got one strap unbuckled, and another, and as the body began to shift in the vest, Mahmoud realized he was condemning this man to the bottom of the sea. He would never be bathed and wrapped in a kafan, never be mourned by those who loved him, never have his friends and family say prayers over him, never be buried facing Mecca. Mahmoud was putting a man in his grave, and he had a duty to him.
Mahmoud had heard funeral prayers too many times in his short life, most recently for his cousin Sayid, who had died when a barrel bomb exploded. Mahmoud quietly recited one now.
“O God, forgive this man, and have mercy on him and give him strength and pardon him. Be generous to him and cause his entrance to be wide and wash him with water and snow and hail. Cleanse him of his transgressions as white cloth is cleansed of stains. Give him an abode better than his home, and a family better than his family, and a wife better than his wife. Take him into Paradise, and protect him from the punishment of the grave and from the punishment of hellfire.”
When he was finished, Mahmoud clicked open the last of the straps and the man’s body rolled out of the vest and down into the murky depths of the Mediterranean Sea.
“Here, Mom, put this on,” Mahmoud said. It took some time to get her into the life jacket, Mahmoud doing most of the work. But at last it was on her, and Mahmoud no longer had to fight to keep her afloat. She lay on her back, eyes closed, muttering about Hana, and Mahmoud clung to her life jacket. He still had to kick his legs to not pull them both under, but not nearly so much.
He didn’t know where they would go or how they would get out of the water. Perhaps in the light of day they would see land, and be able to swim for it.
In the meantime, they had to survive the night.
“Help! My dad jumped overboard! Help!” Josef cried.
Far below him, already a couple hundred yards away from the ship, Josef’s father thrashed crazily in the water. He screamed incoherently, but he wasn’t calling out for rescue.
On the decks below, passengers ran to the rails and pointed. The ship’s siren continued to blow and sailors ran about, but nobody was doing anything. Josef spun around helplessly. What was he supposed to do? Jump in after his father? It was such a long way down, and he didn’t know how to swim—
Down below on C-deck, one of the Cuban policemen tossed his cap and gun belt aside, kicked off his shoes, and jumped headlong into the green water. He hit the ocean with a slap and a splash, and for many seconds Josef held his breath as though he was the diver himself. Josef’s lungs were just about to burst when the man broke the surface a few yards away from where he’d hit, gasping for breath. The man flipped the wet hair out of his face, spun until he had his bearings, and set off swimming for Josef’s father.
Josef’s heart raced as fast as his feet as he flew down the stairs. He pushed through the crowds and ran to the rail, but the policeman hadn’t yet reached his father. A woman screamed, and Josef followed the pointing fingers—two shark fins had appeared in the water.
Josef froze in terror.
There were more screams as his papa sank beneath the waves, and Josef had to cling to the rail not to collapse.
One of the St. Louis’s lifeboats hit the water, and the ship’s siren had brought motor launches from the shore, but none of them were going to be in time. The only person close enough to save Josef’s father was the Cuban policeman. Even though the sharks still circled, the policeman took a deep breath and dived beneath the waves.
Josef counted the long seconds before the man broke the surface again, this time with Papa in his arms.
The passengers on the ship cheered. But Josef’s father didn’t want to be rescued. He struggled in the man’s arms, beating and flailing at him. “Murderers!” he cried. “They’ll never take me!”
But Papa was weak and the policeman was strong. One of the motor launches from shore reached them first, and the policeman helped the other men lift Josef’s father into the boat.
“Let me die! Let me die!” Josef’s father cried. The words struck Josef like slaps to the face, and tears sprang to his eyes.
His father would rather die than be with his son. His daughter. His wife.
The crack of a pistol shot made Josef jump. One of the men in the boat stood aiming a gun down into the water near the policeman. Pak! Pak! He shot twice more, and one of the shark fins turned away from the policeman to attack the shark the man had wounded with his pistol.
The men laid Josef’s father in the bottom of the boat and helped the weary policeman aboard. There were sighs of relief and whispered prayers on the St. Louis. But Josef’s heart lurched when he saw his father kick away the man trying to help him. Papa lunged for the side of the small boat, trying to get back to the sea. “Let me die!” he cried out again.
The policeman grabbed him and pulled him back in the boat. Two more of the men restrained him, and the boat quickly turned and sped toward the shore.
The St. Louis’s siren stopped blasting, and suddenly it was over.
All around Josef, passengers wept. But Josef now felt more stunned than sad. His father was gone. In many ways, his father had never really come back from the concentration camp. Not the father Josef knew and remembered. Not the father he loved. He had come back in body, but not in spirit.
Josef’s father was gone. His mother was unconscious. His little sister was all by herself. And they would never let Josef’s family into Cuba now, not after his father had gone mad. Josef and his family would all be sent back to Germany. Back to the Nazis.
Josef’s world was falling apart, and he didn’t see any way to put it back together again.
The little boat was falling apart.
The seams between the sides had cracks in them. The engine rattled in its mounting, constantly weakening the bolts that held it in place. Even the benches were coming loose. Only Castro hadn’t cracked. He stared up at Isabel, as stern and confident as ever, commanding her to FIGHT AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE AND WIN.
But it was hard to fight against the inevitable. The water in the boat was almost to Isabel’s knees. She and the others worked sluggishly in the blazing-hot Caribbean sun to scoop, pitch, scoop, pitch, but water was seeping in as fast as they could bail it. The boat was sinking. Every empty water bottle and gasoline can had been tucked up under a bench to help keep them afloat, but if they didn’t reach Florida soon, they were all going to drown.
Fight against the impossible and win, Isabel told herself.
“When are we going to get there?” Iván whined.