Munich Signature (18 page)

“We are much closer to the shores of England than Germany now,” Klaus said angrily. “They have followed us here to let us know—”

“Let us know?
Vas?
Let us know?” The rabbi nodded and considered.

“To let us know they could sink us,” chimed in a young man of about eighteen named Aaron.

“
Nein, kinder!
Then God has told them the truth,
nu
?” The rabbi shook his finger in Aaron’s face. “Nobody sinks us unless God, blessed be He, gives His permission!”

A small group of wary passengers laughed more from relief than true amusement.

“So, Rabbi?” Maria held her hand to the small of her aching back and straightened. “Have you got a way to make sure God does not give them permission later?”

Voices chimed in: “A blessing! Give us a blessing, Rabbi! A prayer we can pray, maybe! A battleship prayer!”

The old man looked around approvingly. “Such a congregation here!” He nodded. “Yes. We have a minyan and more. Then we will make a battleship blessing,
nu
?” He rested his bearded chin in his hand and stood for a long moment of deep thought that no one dared to interrupt. He raised his gnarled hand like an ancient tree branch conducting the winds of the great German Ocean. He began: “May the Eternal, blessed be He, bless and keep the Nazi ships—”
A groan of disapproval arose from the ragged ranks of the minyan.
Has the rabbi lost his mind in the wind, you think? So old, he has forgotten which side God is supposed to be on!

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I am not finished yet!” The rabbi protested the interruption of his blessing. “May the Eternal,” he began again, “blessed be He, bless and keep the Nazi ships . . . an ocean away from us!”

A pattering of pleased applause rose up with the blessing of the aged, exiled rabbi from Nuremberg. The smokestacks of the battleships slipped below the horizon as if they had fallen off the edge of the earth. Everyone hoped that was the case, anyway. This blessing was repeated up the steps and down the steps above decks and below. It added flavor to the tasteless breakfast of porridge. It quelled appetites of hatred and turned fear and anger into happy laughter.
To bless the enemy with such a blessing! May the Eternal, blessed be He—hear that one, eh, Chaim?

When the rabbi donned his tallith, which billowed like a banner in the harsh ocean breeze, many men who had not attended services or stopped by shul for years found themselves drawn to this flag of prayer.
What else is there for us to do now, eh? We are reduced to praying. Not such a bad place for hopeless men to be.

***

After morning prayers were prayed and the Eternal was thanked for holding the leaking freighter up from the bottom of the North Sea, the old rabbi organized a Torah school for the children. “Who knows how long we will be on this floating island,
nu
? Should the brains of our kinderlach be turned to unkosher seafood in the meantime?”

By special dispensation, little girls were also permitted to join in the holy study of Torah. This met with the approval of almost everyone onboard the vessel, since most were not at all religious and had not clung to the old ways. It was decided that the rabbi of Nuremburg was quite progressive, even though he looked like something from a Polish ghetto and most German Jews wanted to shed that old-fashioned image. “What will it hurt, a little Torah? And he lets the girls study, too! Progressive, that’s what! If we land in America, this will be looked well upon!”

There were a few hard-core Orthodox who did not approve. They considered themselves the only Jews, the only true Jews, on the entire ship. Because of their holiness, the Eternal, blessed be He, might save the rest. But there was also the possibility that because of the unholiness of all the others, the Eternal, blessed be He, might send along a big storm, and
whoosh
! There goes the whole ship. That small, unhappy clique of thirty-seven huddled forlornly in a bleak corner of the cargo hold. “Did you hear he’s letting the girls study Torah with the boys?
Oy
! Now we shall certainly sink!”

The sun came out and the waters nearing the shores of England were calm. Some considered it a good sign. Because the rabbi had not actually cursed the battleships, God was sending back the blessing to the fragile human cargo on the
Darien
.

Whatever it was, Maria was thankful for the warmth of the sun and grateful to the rabbi for rounding up the little ones and putting their minds on something other than their misery. Klaus rested against the ventilation shaft and Maria sat comfortably in the crook of his arm. The baby moved within her and she laid her husband’s hand on her bulging stomach and waited expectantly for another kick. The baby was obliging. Klaus opened one eye and smiled at Maria.

“This one must be a son, I think,” Klaus said drowsily.

“You have said that every time, and every time I have another girl!” Maria chided.

“So? I won’t mind being so outnumbered as long as all my girls are as smart and pretty as you.”

Maria cast a long look at their five daughters who sat in a row at the Torah school. The sunlight shone on their braided hair. Each child had hair color in varying shades of golden brown. Trudy, the oldest, had the darkest hair, and then, in order, Katrina, Louise, Gretchen, and little Ada-Marie, who seemed to be enjoying the excitement of the story of the Red Sea more than anyone! Here was blessing. Maria felt it all over again as she looked at their children. They were not unhappy. They did not seem to notice that they had no home. Or that they slept on the deck of a ship. There had been a slight murmur about the porridge, but they were hungry enough that it had disappeared all the same.

At lunchtime, bread was blessed and served with a very thin potato soup. They were close to England now. Seabirds flew behind them and raced before them. Captain Burton found the music of the BBC radio and turned it on over the loudspeakers for everyone to hear. A buzz of excitement swept through the congregation.
So this is England! They are playing Mendelssohn! How long is it since we have heard Mendelssohn?

Very few among them understood the crackling British voices that began their urgent recital over the air. It was news. Maria was grateful that the majority did not understand. She was sorry when others, who knew she was fluent in English, gathered around her for an interpretation.

“Riots have rocked the British mandate of Palestine for a month without letup. Last night several British police were murdered execution-style by an Arab mob protesting further influx of Jewish refugees from Europe. As the general strike called by the Mufti increases in violence, Prime Minister Chamberlain has promised to take another look at the question of immigration. Meanwhile, in response to the state of emergency, all illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine will be stopped. Those arriving without proper visas will be summarily returned to their ports of origin. In other news today—”

The loudspeaker abruptly fell silent. Captain Burton stepped from behind the grimy windows of the bridge and emerged from his place at the helm for the first time. Maria had never seen him before. In the last twenty-four hours he had been a shadow moving behind the glass. Now he leaned against the rusty rail and stared down, searching the faces of these strange people he had agreed to carry away from Germany. He wore a blue cable-knit sweater that was torn at the seam beneath his arm. His trousers were grubby khaki. His features were shielded by the cracked brim of his captain’s hat and a full reddish beard streaked with gray. Maria could not tell if he was an old man, or young. He hardly looked like a man with the dignity one would expect of a captain. But then, this ship was only barely a ship.

He chewed his lip thoughtfully, then spoke in a loud voice. His words were relayed down the steps belowdecks. “I heard the news this morning. I thought you should hear it as well.” His German was passable. Easy to tell he was American. “So the English have closed off Palestine to us. I had thought that was the most reasonable destination. This changes things.”

Hardly anyone on the ship knew there was a destination. Most had dreamed of America. “So where are we going, Captain?” an old woman called up.

“Southampton first. England. We are in need of supplies. Medical and otherwise. Then we’ll head for New York.”

“But quotas are full in America!” someone else shouted. This information alarmed Maria. Surely full quotas would not affect them once Bubbe Rosenfelt got to New York to work for their visas.

“Every quota is filled,” said the captain. He was blunt. A realist. But then, why had he taken on this human cargo? “But we have to go somewhere. Unless you want to go back to Hamburg?”

A resounding “NO!” filled the North Sea air. Did they hear it in Hamburg? With their rocks and bottles and spit? Did they hear it in Palestine? With their doors shut and locked?

“Then Southampton it is. And then New York, if you please.” He turned on his heel and returned to his dingy throne room.

11

Our Enemies Rejoice

Elisa clutched the edge of her seat as the little Pan Am passenger plane rumbled over the southwest face of the mountains that bordered Czech-Sudetenland and Germany.
Everything looks so beautiful from the high perspective of a bird,
she thought.
Beautiful and peaceful.

She did not need the commentary of a guide to point out the landmarks of what had been her native country. A hundred times as a child, her father had taken her flying over the bucolic German countryside. Yes, Elisa knew it well, and she understood how the most beautiful music on earth had been created within these borders.

Neither she nor Murphy mentioned the fact to Charles that their aircraft was just above the heads of the leaders of the New Germany who would be quite pleased if these passengers died in a flaming air crash. The child seemed unaware that men like Hitler or Himmler or Göring could look up from their balconies and see the plane easily as it soared through German air space. Charles was fascinated with tiny toy cars creeping along the highways and little boats that floated on the silver ribbons of rivers and canals below.

Two Luftwaffe fighter planes buzzed the passenger aircraft. When Elisa visibly paled at the sight of their swastika emblems, Murphy reached out to take her hand in his. With a reassuring look, he wordlessly told her she must not worry. Then the fighters banked and retreated with amazing speed back toward Frankfurt. The incident lasted only seconds, and yet Elisa remained rigid with fear even after their plane reached the flat farmlands of Holland.

Charles sat with his forehead plastered against the round window throughout the journey. If the military aircraft had frightened him, he gave no sign of it. His eyes grew wide as their plane finally began its slow descent toward the grassy airfield outside Amsterdam. He laughed with such a total absence of fear that at last Elisa sat back and relaxed enough to pat him on the back and point through the window at the old buildings and canals of Amsterdam.

“Instead of roads, you see . . . lots of little canals all over the city. And people ride in boats here and there.”

Charles pointed through the afternoon haze at the docks of Amsterdam. Like ducks on a pond, ocean steamers lay moored in the harbor.

“Tonight we board a little steamer that will carry us across the Channel to London,” Elisa explained. “Two days in London, and then—” she looked happily at Murphy—“then we go to America.”

Charles nodded enthusiastically and clapped his hands. Then he winked knowingly at Murphy and held up his hand to make a circle with thumb and index finger that said
okay
!

“Nothing to it, eh, kid?” Murphy said, but his face was clouded with a concern that made Elisa’s smile dim.

“What is it?” she asked quietly.

“Nothing to it,” Murphy repeated the words in a tone that was heavy with foreboding. “From Prague to the Netherlands in less time than it takes for a little nap.” He frowned and looked questioningly at Elisa. Did she hear the reason for his apprehension? “Your father is right, you know. The country that rules the skies will rule the world.”

Charles looked eagerly back out the window as the runway rose up to meet their wheels. Elisa simply stared in blank horror at Murphy. Everything was
so close
on the Continent! Even this plodding little passenger plane had cut a swath across three countries within a matter of hours. She considered the lightning speed of the German fighter planes that had roared across their path. Her voice faltered as she asked the first question that entered her mind.

“How long—” she cleared her throat to begin again—“How quickly could one of
them
fly from here to . . . England?”

Murphy understood her perfectly. “Less than twenty minutes.” He looked away, not wanting her to see in his eyes his deepest fears.

“To London?” She did not notice the jolt of the landing. Charles clapped his hands in delight again and tugged at Elisa’s sleeve. She did not acknowledge him. “Do the English have such aircraft?” she asked.

The hum of the engines sputtered and died. “No,” Murphy answered grimly as he gathered up his belongings and squinted into the bright light of the opening hatch.

***

There were no more flights to London that afternoon, and the next day was Sunday. No one flew on Sunday in Holland except the angels; there would be no more flights to London until Monday. From this point their passage was booked on a steamship that would carry them to London within a matter of hours.

The little trio stood near the bow of the ship and let the salt air sting their cheeks and blow their hair. Murphy had one hand on the shoulder of Charles and the other wrapped around Elisa’s waist.

Somehow this slow, old-fashioned method of travel helped to calm Elisa. The Channel had separated and protected England from the Continent for centuries. Great armadas had sailed against her and been broken in pieces on her shores. Surely, Elisa reasoned, the water could not be crossed by the Nazis without great sacrifice, even if the fleets came in airplanes rather than in ships. Surely the Channel must still afford the British the protection of isolation.