Remember Me

by Mario Escobar

Atlantic Ocean

  May 26, 1937

  We had been told that traveling by boat wouldn’t be simple, but none of us expected to spend the first several days in bed without a moment free of seasickness. It was chaos from the start. Manuel and I managed to get assigned to the same cabin, but boys and girls were separated from each other, so siblings and close friends couldn’t be together. Some had known one another from their hometowns, others had become friends during the journey, but our guardians couldn’t make everyone happy. At one point, I argued with one of the teachers who made my sisters leave our cabin and took them back to the girls’ quarters. No matter how much I explained that my mother had ordered me to take care of them, I couldn’t convince her. She said that for decency’s sake the girls and boys had to travel separately. The Mexican caretakers were much more conservative than the few Spaniards who traveled with us. We didn’t understand that until later, though. For them, religion wasn’t something bad like it was for us. We had known the Catholic Church to be on the side of the powerful, having baptized the civil war as a crusade against communism. Priests, nuns, and religion were our enemies, together with the military and the bourgeoisie. That was the world we’d come from and where we’d grown up. We knew nothing else.

  The first night on the Mexique was awful. Children screamed and cried out for their mothers all night long. The caretakers eventually just left them alone since they refused to be comforted. The guardians didn’t even intervene when the older kids, fed up with the noise, threatened to hurt the little ones if they didn’t quiet down. I was so dizzy I couldn’t care much about what was happening around me. For me, seasickness was a new sensation.

  I hadn’t been able to eat anything. The mere thought of food made me want to vomit. Most of the kids seemed to feel the same way, except for some of the Basques who’d grown up on the sea.

  By morning, I was terribly dizzy on an empty stomach. A little kid beside me named Fermín, only six or seven years old, was traveling alone. He had wet his pants and spat up all over himself. He looked at me with his big green eyes, and I couldn’t help but think about my sisters and how they would feel if they were making this trip by themselves.

  “Come with me,” I said, trying to control the impulse to gag.

  I took him to the bathroom and helped him clean up. He thanked me with a big smile. He was calm and withdrawn, and I wondered whose idea it had been to send him so far from home. The longer the war went on, the less sensitive we all became, perhaps intuiting that only the strongest would survive.

  I went to the area where the youngest boys were staying, and it was complete chaos. There were no caretakers in sight. Finally, I found Genaro, who came up to me with a smile.

  “I want you to gather all the boys together. Tell them to bring any money their parents or the French have given them. You understand? Your friend can help you,” he said, pointing to Manuel.

  We went through the hallways, evidence of the seasickness everywhere we stepped. The dirty, abandoned children smiled when they saw us, as if we might bring some relief. Manuel and I finally rounded most of them up, except for the ones too ill to get out of bed. We crammed nearly two hundred boys into the meeting room and waited for the teacher to give us instructions.

  “Well, boys, this trip will be long and difficult. Some of your parents have given you money for Mexico, but neither pesetas nor francs are worth anything in Mexico. Please give me your money and I’ll exchange it when we get there. I don’t want you to get robbed or for the money to get lost.”

  The boys went forward in a line. Some only had a few cents, others just one peseta. Genaro put all the money together in a box and locked it, though he hadn’t collected much in total. “Very well, please remember, boys, how much money you gave me so I can return it to you in Mexico.”

  Genaro left the room followed by the older boys. The younger ones stayed there, quiet, dirty, and hungry. They weren’t sure what to do or where they were supposed to go. I couldn’t believe the adults weren’t doing anything about it.

  “We can’t just leave them like this,” I told Manuel. “I’m going to look for something to eat.”

  I left the big room and raced up and down the hallways. Why wasn’t anyone in charge? I asked several boys, and they told me most of the teachers and monitors were in first class enjoying the trip. I found my way to one of the kitchens, and an Argentine kitchen helper gave me some bread and meat for the boys. On my way back, I ran into a couple I had seen a few times, Mr. and Mrs. Méndez.

  “The boys are all hungry and filthy. You’ve got to do something,” I begged them.

  They followed me to the room and stopped short when they saw the children. They sent us to get diapers, clean clothes, and food. We were supposed to find a teacher named Loreto, the one in charge of the supplies the children would need on the voyage. Mrs. Méndez told me the Mexican government had provided enough money for the trip, so we should not lack for anything.

  I found Mrs. Loreto seasick in her cabin, but she got up and took me to the storage room where everything was kept. We brought food and clean clothes for the boys, and a little while later everyone was clean and happily playing on the second and third decks.

  Mrs. Loreto and the Méndezes looked worn out, but they invited me and Manuel to have a snack up on the first-class deck. Manuel and I had not yet been past the rope that separated first and second, but as soon as we did, we understood the enormous difference between the two. We sat at a table with a view of the sea and were served orange juice that tasted like nectar of the gods.

  “This trip is a complete disaster,” Mrs. Loreto said.

  “Some of the Spaniards who’ve come along have done it just to escape Spain and live the high life. They’re a bunch of cowards and traitors, leaving the children in that state!” Mr. Méndez said with a scowl. He seemed to be the oldest of the teachers.

  “We can’t count on them, dear. We should organize things ourselves,” his wife answered.

  I left my glass on the metal table and looked out at the ocean, feeling relaxed for the first time. Manuel smiled at me from the other side of the table.

  “Surely it will be better in Mexico,” Mrs. Loreto continued. “President Cárdenas is seeing to things himself.”

  “Why are they taking us to Mexico?” I dared to ask.

  “Well, the Ibero-American Committee for Aid to the Spanish Peoples wanted to get as many children away from the conflict as possible. Many youngsters have gone to Holland, Belgium, Russia, England, and France, but it’s safer to take you to the Americas. Things in Europe are going to get very ugly,” Mr. Méndez explained.

  “I see.” Even so, I would’ve preferred another country in Europe so I didn’t have to go so far away from my parents.

  “They wanted to host five hundred in Mexico, but given the haste and the fact that several parents backed out at the last minute, there are about 460 of you. President Cárdenas’s wife was insistent that he get you all out of Spain as soon as possible. They say that Amalia Solórzano is a champion advocate for children,” Mrs. Méndez said.

  “Carmela Gil de Vázquez and Matilde Rodríguez Cabo de Múgica are also on that committee,” her husband added.

  “Where are we going to stay?” I asked.

  “They haven’t given us many details,” Mrs. Loreto answered. “I imagine they’ve prepared boardinghouses. What they have assured us is that they’ll keep you all together.”

  “Will they divide us up again, boys and girls?” I didn’t want my sisters to be alone. I couldn’t protect them without being near them.

  “I’m afraid so. Mexicans are very conservative and won’t allow boys and girls to be mixed.”

  We finished our refreshments and took a walk around the first-class deck. Some passengers looked at us with an evident mixture of curiosity and disdain. Our clothes were in poor condition, though we didn’t care. We were still young enough not to understand all that class differences entailed or worry much about what others
might be thinking. When we got tired of wandering about, we went back to our deck.

  Walking along one of the side passages near the lifeboats, we heard shouting. We looked all around, but no one else was visible in that part of the boat. We kept walking and heard the shouting again. We got close to one of the lifeboats and confirmed that the voices were coming from inside. It was covered with canvas, but Manuel lifted one side, and we discovered a sailor on top of one of the girls from our group. The girl with blonde braids was kicking and shrieking. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old.

  “What are you doing to her?” I shouted at the sailor and climbed inside the boat.

  The sailor turned and glared at us, growling, “This is none of your business!”

  Manuel joined me and started kicking the man. The sailor got up with his pants half unbuttoned and shoved me. I felt a sharp pain in my side. Then the sailor jumped out of the boat and ran off. The girl’s eyes were full of tears. She straightened her clothes, and we helped her down from the boat.

  “Are you all right?” we kept asking.

  She nodded, and we took her back to the rest of the girls. She couldn’t stop crying. Isabel came over to us while Ana was playing with some friends.

  “What’s happened?” Isabel asked when she saw the girl crying.

  “Well, somebody tried to hurt her. The girls better not walk around alone on the deck.”

  Isabel went to the girl and gently asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Carmen,” the girl choked out.

  “Here, come with me,” said Isabel, who put her arm around Carmen’s waist.

  Another girl came up too. I had noticed her before, but we hadn’t spoken.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m Mercedes. It’s nice to know at least someone’s looking out for us.”

  I blushed, smiled, and then turned to leave. As we returned to the boys’ area, I started feeling sick again.

  “You okay?” Manuel asked.

  My side hurt so badly. I reached under my shirt to touch the spot, and my fingers were dotted with blood when I pulled them out. I felt woozy at the sight. Manuel supported me all the way back to our cabin, and after I fell into my bed, I lost consciousness. Three days later, I awoke.

  Chapter 16

  Havana

  Atlantic Ocean

  May 30, 1937

  I remember very little, but Isabel and Manuel told me that I had been delirious and sweating with a high fever. They had given me lemon water and tried to lower the fever with damp cloths. None of the adults had helped them. Apparently our lives were not very valuable. On the third day, I woke up with fierce hunger and thirst, and my body was terribly sore. I was pale and had rings around my eyes that made me look like a ghost. They brought me milk and biscuits so I could regain my strength slowly. I wanted to get out of bed and get up on deck because I needed fresh air on my face to convince me I was still alive. Supported by my sister and my friend, I struggled up the stairs. When we got on deck, I gasped with greed to take as much of the aroma of sea and freedom into my lungs as possible. I sat on a bench and enjoyed the warm, blue sky. The climate grew more and more temperate the closer we got to the equator.

  “They’ve told us we’ll be in Cuba in just a few days. There’s a layover there to restock supplies. From there we’ll sail to Mexico,” Manuel said, trying to lift my spirits.

  The rise and fall of the boat now affected me even more than before. I forced a smile. “Despite all the awful things we’ve gone through, this trip really is an adventure.”

  “We’re going to the land of pirates! Ahoy!” Manuel jumped up and sliced the air with an imaginary sword, then drove his pretend enemy overboard.

  I smiled again and asked, “How’s the girl?”

  “You mean Carmen?” Isabel asked. I nodded, and she pursed her lips in exasperation. “Nobody’s even tried to find the sailor who attacked her.”

  “Did you tell Genaro?”

  “The only thing he cares about is money,” Isabel said. She stood and walked to the railing.

  “What’s eating her?” I asked Manuel. Before this trip, my sister was always happy and upbeat.

  “She’s scared. None of the girls dare go around by themselves. We have to go with them, or they have to stick together to even walk around. She’s been a nervous wreck with you being so sick. Your fever just wouldn’t break, and she was scared you’d, you know . . . She couldn’t bear to think what life would be like if it was just her and Ana. Think about it. She’s lost her mom and dad, and now you and Ana are all she’s got.”

  Up to that point I’d been too preoccupied with how I felt to think too much about what my sisters might be feeling. Part of me thought they were too young to really understand our circumstances. Clearly, I was wrong. Isabel would soon be a young woman, and Ana was more mature than she seemed.

  “And there’s something else.”

  I looked quickly at Manuel. How could things have changed so fast in the few days I’d been sick? “What is it?” I demanded.

  “We’ve gotten to know a French sailor named Marcel. He told us the captain thinks a hurricane might be headed our way.”

  “A hurricane? What the devil is that?” I asked, more intrigued than worried.

  “It’s a kind of storm. Some boats can’t survive a hurricane and wind up at the bottom of the ocean. Apparently hurricanes are common in the Caribbean Sea. Most travel inland and destroy everything in their path, but it looks like this one is headed toward us. That’s why the wind is so strong. Look,” he said, pointing to the sky.

  Though the sun was shining, in the distance we could see foreboding dark-gray clouds.

  “Marcel told us the boat doesn’t have enough life vests or lifeboats for everyone. If the Mexique goes nose up, we’ll go down with it.”

  His words caused a different kind of tremor in me than what I’d experienced the past few days. I could barely swim. Like most of the kids traveling with us, I’d never experienced a storm at sea. Goosebumps spread over my whole body.

  “When will it reach us?” I asked.

  “Tonight maybe, but it’s hard to say. If the hurricane doesn’t hit us full force, we may have a chance. But if we’re right in the middle of its path, the boat won’t hold up.” Manuel was matter-of-fact in his delivery of this devastating news.

  I struggled to get up and lurched toward Isabel. I put my arm around her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “I’m fine now. Don’t worry, nothing on earth can pull us apart. We’ll get back to Spain, and we’ll find our parents. The war can’t last forever.”

  “Did Manuel tell you about the hurricane?” she asked. I could hear the fear collecting in her throat.

  “Yes. But up to now we’ve managed to beat all the odds, and we’ll get through this as well. We’ll look for life vests, and we’ll be ready when the storm arrives.”

  The three of us searched for life jackets in the lifeboats but came up empty-handed. Then we looked along the stern but had no luck. We were headed back to the cabins when we ran into one of the teachers.

  “What are you doing on deck?” Doña María Jesús asked. “A big storm is coming. You’d better head back to your cabins.”

  “We don’t have life jackets,” I said.

  “You won’t need them. The storm won’t last long.”

  Yet her words failed to comfort me. She must have read it in my face because she asked us to follow her. She took us to a locked room and searched among the boxes and stacks of things stored there. We were surprised to see food, clothing, and other things that should’ve belonged to our group. She found two life jackets and handed them to us. “These are the last two. Guard them with your lives.”

  Manuel and I went back to our cabin and gathered up a few things, then went to join Ana and the other girls. I didn’t want to be away from my sisters at a time like this.

  An hour later, the boat began to toss. At first it just felt like being on a Ferris wheel, but littl
e by little, the ship started moving with violence. We tried to hold ourselves steady by grabbing on to the beds and tables that were attached to the floor, but even so we ended up falling all over one another. Ana began to scream. I put my arms around her and tried to calm her, but she was a nervous wreck, shaking and crying uncontrollably.

  “Calm down. It’s going to be okay,” I kept saying.

  We could hear screams in the hallway and the banging of things hitting the metal walls. The waves were beating against the ship, and it seemed everything would crack open at any moment.

  Half an hour later, the ocean’s force grew. Most of the boys with us had thrown up, and several were bruised from objects that had fallen and hit them. Ana broke out of my arms and ran toward the hallway. Right then, the lights went out, and I had to follow her by feeling my way along the walls.

  “Ana, please, come back!” I yelled, hoping she would return. Yet panic had overpowered her, and she had fled to the deck, not realizing it was the most dangerous place for her to go.

  By the time I caught up to her, she was already at the door that led to the deck. I tried to grab her, but she slipped away. As soon as I got outside, the salty water that was strangely warm hit me square in the face. When I opened my eyes again, I wished I hadn’t. The sky was black as midnight, and the rain was falling in impenetrable sheets. It was like walking through endless curtains that wouldn’t let me see more than an inch ahead. The deck was nearly flooded, and the boat moved so violently I crouched down to crawl along the floor. One strong lurch threw me against the railing and pinned me there while I watched with terror as the waves devoured everything. I managed to pry myself away and grab hold of a wall. From there, I could hear screams above the roar of the storm. Ana stood at the deck railing, her hands clutching the rusty metal rails and screaming. If a wave broke on that side, it would swallow her like that whale in the Bible that swallowed someone. I tried to reach for her, but each time the boat turned and threw me backward again. Finally I lunged toward the railing and grabbed it. I made my way toward her, hand over hand. Ana sobbed, and her body shook as her fingers slowly lost their grip on the rail. I grabbed her by the wrists just as she let go. She looked at me in sheer panic and shut her mouth, paralyzed with fear.