Miami! They weren’t even a day out of Havana, and already the St. Louis was passing the American city. It was so close you could see it from the ship without binoculars. Josef and Ruthie hung over the rails like everyone else, pointing out hotels and houses and parks. Josef saw highways and white square office buildings—skyscrapers!—and hundreds of little boats at harbor. Why couldn’t they just pull in to Miami and dock there? Why wouldn’t the United States just let them in? There was so much land that didn’t have buildings on it. Miles and miles of palm trees and swamp as far as the eye could see. Josef would take it. He would live there. He would live anywhere so long as it was away from the Nazis.
An airplane circled the ship, its propeller buzzing like a hornet. Newspaper photographers, one of the other passengers guessed out loud. Josef knew by now that the St. Louis was big news the world over. Newsreel camera crews had followed the ship out of Havana Harbor on little boats, yelling out the same questions all the passengers had: Where would they land? Who would take the Jewish refugees?
Would they end up back in Germany?
That afternoon, a US Coast Guard cutter cruised alongside the St. Louis, its officers watching them through binoculars. One of the other children guessed the cutter was there to protect them, to pick up anyone who jumped overboard.
Josef thought it was to make sure the St. Louis didn’t steer for Miami.
Some of the children, like Ruthie, still played games and swam in the pool, and they were close enough to America for some of the teenagers to pick up a New York Yankees game on their radios. But most of the adults walked around like they were at a funeral. The happy mood of the voyage to Cuba was gone forever. People spoke little, and socialized less. The movie theater was deserted. No one went to the dance hall.
Except for Josef’s mother.
For days she had mourned Josef’s father, had become Josef’s father by locking herself in their cabin. But with the announcement that the St. Louis was leaving Cuba—leaving without her husband—something in her flipped like a light switch. She cleaned herself up. Put on makeup. Did her hair. Dumped the contents of her suitcase on her bed, put on her favorite party dress, and went straight to the dance hall.
She’d been there ever since.
Josef’s mother was dancing by herself when he went to find her. A paper moon and stars still hung from the ceiling, decorations left over from the party when they all thought they’d be leaving the ship for Cuba. Josef’s mother saw him in the doorway and hurried over to him. She pulled Josef with her onto the dance floor.
“Dance with me, Josef,” she said. She took his hands in hers and led him in a waltz. “We didn’t pay for all those dance lessons for nothing.”
The dance lessons had been a lifetime ago, back before Hitler. Back when his parents thought Josef would be going to dances as a teenager, not running from the Nazis.
“No,” Josef said. He was too old to dance with his mother, too embarrassed. And there were more important things to think about right now. “What’s going on, Mama? Why are you doing this? It’s like you’re happy Papa’s gone.”
She twirled in his arms. “Did I ever tell you why you’re named Josef?” she asked.
“I— No.”
“You’re named after my older brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Josef’s mother danced like her life depended on it.
“Josef died in the Great War. My brother, Josef. At the Battle of the Somme, in France.”
Josef didn’t know what to say. His mother had never talked about her brother before. His uncle, he realized. He would have had an uncle.
“You can live life as a ghost, waiting for death to come, or you can dance,” she told him. “Do you understand?”
“No,” said Josef.
The song ended, and Josef’s mother took his face in both her hands. “You look just like him,” she said.
Josef didn’t know what to say to that.
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” the bandleader said, “but I’ve just been told there will be a special announcement in the A-deck social hall.”
Josef’s mother pouted because the music had stopped, but Josef knew it was worse than that. He couldn’t have said why, but he was sure, deep down in the pit of his stomach, that this would only be bad news.
The worst.
His mother took his hand and squeezed it. “Come on,” she said with a smile.
The social hall was already full when they got there. In the front of the room, under the giant portrait of Adolf Hitler, stood a committee of passengers who had been working with the captain on a solution to their problem. From the looks on their faces, they had not come up with one. When the head of the committee spoke, he confirmed all of Josef’s worst fears.
“The United States has refused us. We are heading back to Europe.”
The outburst was instantaneous. Cries, gasps, tears. Josef cursed—the first time he had ever cursed in front of his mother. She didn’t react at all, and it made Josef feel both a little ashamed and a little bolder at the same time.
“You mean we’re going back to Germany!” someone yelled.
“Not necessarily,” a committee member said. “But we must stay calm.”
Calm? Josef thought. Was the man insane?
“Calm? How can we stay calm?” a man asked out loud, echoing Josef’s thoughts. The man’s name was Pozner. Josef had seen him before on the ship. “A lot of us were in concentration camps,” Pozner went on. His face was twisted in anger, and he spat his words. “We were released only on condition that we leave Germany immediately! For us to return means one thing—going back to those camps. That could be the future of every man, woman, and child on this ship!”
“We will not die. We won’t return. We will not die,” the crowd chanted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Josef saw Otto Schiendick lingering in the doorway. Schiendick grinned at the panic in the room, and Josef felt his blood begin to boil.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the head of the committee, “the news is bad. That we all realize. But Europe is still many days away. That gives us, and all our friends, time to make new attempts to help us.”
Josef’s mother pulled him away. “Come, Josef. Somebody will think of something. Let’s dance.”
Josef didn’t understand why his mother wasn’t upset, why she suddenly didn’t seem to care anymore. They were about to be taken back to Germany. Back to their deaths. Josef let his mother pull him to the door, then broke away. “No, Mama, I can’t.”
She smiled sadly at him and ducked past Otto Schiendick, who leaned against the doorframe.
“You should do as your mother says, boy,” Schiendick said. “These are your last free days. Enjoy them. When you go back to Hamburg, nobody’ll ever hear from you again.”
Josef went back to the yelling passengers, his anger rising like the tide. There had to be something they could do. Something he could do.