“Help! My dad jumped overboard! Help!” Josef cried.
Far below him, already a couple hundred yards away from the ship, Josef’s father thrashed crazily in the water. He screamed incoherently, but he wasn’t calling out for rescue.
On the decks below, passengers ran to the rails and pointed. The ship’s siren continued to blow and sailors ran about, but nobody was doing anything. Josef spun around helplessly. What was he supposed to do? Jump in after his father? It was such a long way down, and he didn’t know how to swim— Down below on C-deck, one of the Cuban policemen tossed his cap and gun belt aside, kicked off his shoes, and jumped headlong into the green water. He hit the ocean with a slap and a splash, and for many seconds Josef held his breath as though he was the diver himself. Josef’s lungs were just about to burst when the man broke the surface a few yards away from where he’d hit, gasping for breath. The man flipped the wet hair out of his face, spun until he had his bearings, and set off swimming for Josef’s father.
Josef’s heart raced as fast as his feet as he flew down the stairs. He pushed
through the crowds and ran to the rail, but the policeman hadn’t yet reached his father. A woman screamed, and Josef followed the pointing fingers—two
shark fins had appeared in the water.
Josef froze in terror.
There were more screams as his papa sank beneath the waves, and Josef had to cling to the rail not to collapse.
One of the St. Louis’s lifeboats hit the water, and the ship’s siren had brought motor launches from the shore, but none of them were going to be in time. The only person close enough to save Josef’s father was the Cuban policeman. Even though the sharks still circled, the policeman took a deep breath and dived beneath the waves.
Josef counted the long seconds before the man broke the surface again, this time with Papa in his arms.
The passengers on the ship cheered. But Josef’s father didn’t want to be rescued. He struggled in the man’s arms, beating and flailing at him.
“Murderers!” he cried. “They’ll never take me!”
But Papa was weak and the policeman was strong. One of the motor launches from shore reached them first, and the policeman helped the other men lift Josef’s father into the boat.
“Let me die! Let me die!” Josef’s father cried. The words struck Josef like slaps to the face, and tears sprang to his eyes.
His father would rather die than be with his son. His daughter. His wife.
The crack of a pistol shot made Josef jump. One of the men in the boat stood aiming a gun down into the water near the policeman. Pak! Pak! He shot twice more, and one of the shark fins turned away from the policeman to attack the shark the man had wounded with his pistol.
The men laid Josef’s father in the bottom of the boat and helped the weary policeman aboard. There were sighs of relief and whispered prayers on the St.
Louis. But Josef’s heart lurched when he saw his father kick away the man trying to help him. Papa lunged for the side of the small boat, trying to get back to the sea. “Let me die!” he cried out again.
The policeman grabbed him and pulled him back in the boat. Two more of the men restrained him, and the boat quickly turned and sped toward the shore.
The St. Louis’s siren stopped blasting, and suddenly it was over.
All around Josef, passengers wept. But Josef now felt more stunned than sad. His father was gone. In many ways, his father had never really come back from the concentration camp. Not the father Josef knew and remembered. Not the father he loved. He had come back in body, but not in spirit.
Josef’s father was gone. His mother was unconscious. His little sister was all by herself. And they would never let Josef’s family into Cuba now, not after his father had gone mad. Josef and his family would all be sent back to Germany. Back to the Nazis.
Josef’s world was falling apart, and he didn’t see any way to put it back together again.
