The Price of Escape

by David Unger

  When Samuel finished dressing, he entered the dining room with the towel in his hand just as the servant appeared with two cups of coffee and a small basket of sweet rolls on a tray.

  “Put the tray down on the table,” Lewis told him. “I want you to wash the shirt in the sink before you polish my trophies.”

  “Sí, Señor Lewis.”

  “You know where to hang it to dry?”

  “Sí, by the smokestack.”

  “Below it, below it, cabrón, or it’ll stink of kerosene,” Lewis said, slapping the boy on the head.

  The servant touched his head, bowed, and left.

  “Sit down, Berkow. Grab a bite. You hardly ate last night. And sorry to have snapped like that, but you should really know better. You’re nearly my age, Berkow, not some dumb kid.”

  “You don’t need to tell me, Mr. Lewis. I was raised with maids and butlers.”

  “Well, that’s all good and well, Berkow. I’m happy to know you had a comfy life in Krautland. But here, let my boys do their jobs. Let’s sit down before the coffee’s cold.”

  Samuel noticed he still had the towel in his hand. He looked around, then started back toward the bathroom.

  Lewis stopped him. “Dump it on the floor.”

  Fortunately for Samuel, Lewis had a backlog of work to do before coming to port in Guatemala and he stayed at his desk in his room. Samuel spent the morning inspecting Lewis’s gadgets and trophies in the dining room, none of which made much sense to him. Samuel wasn’t mechanically or nautically inclined, and he knew nothing about bowling or other sports.

  Later, he went back to his own room, clipped and filed his nails, and repacked his one suit back in his valise. He took a cold shower in the bathroom, but after a lifetime of cold showers, the tepid water that dripped out of the shower head was hardly bracing. Samuel shaved, put on cologne, and then donned a pair of slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt—he realized he had only brought long-sleeved shirts.

  Despite Lewis’s friendly advances, Samuel didn’t trust him. Twice already he had seen his cheerful surface shatter into fitful rages. He believed that the American cared for his company, but was there an ulterior motive? Was he being overly suspicious? Maybe it was a good idea to keep his true thoughts in check and not reveal anything else—Lewis knowing he was Jewish was more than enough and could have gotten him stoned or killed in Germany. In any case, Lewis was all too happy to prattle on, especially when the liquor loosened his tongue, and Samuel had sensed that there was an advantage to the man’s acceptance of silence as wholehearted agreement. Maybe he could escape with frequent nods, playing the role of devoted or compliant apprentice. That’s it—he would make sure that Lewis saw him as the novice, desperately in need of guidance. It would be all too foolish to dismiss Lewis’s friendship—offered so openly—especially without knowing what snares awaited him in Puerto Barrios.

  Samuel had had his fill of feasting, waltzing, singing, and crude comedians on Das Bauernbrot, which in truth he had witnessed more than partaken of. The ten-day journey from Hamburg had been a bizarre celebration, as if the three hundred passengers on the Hamburg-Amerika line had no idea that war was raging in Europe and Jews were being transported by the trainload to concentration camps. Thanks to his Uncle Jacob, his own mother had managed to escape Hamburg on the St. Louis one month earlier, and though the ship was turned back in Cuba and Miami, eventually she had made it to asylum in Rotterdam. Samuel wished that his mother had made it to Great Britain, a land he had learned to love after he had been interned in a prisoner-of-war camp during the war, but at least in the Netherlands her German would be understood.

  His father was dead, but his mother was safe, and their son was heading to the New World.

  The skipper steered close to shore on his northward path, sometimes snaking between islands. More than ever, Samuel wanted to be as peaceful as the serene water that stretched all around the Chicacao. Whenever an upsetting thought or image came to mind, he would take a deep breath of salty air and everything would be fine. Though he could only see a blur of fronds and leaves on the shoreline, and an occasional series of wooden shacks, some of them on stilts, he felt comforted to be so near to land and to be able to say, There, there it is. Whatever he would find there would be better than the burning of Jewish homes, businesses, and houses of worship in Germany—the seizure of property, the expulsion to forced labor camps, the beatings, the rapes, the theft of millions of deutsche marks. And when the Chicacao dropped anchor near a fishing village, Samuel was shaking with happiness, despite the sweltering heat—Puerto Barrios didn’t look bad at all—but it was false elation. The Chicacao only waited for a tender to bring out some packages and Company mail. The stop was momentary, and then the steamer sped off past reefs that shimmered their elkhorn and fire corals like amber necklaces under the clear water.

  The Chicacao made good progress in the calm August weather, and by sunset it entered Amatique Bay. The breeze died down once the engine was lowered and the steamer glided over the water. The last rays of sunlight were oblique, turning the bay waters milky green. As the ship edged toward land, the shores to the left and right settled like welcoming arms around it. Off in the distance Samuel could see larger ships, many tin-roofed buildings, and a half dozen coils of burning gas and oil spiraling smoke into the sky. As if his pleasure boat were coming to the end of its Danube River journey in Vienna or Budapest, Samuel felt compelled to go downstairs and put on his best suit. As his father had always said to him, since he was a child: Always dress for the occasion—arrivals in new towns are such occasions.

  He grabbed his suitcase and dragged it upstairs—he was sure that Alfred Lewis would scold him for handling it himself—and waited by the railing of the prow. The twilight air was heavy; he could feel the sweat pouring out of his body. No matter, he smiled outwardly, pleased by the prospect of finally being on land. Still, he felt a persistent anxiety. What if the New World wasn’t that different?

  The Puerto Barrios harbor was protected on three sides by land and had a single wooden pier that extended four hundred yards from the shore into the deeper water. The steamer’s engine was switched off—a backwash of waves swirled about the prow—and the boat coasted over the weedy water to the pier. Three ships were anchored in the bay. Samuel shivered as he recognized the red and black German flag hanging limply above one of them; were the Nazis everywhere?

  The Chicacao drifted toward its mooring on the pier. Samuel scanned the steamer for Lewis, but he was still nowhere to be seen. Three of the crew members, Lincoln Douglas among them, stood across the deck laughing and waving to the hands on a small steamer that chugged out of the harbor. Samuel broke into a sweat. A cuchuchito bird cawed out, sounding like a small dog barking. The putrid smell of the harbor reached into his nostrils, almost making him gag. Fireflies flashed in the darkening night.

  Samuel stuck a finger under his collar and scratched his neck. How had he imagined Puerto Barrios? Tropical gardens? A British club with tennis courts and an eight-hole putting green, giant villas, smiling people wearing khaki shorts? Or had he expected endless sandy beaches, girls with hibiscus flowers pinned to their hair paddling out in canoes to welcome him ashore? Ukuleles? Sweet pineapples? A welcome committee and a band?

  Straining his eyes, he saw a range of rickety houses rising on wooden stilts and stone pilings extending along a marshy beach, plantain and banana groves cropping up to the shore, a few rusting buildings on the verge of being swallowed up by dense vegetation. Instead of soft breezes, gas fumes started to burn his throat and eyes. He looked up—turkey vultures, flashing their silver-tipped wings sharp as stilettos, wheeled in the darkening sky. All of a sudden huge horseflies buzzed in Samuel’s ears, circled his exposed neck and hands, looking for a spot to crash land.

  As the steamer reached its berth on the pier, Samuel saw a crew of stevedores loading bananas onto a dockside ship, their black bodies glistening, working tirelessly like oiled pistons. Yes, the shacks, the workme
n, the grunting sounds were not part of a king’s welcome. Even the few windwhipped coconuts he saw seemed to be shaking their heads at him. So this is Guatemala, Samuel shuddered, not a tropical paradise—Lewis had warned him to lower his expectations, and he was right. He’d have to begin adjusting to the landscape.

  Still, Samuel felt he had no right to complain—that would be a travesty. He had made it out of Hamburg, by the skin of his teeth, thanks to his uncle’s willingness to bribe a few German officials. Back in Europe, his fellow Jews were being picked up, beaten, shipped out to labor camps in the frigid fields of Eastern Europe, at the same time that Hitler was showing the world that few countries were willing to accept deported Jews, especially from Poland.

  Samuel pounded the railing of the ship, as if finally waking up: he was, after all, a refugee, not a vacationing tourist returning from an afternoon cruise on the Elbe.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As soon as the gangplank touched down, a swarm of barefoot kids raced and tugged their way up to the freighter’s deck carrying glazed figs and guavas. Several of them crowded around Samuel and spoke to him in English.

  “Shoe shine? Real cheap!”

  “Don’t listen to him, mister. He doesn’t even use shoe polish.”

  “Taxi, señor? The only one in town! Good service!”

  Meanwhile, the crew secured the Chicacao to the dock pilings. When they finished, they bunched together and began eating the fruit they had just bought. They snorted and laughed, quite amused to watch Samuel trying to fend off the children with his umbrella.

  “Please, leave me alone.” Samuel needed silence to navigate his arrival in Puerto Barrios—he wished he could muzzle the kids so that his arrival could be more gracious.

  A boy with stumpy arms pulled on his coat. “Hey, mister. Money for my sick sister?”

  “He has no sisters! He’s a bastard.”

  “You like black women? I take you to Livingston.”

  “Scat! Shoo!” Samuel snapped, spinning away from them.

  “Scat, shoo!” mimicked a thin boy, older than the others, with a hint of a mustache on his upper lip. “He must think we’re flies!”

  “At least you, Guayo,” teased a shrunken boy with a protruding lower jaw.

  “Shut up, garbage mouth, before I pull your lips off,” Guayo said, pushing the smaller boy to the ground. “You’re nothing but a flea.”

  “At least I’m a flea with a brain.”

  “Yes, flea brain!”

  The two boys started chasing each other around Samuel who simply put down his valise and sat on it. The boy named Guayo grabbed the homburg off his head.

  “Look what I got! Look what I got!” He threw the hat in the air and the other kids ran after it. Samuel made a vague effort to stand up. “I beg of you.”

  “Hey, get away! Leave that man alone or I’ll beat the crap out of you!” thundered a voice from the shadows. Suddenly, all the movement on the deck stopped. Samuel’s homburg was dropped on the wooden floor. Lewis came into view, and the kids scampered off the boat yelping and howling. He had an alligator skin bag slung over his shoulder and a double-barreled shotgun in his hand. He was shaking his head. “These kids,” he fumed, “they have nothing to do but fool around. I’d like to crack their skulls!”

  “Thank you …” Samuel began. He went over to his hat, picked it up, dusted it, and pressed it back on his head. He walked over to where Lewis stood and extended his hand.

  Lewis waved him away. “Forget it, Berkow. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  “No, I’m fine. It’s all so new to me.” He was embarrassed to say that he had expected to be welcomed by his cousin Heinrich or some consular official, as he would’ve been in Europe. “To be honest, I don’t know what I was expecting.”

  “Nobody ever knows what’s around the next turn,” Lewis said. “And here it’s a bit worse. I told you that Barrios is a shithole—but it’s where you are now. You’ve got to get with it, Sammy boy, get ahold of yourself. Say, where you staying?”

  “Any decent hotel will do.”

  “Whoa, now you’re asking for a blue moon!” Lewis touched his chin with the butt of his rifle. “There’s only one hotel—the International—that’s worth a plug nickel.” He pointed into the darkness. “It’s owned by a German from Cobán—that’s what I’ve been told—but I’ll be damned if he’s ever stepped foot in the place. You can’t miss it, Berkow. It’s straight ahead at the end of the pier, in front of a crappy little park. It looks like one of these southern haciendas that’s been ferried down from some plantation in Louisiana. Any of these scroungers on the dock can take you there. But don’t expect linen tablecloths and porcelain. Like I said, it’s the International, but there’s nothing international about it.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Lewis.” Samuel couldn’t get himself to call him Alf—it felt disrespectful. “I’m grateful for everything. The free ride, the advice—”

  “You’d do the same for me,” Lewis interrupted, as he walked past Samuel. Halfway down the gangway, he turned around. “I’ve got to do some work at the commissariat—send off a few telegrams to the home office in Boston, sign some papers. It should take me a couple of hours. Why don’t I join you for a drink at your hotel, say at eight?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Till later, then. You won’t have any problems if you keep to the path. I’ve got to hurry, Berkow, otherwise I’d bring you to the hotel myself. Toodle-oo.” Waving his hand in the air, he continued down the gangway.

  Without glancing down, Samuel lowered his left hand to pick up his valise. He found himself gripping a shoulder and jumped back.

  “That’s me you’re holding,” said a little man, barely three feet high.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I have a way of sneaking up on people. I’m a licensed tour guide—I’ll take you to your hotel,” he quipped in a precise, deliberate English.

  Samuel surveyed the little man. He barely reached Samuel’s belt, and his eyes seemed to cross at the bridge of his nose. His head comprised over half of his body.

  “Do you know the International?”

  “Of course I do.” He pulled a net bag with a leather head strap from his waist pocket and looped it about Samuel’s suitcase. In one motion, he slipped his granite forehead through the strap and jockeyed the suitcase onto the lump of tight muscle and bone on his back. “Just follow me,” he ordered, tugging on Samuel’s coat. He trundled down the gangplank like a snail carrying an oversized shell.

  Umbrella in hand, Samuel staggered after him, keeping his eyes on his feet so as not to trip on the wooden crossbars. Years ago, he had marched through the frozen terrain in the Hallerbos forest in Belgium with his military gear—compared to that, this should have been a cinch.

  “First time here?” the dwarf asked from under his load.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Samuel, thinking it would be his last. Tomorrow he would be in Guatemala City bringing his shirts to be washed and ironed, his suit pressed.

  “Staying long in Puerto Barrios?”

  “Long enough to take the train to Guatemala City. Do you know when the next one is leaving?”

  “No, wouldn’t know,” the man huffed.

  At the bottom of the gangway, their steps leveled and they walked along the pier stacked with huge wooden cages and green tarpaulin. A crowd rushed toward them till the dwarf shouted something in a language Samuel did not understand.

  Gusts of hot air blew, bringing wafts of grease and fried food to his nostrils—Samuel couldn’t wait to get to his hotel room and change.

  “I want to go first to the train station, please.”

  “Do you, now?” the tiny man said, not slackening his pace.

  Floodlights washed over the pier. About thirty yards from the Chicacao, Samuel and the dwarf passed six or seven Carib men busily working near a huge white freighter docked on the far side of the pier. Wearing no more than rag strips around their waists, they were hoisti
ng four-foot green banana stems onto giant slings. These, in turn, were raised by pulleys onto the loading deck where more stevedores placed the fruit on conveyor belts that dropped them down into the ship’s ventilated hold.

  The tiny man stopped to trade words with a set of workers who were unloading piled bananas from flat railroad cars further along the pier. A well-dressed man with straight black hair and a walnut-sized nose was pointing to piles of yellow bananas, urging a laborer to dump them into the harbor waters with his pitchfork. “These’ll be rotten before the ship makes port,” Samuel heard him say in English.

  Samuel was uneasy. He knew he had entered a new world where his previous experiences meant nothing. In the trenches of war, it had been the same, but he’d always had lieutenants and captains who told the troops what to do. Here, no one would be directing him. He closed his eyes as if that gesture, like a magician’s wand, would somehow erase the world before him. But the droning generator, the one that powered all the lights, mocked his effort like an inner voice. His years as a soldier, a salesman, an export agent, a bank teller, a night clerk at a hotel in Berlin were over. Nothing had prepared him for the floodlights, the abrupt animal screams, the natives working and grunting like galley slaves, the sweat, the filth, this little man who had somehow taken charge of his affairs—

  A scream broke out, electrifying the night.

  “Oh Lord, save me!” howled a man, grabbing his forearm. “The devil’s got me, mon, the devil’s goin’ to take me away!”

  He let go of his arm, slamming his body against a railroad car. A six-inch snake slithered away on the wooden planks, trying to get out of the light. Samuel and the dwarf backed off. In a single motion, the man who had been pitching ripe bananas into the harbor lifted his pitchfork high into the air and jammed it down, piercing the snake. Then the man directing the work crew flung his machete at the snake and lopped off its head. The headless body writhed away.

  The snake-bitten man got up. His face poured sweat; a bubbly froth came out of his mouth. His eyes couldn’t focus, simply rolled around in their sockets. One of his mates ripped off part of his loincloth and tied it just above the bite on the man’s arm.