The German Girl (15 page)

We left our neighborhood as quickly as those shooting stars Papa and I used to discover on summer nights at our lakeside house in Wannsee. The elegant streets of the Mitte district blurred behind us. We crossed what had once been the most beautiful boulevard in Berlin, and I said farewell to the bridge over the Spree that I had rushed across with Leo so often.

Seated between Papa and me, Mama stared straight ahead, observing the traffic in a city that had once been the most vibrant in Europe. We avoided looking at one another or talking. None of us shed a tear. Not yet.

When Berlin became a dot in the distance behind us, and we were drawing ever closer to Hamburg, roughly 180 miles northwest, I began to tremble. I couldn’t control my anxiety, but I didn’t want anybody in the car to notice. I still had to behave like a spoiled eleven-year-old who had never wanted for anything. That could be my release. One more outburst before we reached the boat taking us out of this hell. I knew I was going to cry, and I tried to hold it back.

Then I burst into tears.

“We’re going to be all right, my girl,” Mama comforted me, and I could feel the fabric of her dress against my cheek. I didn’t want to stain it with my stupid tears. “There’s no point crying over what we’re leaving behind. You’ll see how beautiful Havana is.”

I wanted to tell her I wasn’t crying over what had been taken from me but because I had lost my best friend. That was why I was trembling, not because of some stupid old apartment or a city that already meant nothing to me.

“Take your time.” At last, somebody spoke to the driver.

Mama took a mirror out of her bag and checked that her makeup hadn’t been smudged.

“In fact, it would be best if we arrive at the appointed time,” she said. “I want to be the last one to embark.”

We stopped on a backstreet to wait for the perfect moment for her to make her triumphal entrance. The ex-student switched on the radio, and we heard one of the interminable speeches typical of recent days: “We have permitted those poisoning our people, the garbage, thieves, worms, and delinquents, to leave Germany.” That meant us. “No country wants to receive them. Why should we have to bear the burden? We have cleansed our streets and will continue to do so until the farthest corner of the empire is free of these leeches.”

“I think we should go to the port.” That was the first thing my father had said since leaving Berlin. “That’s enough.” He gestured to the Ogre for us to move and for him to switch off his damned radio.

When we turned the corner, the floating island that was to be our salvation came into view. A huge, imposing iron mass of black and white, like Mama’s dress, sat in the water and reached as high as the sky. A whole city on the sea. I hoped we would be safe there. It was going to be our prison for the next two weeks. And after that, freedom.

The Ogres’ flag was fluttering at one end of the ship. Beneath it, in white letters, a name that would stay with us forever:
St. Louis
.

The few steps between the car and the small customs hut that divided here from there seemed almost eternal. You wanted to get there but couldn’t, even if you ran. The short crossing completely drained what little energy I had left. My parents were trying their hardest to stand tall. The time for them to remove their masks and collapse would arrive soon enough.

The journey by car had been the longest, most intense, and most exhausting of my life. I was sure that the two weeks of our transatlantic journey would flash past in the twinkling of an eye; much more quickly than the trip from Berlin, the great capital, to Hamburg, the main port of great Germany.

As we drew closer to the customs hut, a small band, with all of their musicians dressed in white, began wearily to strike up “Frei weg!” I jumped with fear at the first notes. I had never liked marches: their triumphant strains made my hair stand on end. It was impossible not to feel that a march called “Here We Go!” was a huge kick in the backside. I had no idea what the shipping company was trying to do: raise our spirits or make us forget that, from the moment we set foot on the
St. Louis
, we would never return to Germany.

The ship was taller than our apartment building in Berlin. One, two,
three . . . I counted as many as six decks. The small, closed portholes were the cabins. There were lots of people on each deck. Everybody must have already been on board. We were the last. Of course: as usual, Mama had gotten her way.

Two Ogres seated at a makeshift table at the foot of the gangway examined us with distaste. Papa opened his briefcase and handed over first the three documents signed by Cuban immigration officials that authorized us to travel to and to stay in Havana indefinitely. The two men checked the papers carefully—even though they could not read them, since they were in Spanish—and then asked Papa for our passports and our return passages on the
St. Louis
.

Mama was staring at the swaying ramp that was soon to separate her from the country where she was born. She knew that in a few minutes she would no longer be German. She would no longer be a Strauss or a Rosenthal. At least she would go on being Alma. She wouldn’t lose her own name. She refused to answer the Ogres, low-ranking military men who dared question her, the granddaughter of a Great War veteran who had been awarded the Iron Cross.

After inspecting our documents page by page, the Ogre moistened the stamp for our departure on a pad of red ink. He thumped it down hard on our photographs, and with each blow, Mama shuddered but did not lower her gaze. We were marked with a vile red
J
on the only identity document that was to accompany us on our Cuban adventure. An indelible scar. We would belong forever to the exiles, to the people nobody wanted, the ones who had been forced from their homes since the dawn of time.

Mama was trying hard not to cry, but two teardrops were threatening to spoil the impeccable makeup with which she planned to enter this space where she hoped she could be happy for the next fortnight. Perhaps to avoid any further show of emotion, she embraced me from behind, and I could sense her lips close to my ear.

“I have a surprise for you.”

I was hoping she wasn’t going to do anything crazy:
Don’t forget, Mama: our lives are at stake at this very moment!

“I’ll tell you in our cabin.”

I thought she was only trying to calm the two of us. She made me promise I wouldn’t say anything to Papa. She would tell us the news once we were safely aboard and the coast of Germany had faded in the distance.

I saw her smile. It had to be good news.

One of the Ogres could not take his eyes off Mama: without doubt, she was the most elegant passenger on the ship. Possibly, he was trying to count how many diamonds were in the brooch at her waist. We should have come dressed more simply, without showing we were different or that we believed we were better than the rest. But that was how she was. She said she had absolutely no reason to be ashamed about what she had inherited from all those generations of Strausses. Now a contemptible Ogre imagined he had the right to get his hands on that fortune that bore and would always bear her own unique stamp. And yet it was this Ogre who could decide whether she could take her jewels with her and we could leave. They could reject our documents in a flash and arrest Papa. Then we really would have had no future.

Hundreds of passengers were crowding on the decks of the ship, looking tiny up above us. Some of them were watching us; others were searching for relatives on the dockside. All of a sudden we were blinded by a camera flash. A man had begun taking photos of us. I hid behind Papa. It must have been somebody sent by
Das Deutsche Mädel
. “I’m not pure!” I wanted to shout at him.

Mama arched her body backward, at the same time setting her shoulders forward slightly and extending her neck still farther. She thrust out her chin: I couldn’t believe that even when at any moment they could have searched us, taken away what we had left, canceled our departure, and arrest us, she could find the time to consider the angle at which she was being photographed.

The Ogre checked all our documents once more and came to a halt at one: Papa’s. I considered running away, getting out of the port, and hiding in the dark streets of Hamburg.

“Worms,” the Ogre snarled contemptuously, staring down at Papa’s documents without having the courage to look him in the face.

Mama was quivering with anger.
Don’t turn around, Mama. Don’t pay him any attention. Don’t let him hurt you.
To them we were worms, parasites, swine, cunning, unscrupulous, treacherous. That was the entire list. I thought,
Let them call us what they like.
By then, nothing could offend me.

Four seamen descended the steps toward us, observing our movements closely. Papa glanced at the Ogres, and then at the seamen, and then turned to see if our car was still there.

The seamen surrounded us. One of them picked up a suitcase; the others did the same. They shared our luggage between them and started to climb back up the still-swaying steps. At least our luggage had managed to get on board.

A wave broke against the bow of the
St. Louis
.

The Ogres were staring at Papa. They ignored us. If they arrested him, we would stay on land. We couldn’t go without him! But by now, Mama had lost her fear and was thinking only of the entrance she was going to make. Rehearsing it.

“Herr Rosenthal, I hope we never have to meet again,” the Ogre declared.

Perhaps he was waiting for a reply, but Papa took the documents in silence, examined them carefully, and put them back in his briefcase.

Then he leaned down to me and whispered:

“This is the most important luggage we have. We can lose our clothes, our possessions, even our money, but these papers are our salvation.”

He kissed me and said out loud, looking up at the topmost point of the
St. Louis
: “Cuba is the only country that will have us. Don’t ever forget that, Hannah.”

The band stopped playing. Our first suitcases must have already been in our cabin. There were only two left to carry on board. And the three of us. We were still on German soil.

The steps were empty. Mama was staring at the ship’s prow.

“Our cabin is on the top deck,” she said, smoothing her hair and taking my hand. “It’s smaller than the rooms at home, but you’ll love it, Hannah. You’ll see.”

A seaman picked up the two remaining cases. Papa was about to follow him, when Mama took him by the arm. I realized at once that there was no way Mama would board the
St. Louis
with the luggage, even if it were hers. The moment she saw the seaman disappear through the main entrance to the ship, and had checked that there was nobody else on the gangway, she gave Papa a kiss on the cheek to signal he should start walking.

He was the first up the steps. Behind him, I held on tightly so as not to fall into the water. How the steps swayed! The ship’s siren made me jump with fear. I turned round and saw Mama, who was walking slowly in that special way she had of tilting her nose in the air and ignoring everything around her. Beyond her back, I could see that the Ogres were still at their post. If we were the last people to embark, I didn’t understand why they hadn’t left by now. And in the distance, I could also see our car.

At the top of the gangway, a small man with a ridiculous little moustache was waiting for us. He looked like an army officer. He was stern-looking and was drawn up to his full height, as if to convey the impression that he was the one in charge of the biggest ship in the port.

“Don’t be scared, Hannah. He’s Gustav Schröder, the captain,” Papa reassured me.

I held on tightly to the rail for support. It was a cold day, but I knew that wasn’t the reason why I was trembling.
I am scared, Papa,
I wanted to tell him, and I looked at him so that he would understand how much I needed him; that I couldn’t move an inch without his protection. But by now, we were nearly at the top of the ramp, and I had my ears pricked to hear if anyone called out to stop us. I didn’t hear anything.

We’re safe,
I tried to tell myself over and over, so that I would truly believe it.

We really were the last on board. All I could hear were “I love you” and “I’ll never forget you” from desperate mouths, the farewells shouted from on deck, the weeping that mingled with the sirens of ships entering and leaving the harbor.

We were not on dry land anymore. Down below, the people on the quayside looked like tiny, defenseless ants rushing about to try to get a last look at all those sailing away.

Every step I took made me feel taller and safer. We were leaving behind the port and the Ogres: they were becoming smaller and smaller. I, on the other hand, felt as big as the ship: I had turned into an all-powerful iron giant while the docks were fading from view.

I was invincible. We had climbed the mountain: Papa and I had reached the summit! As if by magic, my fear evaporated as soon as I stepped aboard this bulky vessel that was now our shield. The adventure had begun.