Long Way Home(7)

“He also put money in the safe for your steamship tickets, but there wasn’t quite enough yet. He had to pay an exorbitant amount for the landing permits. He’d planned to sell a few more things.”

“We can sell these pearls,” I said, fingering the necklace Mutti had given me for my birthday. I seldom took it off.

“No, my dear child,” he said, his voice gentle. “Those are precious to you and your family. Keep them. I’ll come to your apartment this evening after dark and talk to your mother. I’ll do whatever I can to get your father released from Buchenwald, but the three of you need to escape to Cuba as soon as possible.”

In the weeks that followed, Herr Kesler helped us sell our remaining possessions to raise money. He had to do it on the sly by claiming that Vati owed him money and he was confiscating our possessions in payment. We sent a package with food and warm socks to Vati in Buchenwald and lived like vagrants in our nearly empty apartment while we waited.

And then in May, a miracle! God parted the Red Sea for Vati, thanks, I suspected, to the behind-the-scenes efforts of Herr Kesler. My father sent a postcard saying that he and a handful of other Jewish prisoners would be released from Buchenwald provided they left Germany for good within two weeks. They would not, however, be allowed to take their families.

I raced across Berlin to Herr Kesler’s office on a sunny spring day with Vati’s postcard in hand. He was overjoyed for us. “I’ll have my secretary check all the steamship lines,” he said. “We’ll book you on the first voyage to Cuba that we can find.”

“But Vati isn’t supposed to travel with us.”

“I know. But perhaps if I book his ticket in tourist class, and your mother books yours in first class, we can get away with it. You can reunite on board.”

I gave him a fervent hug. “How will we ever thank you for everything you’ve done?”

“There’s no need. Your father is a good man. Your family doesn’t deserve any of this.”

Herr Kesler learned that the Hamburg-Amerika-Linie’s luxury passenger ship St. Louis would be making a special voyage to Havana, Cuba, departing from Hamburg on May 13. It would be carrying more than 900 passengers, nearly all of us Jewish. The cost was 800 Reichsmarks for each first-class ticket and 600 Reichsmarks for tourist-class. The Nazis required us to pay an additional 230 Reichsmarks each for the return voyage, in spite of the fact that none of us planned to return. After purchasing the tickets and our train fare to Hamburg, our money was nearly depleted. It didn’t matter. The government would allow us to leave with only ten Reichsmarks each in our pockets. Six months after Kristallnacht, our ordeal was almost over. Our family would be safe in Cuba while we waited for our turn to immigrate to the United States.

My stomach ached with apprehension on the train journey from Berlin to Hamburg. Would Vati really be waiting there for us? Would the Nazis really allow us to leave? I worried and fretted about a thousand things that might go wrong, but most of all, I feared that this would turn out to be a cruel, sadistic trick, and we would be left with nothing—no father, no money, no belongings, no home to return to in Berlin. But I prodded Mutti and Ruthie forward in spite of my fears. That was my job now.

When we arrived at the port in Hamburg that evening, the line of passengers waiting to board stretched down the wharf to the gangway. I halted in amazement to view the immense ship. It was impossible to see all of it from where I stood, but the sight of its great black hull, its pristine white upper structure with dangling lifeboats, and its two steaming smokestacks painted red, white, and black renewed my courage. A brass band from the steamship company played lively music to see us off on our journey. It felt to me like the Nazis were celebrating our departure, saying “good riddance,” especially when I saw flags with swastikas flying on board the St. Louis. For a moment, I had the terrifying thought that we were boarding a floating prison.

“Where’s Daniel?” Mutti whispered, glancing around as we took our place in line. “Do you see him anywhere?” I didn’t. We inched forward, closer and closer to the gangway. Water heaved and slapped against the pier and the ship’s hull. The ropes tying the ship to the dock were thicker than my legs.

“We shouldn’t be departing on the Sabbath,” I heard a woman behind me say. “And today is also the thirteenth. Those are very bad omens.”

“Superstitious nonsense,” a man replied.

“Even if it is nonsense,” she said, “we shouldn’t be breaking the Sabbath.”

When it was finally our turn to board, my mother halted as if she had decided to go no farther. She still hadn’t seen Vati and she’d been insisting for months that she wouldn’t go to Cuba without him. “Maybe he’s already on board,” I whispered to her. “Come on, and don’t make a fuss. He isn’t supposed to travel with us, remember?”

A steward escorted us to our wood-paneled stateroom. I’d never been on a ship before, and I was the last person to go inside, unable to stop gawking at the splendid interior. It resembled one of the grand hotels where we used to stay on holidays. After the steward left, I was about to close the door when I noticed a sudden movement in the shadows outside our stateroom. It was Vati! I let out a cry and ran into his arms. Mutti and Ruthie heard me and ran out to hug him, too.

“Daniel! Oh, Daniel! I thought I’d never see you again,” Mutti wept. She clung to him as if she’d never let go. I heard voices approaching in the corridor and quickly pushed everyone into our room, closing the door.