Long Way Home(27)

I awoke on Thursday morning feeling numb and drained of emotion. How much longer would we be held in suspense this way? Surely the Cuban officials would have pity on us, wouldn’t they? Sam raised my spirits and revived my hopes whenever we were together, but we spent less time with each other as the days dragged by, both of us obligated to comfort our families. We happened to be outside together near the landing ladder when a small boat approached and an official from the shipping company shouted up, asking for a representative from the passenger committee. His message when the representative arrived devastated us. The St. Louis had been ordered to leave Havana within three hours. I leaned my head on Sam’s chest and wept. We heard weeping coming from all over the ship as word spread.

A little while later, we saw the crew preparing to lower the ship’s launch. “Look,” Sam said. “That’s Captain Schroeder getting into the boat.” He had changed into civilian clothes and was going ashore. Was he abandoning us or going for help? Around three o’clock we heard a rumbling sound as the ship’s engines started up. The deck vibrated beneath our feet.

“Oh, Sam, no! No!” I cried. I was convinced that the Nazi sailors who had ransacked Vati’s room had taken over the ship and were heading back to Germany. Sam and I were still on the deck, wondering what we should do, when suddenly a group of women whose husbands were waiting onshore stormed the Cuban police who were guarding the landing ladder, desperate to get off. The police fought back, knocking a pregnant woman to the deck. Sam and I ran to help her.

“She needs a doctor,” Sam said when he saw that she was unconscious. He and another passenger scooped her up and carried her to the infirmary. I stood again, my legs trembling. The police had drawn their guns. I couldn’t move, frozen with fear. I was terrified that my father would join the mob and do something rash. He knew firsthand what awaited us in the Nazi prison camps. By the time Sam returned, the standoff with the police had swelled to a large crowd. I didn’t see my father among them. We waited, afraid to leave and yet afraid to go below. Our feeling of being trapped was too overwhelming whenever we went below.

At last, we saw the ship’s launch returning with Captain Schroeder. He immediately ordered the police to stand down, saying that this was still his ship. “I deeply regret that this had to happen,” he told the crowd. “Now you need to disperse please.”

“Is it true that we’re going back to Hamburg?” someone asked.

“I will meet with the passenger committee, and then they will inform you.”

Sam and I went to find our families and waited with everyone else in the stuffy dining hall. It was hard to believe that we had danced at a fancy ball here barely a week ago, and Sam and I had made plans for our future as we’d glimpsed the beam of the Bahamas’ lighthouse in the distance. Now, as we waited for Herr Joseph, the committee spokesman, to tell us our fate, I wished that my heart held even a glimmer of the joy and hope I’d felt that night. The room grew very still after Herr Joseph arrived and began to speak.

“After hours of negotiation, the Cuban government still refuses to accept our landing permits.” Moans and weeping greeted his words. “We have been ordered to leave Havana by 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.” I huddled with my family in despair. Sam was trying to comfort his mother. “Wait, listen,” Herr Joseph continued. “The shipping company has given Captain Schroeder permission to sail the St. Louis to any port that will allow us to land.”

“They’re lying to us!” someone shouted. “This ship is flying a Nazi flag! If we leave Havana, we’ll end up back in Hamburg!”

“No, I promise you that’s out of the question. Once we set sail, the captain will travel slowly along the US coastline as we wait to hear from the Americans. We’re hoping their government or perhaps the Canadian government will provide sanctuary for us. Our story is in all of the newspapers. The whole world knows of our plight.”

That evening, dozens of relatives arrived in boats again, saying the news was all over Havana that we were leaving tomorrow. People sobbed and stretched out their arms to each other as they shouted their goodbyes, including Sam’s mother, who sobbed with grief. I could already see the huge weight of responsibility Sam was forced to carry again. Vati and Mutti wept as well, as they told Uncle Aaron goodbye for now. I wondered if Vati still believed God had a reason for everything that happened. I was too frightened to ask him. If he lost his faith, how would I ever hang on to mine?

The committee asked Sam to be on suicide watch again after dark. Despair hung over the ship like fog. I lay awake long after midnight, watching the strobe of police searchlights through the porthole of our floating prison.

When Sam and I went up on deck on Friday morning, we saw that the police were no longer allowing the flotilla of small boats to approach. Our last connection with our relatives onshore had been cut off. We had been on this ship for three weeks now, two at sea and one in the harbor, and it was clear that the crew was preparing to set sail. One last police launch arrived with a civilian on board, and the ship’s loudspeaker summoned everyone to the social hall. He introduced himself as Milton Goldsmith, the American representative from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. “Don’t give up hope,” he told us. “You are not returning to Hamburg. Our committees around the world are working to ensure that you can land somewhere outside of Germany. We’re waiting at this moment to hear from the US government. The world is watching.”