Refugee

by Alan Gratz

  They finally found the doorway of a travel agency set back from the street, and no one else was sleeping there. They were just settling in when a Turkish police car came down the street. Mahmoud shrank back into the corner, trying to be invisible, but the police car’s lights came on and it beeped its electronic siren at them—blurp-blurp. “You can’t sleep there,” a police officer told them through a loudspeaker. And so they had to get up and walk again.

  Mahmoud was so tired he started to cry, but he did it softly, so his parents wouldn’t hear. He hadn’t cried like this since that first night when the bombs had started to fall on Aleppo.

  Another car came down the road, and at first Mahmoud worried it was another police car. But it was a BMW sedan. On a whim, Mahmoud darted out into the car’s headlights and waved the life jackets on his arms.

  “Mahmoud! No!” his mother cried.

  The BMW slowed, its lights bright in his face. The driver honked at him, and Mahmoud hurried around to the driver’s-side window.

  “Please, can you help us?” Mahmoud begged. “My baby sister—”

  But the car was already shooting away. Another car followed it, and it drove right past Mahmoud.

  “Mahmoud! Get out of the street!” his father called. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

  Mahmoud didn’t care anymore. There had to be someone who would help them. He waved the life jackets at the next car, and miraculously it stopped. It was an old brown Skoda, and the driver rolled the window down by hand. He was an elderly, wrinkled man with a short white beard, and he wore a black-and-white keffiyeh headscarf.

  “Please, can you help us?” Mahmoud asked. “My family and I have nowhere to go, and my sister is only a baby.”

  Dad jogged up and tried to pull Mahmoud away.

  “We’re very sorry,” Mahmoud’s father told the man. “We didn’t mean to bother you. We’ll be on our way.”

  Mahmoud was annoyed. He’d finally gotten somebody to stop, and now his father was trying to send him away!

  “My house is too small for all of you,” the man said, “but I have a little car dealership, and you can stay in the office.” Arabic! Mahmoud was thrilled—the man spoke fluent Arabic.

  “No, no, we couldn’t possibly—” Mahmoud’s father started to say, but Mahmoud cut him off.

  “Yes! Thank you!” Mahmoud cried. He waved his mother over. “He speaks Arabic, and he says he will help us!”

  Dad tried to apologize again and refuse the offer of help, but Mahmoud was already climbing in the backseat with the load of life jackets. Mom got in beside him with Hana, and Mahmoud’s father shifted Waleed in his arms so he could reluctantly sit in the front passenger seat.

  “Mahmoud … ” his father said, unhappy. But Mahmoud didn’t care. They were off their feet, and they were on their way to someplace they could sleep.

  The little Skoda’s gears ground as the man got them underway.

  “My name is Samih Nasseer,” the man told them, and Mahmoud’s father introduced them all.

  “You are Syrian, yes? Refugees?” the man asked. “I know what it’s like. I am a refugee too, from Palestine.”

  Mahmoud frowned. This man was a refugee, and he owned his own car and his own business? “How long have you lived in Turkey?” Mahmoud asked Mr. Nasseer.

  “Sixty-seven years now!” Mr. Nasseer said, smiling at Mahmoud in the rearview mirror. “I was forced to leave my home in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war. They are still fighting there, but someday, when my homeland is restored, I will go home again!”

  Dad’s phone chimed, surprising them all and making Waleed stir. His father read the glowing screen.

  “It’s the smuggler. He says the boat is ready now.”

  Mahmoud had learned not to get excited about these texts, but even so, he still felt a little flutter of hope in his chest.

  “You take a boat to Greece? Tonight?” Mr. Nasseer asked.

  “Maybe,” Mahmoud’s father said. “If it’s there.”

  “I will take you to it,” Mr. Nasseer said, “and if it is not there, you can come back and stay with me.”

  “You’re very kind,” Mom said. Mahmoud didn’t know why, but his mother pulled Mahmoud close and gave him a hug.

  It took very little time for the car to take them back to the beach, and when they pulled to a stop, they were all quiet as they stared.

  This time, finally, a boat was there.

  A day out from Cuba, the St. Louis threw a party. Streamers and balloons hung from the ceiling and decorated the gallery rails of the first-class social hall. Chairs and tables were pushed aside to make room for dancers. There was a feeling of wild relief, as though they were dancing away all the stress of leaving Germany. The stewards smiled with the passengers as though they understood, but none of them could really understand, Josef thought. Not until their shop windows had been smashed and their businesses had been shut down. Not until the newspapers and radio talked about them as subhuman monsters. Not until shadowy men had burst into their homes and smashed up their things and dragged away someone they loved.

  Not until they had been told to leave their homeland and never, ever come back.

  Still, Josef enjoyed the party. He danced with his mother while Ruthie, Renata, and Evelyne ran in and out between people’s legs all evening long. Josef had been nervous about Cuba at first, scared of the unknown, but now he was excited to reach Havana, to start a new life—especially if it was like this.

  Josef’s father stayed hidden away in their cabin the whole night, sure this was all just another Nazi trick.

  The next morning, breakfast in the ship’s dining room was interrupted by the thundering, clanking sound of the anchors being dropped. Josef ran to the window. Dawn had broken, and Josef could see the Malecón, Havana’s famous seaside avenue. The stewards had told them all about its theaters and casinos and restaurants, and the Miramar Hotel, where all the waiters wore tuxedos. But the St. Louis was still a long way off from there. For some reason, the ship had anchored kilometers out from shore.

  “It’s for the medical quarantine,” a doctor from Frankfurt explained to the small crowd who had gathered with Josef at the porthole to look at Cuba. “I saw them run up the yellow flag this morning before breakfast. We just have to be approved by the port’s medical authorities first. Standard procedure.”

  Josef made sure he was on deck when the first boat from the Havana Port Authority reached the St. Louis. The Cuban man who climbed the ladder to C-deck from the launch was deeply tanned and wore a lightweight white suit. Josef watched as Captain Schroeder and the ship’s doctor met the man as he came aboard. The captain swore an oath that none of the passengers was insane, a criminal, or had a contagious disease. That was apparently all that should have been required, because when the port doctor insisted he still be allowed to examine each and every passenger, Captain Schroeder looked angry. He balled his fists and breathed deeply, but he didn’t object. He gave a curt order to the ship’s doctor to assemble the passengers in the social hall and then marched away.

  Josef ran back to his cabin and burst in on his mother packing the last of their things. Ruthie was helping her while Papa lay on the bed.

  “The—the doctor from Cuba—he’s going to make all the passengers—go through a medical examination,” Josef told his mother, still panting from his run. “They’re gathering everybody in the social hall right now.”

  Mama’s shocked look told him she understood. Papa was not well. What if the Cuban doctor said he was too mentally disturbed to be allowed into Havana? Where would they go if Cuba turned them away? What would they do?

  “Gathering us?” Papa said. He looked even more frightened by the prospect than Josef’s mother had. “Like—like a roll call?” He stood up and backed against a wall. “No,” he said. “The things that happened at roll call. The hangings. The floggings. The drownings. The beatings.” He wrapped his arms around himself, and Josef knew his father was talking about that place. Dacha
u. Josef and his mother stood like statues, afraid to break the spell. “Once, I saw another man shot dead with a rifle,” his father whispered. “He was standing right beside me. He was standing right beside me, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound, or I would be next.”

  “It’s not going to be like that, dear heart,” Mama said. She reached out to him, tentatively, gently, and he didn’t flinch under her hand. “You were strong once before, in that place. We just need you to be strong again. And then we’ll be in Cuba. We’ll be safe forever. All of us.”

  It was clear to Josef that his father was still lost in his memories of Dachau as they led him to the social hall. Papa looked frightened. Jittery. It scared Josef when his father got this way, but he was even more scared that the doctor would see Papa’s condition and turn them away.

  Josef and his family joined the other passengers standing in rows, and the doctor walked among them. Papa stood beside Josef, and as the doctor got closer, Josef’s father began to make a low keening sound, like a wounded dog. Papa was starting to attract the attention of the passengers around them. Josef felt a bead of sweat roll down his back underneath his shirt, and Ruthie cried softly.

  “Be strong, my love,” Josef heard his mother whisper to his father. “Be strong, like you were before.”

  “But I wasn’t,” Josef’s father blubbered. “I wasn’t strong. I was just lucky. It could have been me. Should have been me.”

  The Cuban doctor was getting closer. Josef had to do something. But what? His father was inconsolable. The things he said he saw—Josef couldn’t even imagine. His father had only survived by staying quiet. By not drawing attention to himself. But now he was going to get them sent away.

  Suddenly, Josef saw what he had to do. He slapped his father across the face. Hard.

  Papa staggered in surprise, and Josef felt just as shocked as his father looked. Josef couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Six months ago, he would never have even dreamed of striking any adult, let alone his father. Papa would have punished him for such disrespect. But in the past six months, Josef and his father had traded places. Papa was the one acting like a child, and Josef was the adult.

  Mama and Ruthie stared at Josef, stunned, but he ignored them and pulled his father back in line.

  “Do you want the Nazis to catch you? Do you want them to send you back to that place?” Josef hissed at Papa.

  “I— No,” his father said, still dazed.

  “That man there,” Josef whispered, pointing to the doctor, “he’s a Nazi in disguise. He decides who goes back to Dachau. He decides who lives and who dies. If you’re lucky, he won’t choose you. But if you speak, if you move, if you make even the slightest sound, he will pull you out of line. Send you back. Do you understand?”

  Josef’s father nodded urgently. Beside him, Mama put a hand to her mouth and wept, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Now, clean yourself up. Quickly!” Josef told his father.

  Aaron Landau dropped his wife’s hand, dragged his oversized coat sleeve across his face, and stood rigidly at attention, eyes forward.

  Like a prisoner.

  The doctor came down their row, looking at each person in turn. When he got to Papa, Josef held his breath. The doctor looked Josef’s father up and down, then moved on. Josef sagged with relief. They’d made it. His father had passed the doctor’s inspection!

  Josef closed his eyes and fought back tears of his own. He felt terrible for scaring his father like that, for making Papa’s fears worse instead of better. And he felt terrible for taking his father’s place as the man in the family. All Josef’s life, he had looked up to his father. Idolized him. Now it was hard to see him as anything but a broken old man.

  But all that would change when they got off this ship and into Cuba. Then everything would go back to normal. They would find a way to fix his father.

  The Cuban doctor finished his rounds and nodded to the ship’s doctor that he approved the passengers. Josef’s mother wrapped his father in a hug, and Josef felt his heart lift. For the first time all afternoon, he felt hope.

  “Well, that was a sham,” said the man standing in line next to him.

  “What do you mean?” Josef asked.

  “That was no kind of medical inspection. The entire business was a charade. A giant waste of time.”

  Josef didn’t understand. If it wasn’t a proper medical inspection, what had it all been for?

  He understood when he and his family lined up at the ladder on C-deck to leave the ship. The Cuban doctor was gone, and he’d left Cuban police officers behind in his place. They were blocking the only way off the ship.

  “We’ve passed our medicals and we have all the right papers,” a woman passenger said to the police. “When will we be allowed into Havana?”

  “Mañana,” the policeman said in Spanish. “Mañana.”

  Josef didn’t speak Spanish. He didn’t know what mañana meant.

  “Tomorrow,” one of the other passengers translated for them. “Not today. Tomorrow.”

  Isabel hit the water and sank into the warm Gulf Stream. It was pitch-black all around her, and the ocean was alive. Not alive with fish—alive like the ocean was a living creature itself. It churned and roiled and roared with bubbles and foam. It beat at her, pushing her and pulling her like a cat playing with the mouse it was about to eat.

  Isabel fought her way back to the surface and gasped for air.

  “Isabel!” her mother shrieked, her arms stretching out for her. But there was no way her mother could reach her. The boat was already so far away! Isabel panicked. How was it so far away already?

  “We have to get the boat turned!” Isabel heard Luis cry. “If we don’t meet the waves head on, they’ll roll us over!”

  “Dad!” Iván yelled.

  Isabel spun in the water, and a wave slammed into her, filling her mouth and nose with salty water and sweeping her under again. The wave passed and she broke the surface, gagging and choking, but she was already moving toward the place where she had seen Señor Castillo’s head before it went under.

  Her hand struck something in the dark water, and Isabel recoiled until she realized it was Señor Castillo. The sea was tossing him around, but he wasn’t moving on his own, wasn’t fighting to get back out of the water. Isabel took in as much air as she could and dove down beneath an oncoming wave. She found Señor Castillo’s body in the dark, wrapped her arms around him, and kicked as hard as she could for the surface. The ocean fought her, sweeping her legs out from under her and spinning her all around, but Isabel kicked, kicked, kicked until her lungs were about to burst, and at last she exploded up into the cold air, gasping.

  “There! There they are!” Iván cried.

  Isabel couldn’t even try to look for the boat. It was all she could do to keep Señor Castillo’s lolling head above water and catch quick breaths before the waves rolled over them both.

  But the waves seemed to be smaller now. Still deadly, but not as high and fast. Isabel began to feel the rhythm of the sea, the singsong lullaby of it, and it was easy to close her eyes, to stop kicking, to stop fighting. She was so tired. So very, very tired …

  And then Iván was there in the water with them, his arms around her, like they were back in their village playing together in the waves on the beach.

  “Here! Here! They’re here!” Iván shouted. Their boat was now alongside her, and her head thumped into the side of it as a wave washed over her. Hands lifted Señor Castillo from her, and soon they dragged her over the side too. She splashed back down into the half-meter of water that filled the boat. But she was away from the waves, the never-ending waves, and she collapsed into her mother’s arms.

  “Rudi! Rudi! Oh, God,” Señora Castillo cried, clutching her husband’s hand. Señor Castillo was unconscious. Luis and Papi had laid him out on one of the benches, and Isabel’s grandfather was pumping his stomach like an accordion. Seawater burbled up out of Señor Castillo’s mouth, and he sudd
enly lurched, coughing and spluttering. Lito and Papi and Luis rolled him over, and he retched up the rest of the ocean he’d swallowed.

  “Rudi—Rudi!” Señora Castillo said. She wrapped him in her arms and sobbed, and then everything was quiet and still, but for the gentle lapping of the sea against the side of the boat and the sloshing of water inside it.

  The tanker had passed.

  Amara stood at the back of the boat, keeping the rudder straight against the waves. But the engine was dead again. Like everything else, it had been swamped.

  Señora Castillo reached for Isabel’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Isabel.”

  Isabel nodded, but it came out more like a shudder. She was freezing cold and soaked from head to toe, but at least she was back in her mother’s arms. Mami hugged her close and Isabel shivered.

  “We need to get the water out of the bottom of the boat,” Papi said. It was strange to Isabel to hear her father talk about something so normal, so practical, when Señor Castillo had almost drowned and the boat had almost rolled over and sunk. But he was right.

  “And get the engine running again,” Iván said.

  “The water first,” Lito agreed, and together they gathered up bottles and jugs and began the tedious work of filling them and pouring the seawater back into the ocean. Isabel stayed buried in her mother’s arms, still exhausted, and no one made her get up.

  “Where’s the box with the medicine in it?” Luis asked.

  There weren’t too many places it could be in the small boat, and they quickly decided it must have fallen overboard in the confusion. Gone were their aspirin and bandages, and Señor Castillo was still dazed and weak.

  It was bad, but if they got the boat bailed out and if they got the engine running and if they got back on track with the sun tomorrow and if they didn’t run into any more tankers, they could make it to the States without needing the medicine or matches.