Refugee

by Alan Gratz

  If, if, if.

  They bailed water the rest of the night, taking turns dozing in the uncomfortable, crowded little boat. Isabel didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until she jerked awake from a nightmare about a giant monster coming for her out of the dark sea. She cried out, looking this way and that, but there was nothing but blue-black water and gray skies tinged with the red of the sun all around them for miles and miles and miles. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to calm down.

  The boat rocked again, and Amara struggled to keep the rudder steady. She had taken over as pilot while Señor Castillo recovered, but they still hadn’t gotten the motor running again. The Gulf Stream would carry them north, toward Florida, but they would need the engine to reach the shore.

  Isabel’s mother leaned over the side of the boat and threw up into the sea. When she slid back down inside, she looked green. The boat was rocking so much now Isabel couldn’t sit on the bench without holding on. The waves were growing higher and higher.

  “What is it?” Iván said sleepily. “Another tanker?”

  “No. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” Lito said, looking up into the red-tinged clouds. “A storm is coming.”

  “God help us—that is what we’re to ride in?” Mahmoud’s father said.

  The boat wasn’t a boat. It was a raft. A black inflatable rubber dinghy with an outboard motor on the back. It looked like there was room for a dozen people in it.

  Thirty refugees waited to get on board.

  They all looked as tired as Mahmoud felt, and wore different-colored life jackets. They were mostly young men, but there were families too. Women with and without hijabs. Other children, some who looked to be about Mahmoud’s age. One boy in a Barcelona soccer jersey didn’t have a life jacket but clung instead to a blown-up rubber inner tube. A few of the other refugees had backpacks and plastic bags full of clothes, but most of them, like Mahmoud’s family, carried whatever they owned in their pockets.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” one of the smugglers said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand Syrian pounds or one thousand euros per person! Children pay full price, including babies,” he told Mahmoud’s father. There were two more Turks in tracksuits like the ones who had turned them away from the mall, and they stood apart, staring at the refugees like they were something disgusting that had just washed up on the beach. Their scowls made Mahmoud want to disappear again.

  Dad handed out their life jackets, and they put them on.

  Mom stared out at the black dinghy bobbing in the gray-black Mediterranean seawater. She grabbed her husband’s arm. “What are we doing, Youssef? Is this the right decision?”

  “We have to get to Europe,” he said. “What choice do we have? God will guide us.”

  Mahmoud watched as his father pushed the cash they’d saved into the hands of one of the smugglers. Then Mahmoud and his family followed his dad to the dinghy, and they climbed on board. Waleed and his mother sat down in the bottom of the dinghy, his mother holding Hana tight in her arms. Mahmoud and his father sat on one of the inflated rubber edges, their backs to the sea. Mahmoud was already cold, and the wind off the waves made him shiver.

  A big bearded man wearing a plaid shirt and a bulky blue life jacket sat down right next to Mahmoud, almost squeezing Mahmoud right off the edge. Mahmoud slid a little closer to his father, but the big man next to him just settled into the extra space.

  “How long will we be on the boat?” Mahmoud asked his dad.

  “Just a few hours, I think. It was hard to tell on the phone.”

  Mahmoud nodded. The phones and chargers were safely sealed away in plastic bags in his parents’ pockets, just in case they got wet. Mahmoud knew because he’d been the one who’d dug through the trash for the resealable zipper bags.

  “We don’t have to get all the way to the Greek mainland,” Dad said. “Just the Greek island of Lesbos, about a hundred kilometers away. Then we’re officially in Europe, and we can take a ferry from there to Athens.”

  When the smugglers had packed the dinghy full of refugees, they pushed it out to sea. None of the smugglers came with them. If the refugees were going to get to Lesbos, they were going to have to do it themselves.

  “Does anyone know if dinner is served on this cruise?” Mahmoud’s father asked, and there were a few nervous laughs.

  The outboard motor roared to life, and the refugees cheered and cried. Dad hugged Mahmoud, then reached down to hug Mom, Waleed, and Hana. They were finally doing it. They were finally leaving Turkey for Europe! Mahmoud looked around in wonder. None of this seemed real. He had begun to feel like they were never going to leave.

  Mahmoud had been so tired he could barely keep his eyes open before, but now the thrum of the motor and the chop of the boat as it hit wave after wave flooded him with adrenaline, and he couldn’t have slept if he’d wanted to.

  The lights of Izmir dwindled to glittering dots behind them, and soon they were out in the dark, rough waters of the Mediterranean. Phone screens glowed in the darkness—passengers checking to see if they could tell where they were.

  The roar of the engine and the whip-blinding sea spray made it impossible to have any kind of conversation, so Mahmoud looked around at the other passengers instead. Most of them kept their heads down and eyes closed, either muttering prayers or trying not to get sick, or both. The dinghy began to toss not just front to back but side to side, in a sort of rolling motion, and Mahmoud felt the bile rise in the back of his throat. On the other side of the dinghy, a man shifted quickly to vomit over the side.

  “Watch out for the Coast Guard!” the big man next to Mahmoud shouted over the noise. “Turks will take us back to Turkey, but Greeks will take us to Lesbos!”

  Mahmoud didn’t know how anybody could see anything in the dark, cloud-covered night. But it helped his seasickness to look outside instead of inside the boat. It didn’t help his growing sense of panic, though. He couldn’t see land anymore, just stormy gray waves that were getting taller and narrower, like they were driving a boat through the spiky tent tops at the Kilis refugee camp. More people leaned over the side to throw up, and Mahmoud felt his stomach churn.

  And then the rain began.

  It was a hard, cold rain that plastered Mahmoud’s hair to his head and soaked him down to his socks. The rain began to collect in the bottom of the dinghy, and soon Mahmoud’s mother and the others were sitting in centimeters of shifting water. Mahmoud’s muscles began to ache from shivering and holding the same tight position for so long, and he wanted nothing more than to get off this boat.

  “We should turn back!” someone yelled.

  “No! We can’t go back! We can’t afford to try again!” Mahmoud’s father yelled, and a chorus of voices agreed with him.

  They pushed on through driving rain and roiling seas for what felt like an eternity. It might have been ten hours or ten minutes, Mahmoud didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted it to end, and end now. This was worse than Aleppo. Worse than bombs falling and soldiers shooting and drones buzzing overhead. In Aleppo, at least, he could run. Hide. Here he was at the mercy of nature, an invisible brown speck in an invisible black rubber dinghy in the middle of a great black sea. If it wanted to, the ocean could open its mouth and swallow him and no one in the whole wide world would ever know he was gone.

  And then that’s exactly what it did.

  “I see rocks!” someone at the front of the dinghy yelled, and there was a loud POOM! like a bomb exploding, and Mahmoud went tumbling into the sea.

  A strong hand grabbed Josef by the arm and swung him around. It was a sailor, one of the ship’s firemen, and Josef knew right away he was in trouble. The firemen were big, churlish brutes who were supposed to be on board to put out fires. But lately they’d been walking the decks, harassing the Jewish passengers. They’d been making trouble ever since the Cubans had told them they couldn’t leave the ship.

  For three days the St. Louis had sat at anchor kilomete
rs from shore. For three days, while port officials came and went, the Cuban police who guarded the ladder off the ship told the passengers they couldn’t leave today.

  “Mañana,” they said. “Mañana.”

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

  Two days ago, the SS Orduña, a smaller English passenger liner, had arrived and anchored nearby. Josef guessed it was one of the other two ships they’d been racing to Cuba. He and the other passengers had watched as launches went to and from the ship, as the yellow quarantine flag went up and then down. And then the Orduña had lifted anchor and cruised in to dock at the pier and let off passengers! Why had they been allowed to dock and not the St. Louis? The St. Louis had gotten there first!

  Captain Schroeder wasn’t around to ask, and the officers and stewards had no answers for the passengers.

  And then today the same thing had happened with the French ship SS Flandre. It arrived, anchored nearby, passed quarantine, docked at the Havana pier, and let off its passengers. Now it was sailing back out to sea.

  The passengers on the St. Louis had grown more and more restless, cornering sailors on deck and berating their stewards at dinner. Josef had felt the tension mounting all over the ship, the pandemonium threatening to boil over every time the crew dealt with the passengers. It was as suffocating and oppressive as the 100-degree heat.

  Apparently, Schiendick and his Nazi friends had felt the tension too, because that’s when the firemen patrols had begun. It was nothing official, Josef was sure, because the captain hadn’t made an announcement. It was just certain members of the crew who had taken it upon themselves to police the ship like they were all back in Germany.

  “For the safety of the Jews,” Schiendick told them, the same way the Gestapo took Jews into “protective custody.”

  Another fireman stood beside the one who held Josef’s arm, blocking out the sun. And between them was Otto Schiendick himself.

  “Just the boy we were looking for,” Schiendick said. “You are to come with us.”

  “What? Why?” Josef asked, looking up at the two big men around him. Josef felt guilty, and he was immediately mad at himself for it. Why should he feel guilty? He hadn’t done anything wrong! But he remembered feeling this way back home too, whenever he passed a Nazi on the street.

  In Germany, just being Jewish was a crime. And here too, apparently.

  “Your parents’ cabin must be searched,” Schiendick said. “You have a key?”

  Josef nodded, even though he didn’t want to. These men were adults, and they were Nazis. One he’d been taught to respect. The other he’d learned to fear.

  The big fireman still had Josef’s arm, and he pulled him toward the elevator. Josef couldn’t believe he’d let himself be caught. He’d warned his little sister, Ruthie, to avoid the firemen, who loved to intimidate the children on board, and she’d managed to stay out of their way. But he’d lost himself watching the Flandre sail out of Havana Harbor, his back turned to the promenade, and that’s when they’d caught him.

  Schiendick and his firemen hustled Josef down the stairs, and Josef’s stomach sank when they ordered him to open the door to his cabin. Josef’s hand shook as he put the key in the lock. He wished there was some way he could get out of this, some way he could keep these men away from his mother and father.

  Otto Schiendick reached down and turned the handle for him, throwing the door open. Papa lay on a bed in his underclothes, trying to stay cool in the stifling heat. Mama sat in a chair nearby, reading a book. Ruthie, Josef was glad to see, was still up at the pool.

  When she saw the men, Rachel Landau stood. On the bed, Josef’s father propped himself up, a look of panic on his face.

  “What’s going on here?” Mama asked. “Josef?”

  “They made me bring them here,” Josef said, his eyes wide, trying to warn her of the danger.

  “Yes,” Schiendick said, spotting Josef’s father. “There he is.”

  Schiendick and the two firemen stepped inside. Schiendick closed the door and locked it behind them.

  “For your safety, this cabin must be searched,” Schiendick said.

  “On whose authority?” Mama asked. “Does the captain know about this?”

  “On my authority,” Schiendick told her. “The captain has other things to worry about.”

  Schiendick nodded, and the two firemen ransacked the room. They swept Mama’s makeup and perfume off the vanity and smashed the mirror. They knocked the lamps off the bedside tables and cracked the washbasin. They opened up the family’s suitcases, which were carefully packed and ready to go to Cuba, and threw their clothes all over the cabin. They tore the head off Ruthie’s stuffed bunny. They snatched the book from Mama’s hands and ripped out the pages, tossing them in the air like ashes from a bonfire.

  Josef’s mother cried out, but not so loudly that anyone else would hear. Papa wrapped himself in a ball and threw his hands over his head, whimpering. Josef huddled against the door, angry at his helplessness but scared that if he fought back, he’d only be punished more.

  When there was nothing left to smash or scatter, the firemen stood behind Schiendick at the door.

  Schiendick spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of you and your race,” he said, and suddenly Josef understood—this was payback for his father’s words to Schiendick at the funeral.

  Schiendick snorted dismissively at the cowering man on the bed. “It’s time you had your head shaved again,” he told Josef’s father.

  Otto Schiendick let himself and the two firemen out, leaving the door wide open. Josef’s mother slid to the floor crying, and Papa blubbered on the bed. Josef shook as he buried his face in his hands, trying to hide his own tears. He wanted nothing more than to run to his mother’s arms, but she felt a million miles away from him. So did his father. They were three lonely islands, separated by an ocean of misery.

  Of all the things Schiendick and his fireman had broken, the Landau family was the one thing Josef wasn’t sure they could put back together.

  “You said if I was quiet, if I stood very still, they wouldn’t come for me,” Papa said. It took Josef a moment to realize his father was talking to him. Josef’s breath caught. His father was talking about the medical inspection. When Josef had scared his father to get him to straighten up.

  Papa looked up at him, his eyes red from crying. “You said they wouldn’t come for me. You said they wouldn’t send me back. You promised, and they came for me anyway.”

  Josef felt like his father had slapped him, even though Papa hadn’t touched him. Josef reeled. He backed into his mother’s little makeup table, and one of the bottles Schiendick hadn’t smashed rolled off and shattered on the floor beside him. Josef didn’t even jump. He had lied to his father. Betrayed him. Made him think he was back at that awful place. Terrified him all over again. But that wasn’t the worst thing he had done.

  Josef had made his father a promise he couldn’t keep.

  Rain lashed Isabel as she shoveled water out of the boat. Scoop, pitch. Scoop, pitch. The bottom of the boat filled as fast as they could bail it out. Isabel, her mother, her father, her grandfather, Luis, Iván, Señora Castillo, they all worked feverishly, none of them talking—not that they could hear each other over the storm. The only ones not bailing were Señor Castillo, who looked like a ghost, and Amara, who clung to the rudder with white-knuckled hands and tried to keep the boat turned into the churning waves so it wouldn’t capsize. The engine hadn’t worked since their escape from the tanker.

  The storm clouds turned the day into night, and the driving rain soaked Isabel to the bone. She shivered in the cold wind, her feet numb in the water sloshing at the bottom of the boat. Sea spray stung her eyes, and in between scoops of water she dragged her arm across her face, trying to wipe away the saltwater tears.

  As she watched the surging waves, Isabel remembered the last time she had seen her abuelita, her grandma. She remembered Lita’s hand reaching out for help as the tide swept her away. Isabe
l had been nine years old. Her parents had sent her to stay with Lito and Lita in their little shack on the coast. They hadn’t said why, but Isabel was old enough to know her parents had been fighting again, and they wanted to be alone while they worked things out. All that spring Isabel had waded without joy in the ocean, waiting for the storm to come that would tear her family apart.

  And then the real storm had come.

  It wasn’t a hurricane. It was bigger than a hurricane—a gigantic cyclone that stretched from Canada down through the United States and across Cuba and into Central America. Later they would call it the Storm of the Century, but to Isabel it was The Storm. The shrieking wind ripped roofs off houses and pulled palm trees straight out of the ground. The rain fell sideways. Hail shattered windows like a never-ending shotgun blast. And the ocean, the ocean rose up like a giant hand and reached inland, over Lito and Lita’s little house by the sea, smothering the house in its giant paw and dragging the shattered pieces back into its lair.

  Lito and Lita hadn’t known the storm was coming or they wouldn’t have been there. They would have been inland. Found higher ground. Castro had promised he would protect them, but he didn’t. Not then. Not Isabel’s grandmother.

  Lito had been able to hold on to Isabel, but Lita had been swept away. She had slipped under the waves, her arms still reaching for Lito. For Isabel.

  And that was the last they had ever seen of her.

  Lito’s arm found Isabel again now and wrapped her in a hug.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said close to her ear where she could hear him. “I’m thinking about it too.”

  “I miss her,” Isabel told her grandfather.

  “I miss her too,” Lito said. “Every day.”

  Real tears came into Isabel’s eyes now, and Lito hugged her tighter.

  “That was her song’s end,” Lito whispered. “But ours plays on. Come. Keep bailing, or soon it’ll be up to our eyeballs.”