The German Girl

by Armando Lucas Correa

  The atmosphere remained calm. The captain and the passenger committee had made sure of that, feeling responsible for these 936 wandering souls.

  Walter and Kurt were unable to contain their glee, pointing out all the outlandish costumes. Leo was still in conspirator mode, analyzing every gesture of the couples on the dance floor.

  The guests were like spirits as they milled around beneath the glittering candelabra bedecked with garlands intended to create a false sense of gaiety. From our observation post, the ballroom, which before had so impressed me with its majesty, now appeared little more than a shabby stage set. I could see plaster moldings based on some French palace or other, clumsy copies of bucolic scenes in elaborate gilt frames, paneling in noble woods, bronze sphinx wall lamps, frosted glass mirrors. A fantasy on the ocean. “Cheap luxury,” Mama would have said.

  Ines looked sad, waiting for a suitor who would never appear. She was wearing a fake diamond tiara and a tulle-and-lace gown that seemed as if it were made from cheap cotton. She had come as a princess without a throne and haughtily greeted her subjects: three girls dressed in sky blue, each with a white rose at her neckline and diamond earrings. Ines saw us watching them from above and nodded.

  Walter and Kurt almost clapped when they saw a man burst into the room wearing heavy makeup. His cheeks were red, his eyebrows outlined in black, and his eyelids covered in bright-blue eye shadow. He had on a white tuxedo draped in a dramatic red velvet cape, and on his head was a golden crown ringed with laurel leaves.

  A tall lady who was traveling alone was wearing a black sequined gown with wide sheer sleeves sprinkled with stars. A pearl tiara with an enormous feather completed her attire, while her bright-scarlet lips and dark lines under her eyes gave her an ominous look. She was half hidden behind an enormous ostrich-feather fan as she crossed the ballroom, where by now it was almost impossible to move.

  “It’s the queen of the night!” Kurt whooped.

  “No, she’s a vampire!” Walter corrected him, and we all laughed.

  The most common costumes were pirates, a pair of young men dressed as sailors, and there were also several Greek goddesses draped in gowns with one shoulder bare.

  As the noise increased, we could still hear the clink of glasses filled with intoxicating bubbles. In the space between the double staircase leading down to the dance floor, the orchestra began to play some nostalgic German tunes that darkened everyone’s mood. We wouldn’t be allowed to forget.

  Then the orchestra paused, and there was a brief silence. Two trumpeters came to the front and started playing the tune that—for me, at least—belonged to us. Leo glanced at me: he recognized it as well. As the first notes of “Moonlight Serenade” sounded, I saw Papa enter the room in his made-to-order tuxedo. He ushered in the Goddess, who was wearing a black lace gown split halfway down, and with a train behind. Both were wearing black velvet masks, Mama’s decorated with feathers and rhinestones.

  They descended the staircase slowly, to the sounds of an orchestra trying hard to imitate Glenn Miller. Everyone stopped to admire the triumphant entry of the Rosenthals: if they had come to the ball, there couldn’t be any problems. We would disembark without a hitch in the longed-for port of Havana. That was the message the captain wanted the Rosenthals to transmit to the disheartened passengers. But with things as they stood, not even the band’s joyful music, or the brightly colored fancy dress, or my parents’ air of distinction, could have lifted the gloomy atmosphere of the ball.

  Concealed behind his mask, Papa looked like the hero of some cheap melodrama. Mama, frozen-faced, was trying in vain to smile. She seemed to be saying to him: “You’ve forced me to come, so here I am, but don’t expect me to enjoy it.”

  The couples came together again to the strains of “Moonlight Serenade.” Papa led Mama to the center of the room. She let her head droop gently onto his shoulder while he took short steps like someone dancing a waltz without following the rhythm: he didn’t know this new music.

  As they twirled around, Papa nodded to several of the men. Mama ignored them and avoided any eye contact.

  Twelve days, that’s all our happiness had lasted.

  I had to leave. This was the moment for me to search the cabin.

  26 MAY 1939

  ANCHOR IN ROADSTEAD. DO NOT REPEAT NOT MAKE ANY ATTEMPT COME ALONGSIDE.

  Cable from the Hamburg-Amerika Line office in Cuba

  Saturday, 27 May

  This was the day we were scheduled to disembark in Havana. Many on board were waiting to be reunited with family members who had already relocated to Cuba; others to go to their homes or find lodgings in a hotel. They hoped to settle on the island, learn Spanish, set up businesses. A lot of them planned to live there for only a few months, waiting to travel to Ellis Island, the entrance to New York, their final destination.

  In Havana, we could create more families, and the island would slowly fill with the impure. But even though we intended to find homes and jobs there, we would always be on alert, because the Ogres had long tentacles, and who knew whether one day they would stretch as far as the Caribbean.

  The destiny of the 936 souls aboard the St. Louis was now in the hands of one man. Who knew whether, depending on his mood when he got out of bed, he would say yes or no. The president of Cuba might prohibit us from docking and expel us from his territorial waters like stinking rats. Then we would be returned to the land of the Ogres, where we would be sent to prison and have to greet our premature, inescapable deaths.

  I was already awake at four in the morning when the ship’s horn announced we were coming into the harbor. I had been looking for the capsules for the past two days, and could sleep only a couple of hours a night. I turned Mama’s room upside down, and then I had to put everything back very carefully. I found nothing. Leo came to the conclusion that Papa had concealed them in the soles of his shoes.

  Walter and Kurt were convinced that we would finally be allowed to disembark, but Leo was doubtful. As for me, I didn’t know what to expect.

  All the passengers had brought their luggage out into the corridors; it was almost impossible to navigate without tripping. There were no suitcases outside ours, though, and that worried me. Between the blasts of the ship’s horn came the call to breakfast. This routine seemed to suggest that the problems had been resolved, although in our cabin uncertainty still reigned. My parents had not packed anything. They appeared convinced we wouldn’t be getting off the ship.

  Breakfast was a rapid affair. Everybody was very excited, and the children rushed up and down. The passengers were dressed to the nines. Not me. I was comfortable in my blouse and shorts: the heat and humidity were unbearable!

  “Just you wait till the summer months. You won’t be able to stand it,” Leo said to encourage me. Just like him.

  He knew I would read between the lines: if it was going to be so dreadfully hot in the future, that meant we were going to land. He sat down on the floor beside me, and so did Walter and Kurt. There was no room left at the tables.

  “Everything has been settled,” Kurt told us. “My father says that newspapers all over the world are reporting what is happening to us.”

  That meant nothing to me. Newspapers didn’t win battles.

  A Cuban doctor had come on board. They were going to check us all, and so we had to stay in the dining room. Who knew what they were looking for. I left my friends to their breakfasts and ran to warn Mama.

  I got there as quickly as I could, stepping around all the suitcases, and opened the door to our cabin without knocking. They were both dressed, ready to go for their medical checkups. Mama was in one corner, protecting herself in the shadows. Her face was so pale it frightened me. Papa came over.

  “Stay with your mother. The captain is expecting me.”

  His voice was not as gentle as usual. This was an order. I wasn’t his little girl anymore.

  I hugged Mama, but she pushed me away. Then she apologized, smiled, and began to push locks of my
hair behind my ears. She didn’t look at me. We sat there together, waiting for more orders from Papa.

  The ship was anchored in the port but still rocked to and fro.

  “I’m going to lie down for a while,” said Mama, pushing me aside gently and going to her bed.

  After she was back among her pillows, I returned to the dining room. Leo found me and was holding something oozing a sticky yellow liquid. A fruit.

  “You have to try this.”

  Cuban pineapples had been loaded on board. I bit into a small piece; it was delicious, although it made my mouth sting afterward.

  “First you chew to get the juice out, then you spit it out,” said Walter, instructing the ignorant.

  Now that we were in the tropics, our palates were discovering the shock of Cuban fruits.

  “A ship left Hamburg today bound for Havana and had to change course when it was told the Cuban government wouldn’t let its passengers land,” said Leo, who always found out the latest news.

  I could not see that this had any bearing on our situation. Perhaps they diverted the ship because, with us already here, they could not process so many passengers. Luckily, all of us on the St. Louis had landing permits signed and authorized by Cuba, and many even had visas for Canada and the United States, as did my family. We were on the waiting list and would stay only a short while, in transit. This would reassure the authorities. Everything would be all right.

  That was my hope: there was no reason for me to think otherwise. Of course everything would be all right.

  We went out on deck, where the smells of Cuba wafted to us on the breeze: a sweet mixture of salt and gasoline.

  “Look at the coconut palms, Hannah!” All at once, Leo was a wide-eyed little boy, spellbound by the discovery of a new place.

  As the sun came up, we could make out the majestic buildings on the Havana skyline. We saw a first group of three men, and then four more joining them on the shore. Now there were ten people running to the dock. We’re here! They can’t send us back now! My friends and I started jumping and shouting. Leo danced a comical jig.

  Family members of many of the St. Louis’s passengers soon heard of our arrival, and within a few hours the port was teeming with people.

  Small boats crammed with desperate relatives began heading toward us, although they were forced to stay at a safe distance from our quarantined ship. The coast guard had surrounded us like criminals.

  We were told through the loudspeakers to have our documents ready. They were going to check the validity of our landing permits, together with other visas.

  Walter arrived at a run. As soon as he got his breath back, he exploded:

  “They’re demanding a bond of five hundred Cuban pesos per passenger as a guarantee,” he said, repeating what he had overheard from his parents.

  “How much is that?” I asked.

  “About five hundred American dollars. That’s impossible.” Leo always had a head for figures.

  We had spent what little cash we had left in Germany buying valuable objects we could resell in Cuba.

  “This is such a dreadful circus,” said a lady in a white sun hat next to us. “Dreadful,” she insisted, as though hoping somebody would hear and react.

  There had to be a solution. The captain would not allow them to send us back. He was on our side; he wasn’t an Ogre.

  I peered at the long waterfront avenue and somehow could not imagine myself ever setting foot on it with Leo and my family.

  It Is Hoped That the Problem of the Hebrews Arriving from European Ports Will Be Resolved Today

  Diario de la Marina, Havana newspaper

  28 May 1939

  Tuesday, 30 May

  There are moments when it is better to accept it’s all over, that there’s nothing more to be done. Give up and abandon hope: surrender. That’s how I felt by then. I didn’t believe in miracles. This had happened to us because we insisted on changing a destiny that was already written. We didn’t have any rights, we couldn’t reinvent history. We were condemned to be deceived from the moment we came into the world.

  If Leo stays on this ship, so will I. If Papa stays, so will Mama.

  Until then, they had only allowed two Cubans and four Spaniards to leave the ship. We’d never seen them on the trip across the Atlantic. They kept to themselves, never speaking to anyone.

  If the process of checking our documents continued at that rate, and they let another six people disembark each time, we would have been there more than three months. By then, the swaying of the ship would have finished me off completely.

  Through the porthole, Havana looked hazy, small, unreachable, like an old postcard left behind by some visiting tourist. But I kept the glass closed because I didn’t want to hear the shouts from the relatives swarming around the St. Louis in decrepit wooden launches that a wave could capsize. Surnames and first names flew from the decks of our huge liner anchored in the harbor to the frail, hesitant craft below. Köppel, Karliner, Edelstein, Ball, Richter, Velmann, Münz, Leyser, Jordan, Wachtel, Goldbaum, Siegel. Everyone was searching for someone, but nobody found anybody. I didn’t want to hear any more names, but they kept coming back. Neither Leo nor I had anyone to shout our names. Nobody was coming to save us.

  On the waterfront avenue, I could see cars speeding along as though nothing were happening: to them, this was just another ship with foreigners on it, who for some reason or other were insisting on settling on an island where work was scarce and the sun destroyed all willpower.

  Someone knocked at our door. As always, I shivered: perhaps they had come for Papa. The Ogres were everywhere, even on this island that my mind still could not accept as being part of our future.

  Mr. and Mrs. Moser had come to see us. I said hello, and Mrs. Moser, who was bathed in sweat, hugged me. I could see they were on the verge of bursting into tears. Mr. Moser looked haggard, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “He prefers to die,” Mrs. Moser explained passionately. “He wants to throw himself into the sea. But what about us? What would happen to my three children? We have no home, no money, no country.”

  My parents listened to them calmly. Mama stood up and steered Mr. Moser toward a chair, where he bent forward and hid his head in his hands out of shame. Mama felt great pity for this man: not so much for what he was suffering but because she could see that he and his wife believed that the powerful Rosenthals could help them somehow.

  “I can’t leave him on his own,” Mrs. Moser continued. “He wants to cut his veins, throw himself into the sea, hang himself in our cabin . . .”

  Apparently she had caught him in all his attempts at a premature good-bye. It seemed written on his forehead: it could be today or tomorrow, but it would happen.

  I thought that Mr. Moser might not actually want to commit suicide, though he was gambling with his destiny. If somebody wants to kill himself, he does. It’s easy, if you really mean to do it. You leap into the void or slash your wrists while the others are asleep.

  “Even though our hands are tied,” Papa began, trying to calm down the anguished Mosers, “we’ll find a solution.”

  In a split second, he had become the professor again: the one who could convince, who held the truth in his hands. Mr. Moser raised his head, dried his tears, and concentrated as hard as he could on the person they all saw as the most influential passenger on the St. Louis. Only he could alter the fate of the more than nine hundred passengers. He and the captain.

  “We ought to write to the presidents of Cuba, the United States, and Canada, on behalf of the women and children on board,” Papa continued.

  Mr. and Mrs. Moser smiled timidly, and their faces lit up slowly: they could glimpse their salvation and, for the first time in many days, felt there might be a reason for carrying on.

  I thought they had all lost their wits. By then, no one on board seemed in his or her right mind. What difference would a letter make? The presidents wouldn’t give a damn about where we ended up. No one
wanted to take on our problems. No one wanted Germany as an enemy. What sense would it make to allow all these impure people into their countries, those paradises of harmony and well-being?

  Our first big mistake had been to set sail from Hamburg. During all the days of the crossing, we had been living on nothing more than pathetic illusions. I didn’t believe in fantasies or in an unreal world. That’s why I always loathed my macabre dolls, so unresponsive and always staring at me, demanding to know why I didn’t want to play with them when they were so splendid, so perfect and blond, so highly prized.

  Mr. Moser’s lifetime savings had vanished in the purchase of the landing permits for Cuba and in the passages for himself and his family on the St. Louis, and yet now he seemed to recover his faith just from listening to Papa. This encouraged him to launch into a description of his own particular drama, as though they were the only outcasts on board.

  “We lost everything. My brother is waiting for us in Havana, where he’s bought a house. If they send us back, we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. What’s going to happen to our three children? If we write to the Cuban president, I’m sure his heart will soften.”

  Hearing him sound so hopeful, his wife must have thought that the danger had passed. That the father of her children would no longer want to take a life that had once been so prized. They would all go back to their cabin, where she would make their beds. Tonight she could sleep soundly; she had even begun to breathe more calmly.

  But that family’s destiny was already written: from the moment I saw Mr. Moser leave our cabin, head down and happy, I knew what was going to happen. I lay on my bed and closed my eyes. My head began to spin endlessly, not allowing me to sleep.

  First of all, Mrs. Moser would put the children to bed, sing them a lullaby, tuck them in, and give them good-night kisses. Moved by the sight of them, she would enjoy the soft breathing of these innocents, and then withdraw to rest alongside the man she had always trusted and with whom she had chosen to make a family. The man for whom she’d left her village, abandoning her parents, brothers, and sisters to take on an unknown name. She would fall asleep next to him, just as in the prosperous times.