Crossing the Borders of Time (40 page)

Though the
San Thomé
had been built as a freighter, the passengers’ comfort had not been ignored. There were lounge chairs on deck, and Portuguese waitresses served food more ample and varied than most of the passengers remembered enjoying in years: bread, milk, sugar, coffee, and meat—even the basics were luxuries to them. There were a few sinks and limited makeshift toilet facilities, generally clogged. But there were also large laundry basins set out on deck, and groups were welcome to make use of the lifeboats to gather in private. As the days wore on and people began to know one another, a Frenchman carried an old fur bedspread up on the deck. He invited other young people to stretch out with him under the stars on “
la pelouse de mes ancêtres
,” his ancestors’ lawn, as he charmingly called it, almost as if he could claim a new home, sacred space, wherever he laid it. The ocean itself was eerily empty, never another ship within view, as danger and cost discouraged most vessels from making the voyage.

At least compared to the
Lipari
, Janine found conditions on the
San Thomé
a happy surprise:

The new ship was very comfortable, white and clean, five o’clock tea was served, flowers stand on the tables, the holds in which we had to sleep were white, the beds were of white wood, the straw-mats covered with white sheets, and although we had no saloon [salon] in which to spend our days, at least we had some chairs on deck, which in some places was covered. We had become very modest during our voyage, so that these things, which we would have disdained before, now really enjoyed us.

But this joy swept away. As the ship was very small and we were almost 600 persons on board, it was impossible to be even one moment alone. Moreover, being no more accustomed to have such rich food, so many butter and grease, in a few days many of us felt very ill. People began to quarrel, one day for a chair, the next day for a spoon; but we still were not on the end of our endurances. The more we approached the South, the more we began to feel the heat. We were obliged to spend our days on deck, exposed the whole day to the sun and during the night sleeping just under the engines, we nearly couldn’t support the heat. It was terrible. Moreover, we couldn’t extinguish the light during the whole night for the case of accident, and the noise of the engines disturbed us very much. So we decided to make our beds on the deck, an idea that did not work out very well. The nights were so humid and cool that at once we caught very bad colds. Moreover, the deck was cleaned every morning at 5 o’clock so we were obliged to get up early. But although this solution was not very fine, we liked it better than to sleep in the cave.

Finally after two weeks, we sighted land, which the captain told us was Jamaica, where we had to leave the ship and spend three days in a camp. Before we could land the ship was inspected and of course the travelers also. From the time we had left Marseille this was the first part of the journey that we could enjoy. It was a wonderful day, the sun was just rising behind the hills forming the backbone of the little island of Jamaica. It was the most marvelous moment in our trip. Our ship quietly entered the harbor of Kingston backed by the Blue Mountains, and not far away we already could see the little houses of the town. We all were very glad to see land again and how beautiful it was—we almost forgot that we had still three weeks more to travel before we could arrive at our destination.

Janine stood enjoying the sight of the colorful colonial harbor as the
San Thomé
drew into Kingston, when Sigmar caught her off guard by grabbing her chin to study her face.

“The British are very conservative,” he snapped, his face white and taut in spite of the weeks they had spent in the sun. “Lipstick will give them the wrong impression of you. Take my handkerchief and wipe it off immediately.”

Who could foresee how his family’s virtue and value now would be judged as they landed on this Caribbean isle? He scarcely knew who he was anymore. In vain he pawed at his pocket for a cigar. Beneath him, native Jamaicans bent in the sun to secure the
San Thomé
’s ropes to the cleats on the quay, and British officers carrying clipboards talked with the captain. Warily they eyed the hundreds of refugees amassed on deck in somber woolens and dark hats that advertised their foreignness. It was the officers’ unpleasant duty on this Easter Sunday, April 5, 1942, to explain to the stressed and weary passengers that they would have to debark and be moved to a camp about a half hour away so their credentials and baggage could be inspected. The British were worried that German spies might have infiltrated these newest arrivals and needed adequate time to clear the ship for traveling onward.

Orders were issued matter-of-factly, but as not all the passengers understood English, there was a good deal of multilingual chatter on deck as the instructions were informally translated, person-to-person, with varying degrees of accuracy. The gist was this: passengers would have to leave their belongings behind, save for a change of clothes and toiletries for a couple of nights. When they returned to the ship, they would find everything just as they left it. Customs and immigration officials would be searching each person who filed off the ramp, inspecting their visas and asking them to declare any money and valuables in their possession.

How could they know, these British officials at empire’s outstation, that to the refugees’ minds, this routine inventory would undercut pride? Lost, stolen, long since abandoned were homes and businesses, paintings and pianos, bank accounts, stock, insurance, furnishings, jewelry, cars, cash, and any and all other wealth they had once possessed. Schadenfreude lent truth to rumors that flew through the group that the British subjected the diamond dealers from Belgium and The Netherlands to the most invasive sort of personal searches.

The Günzburger family was waiting on line for the bus to the camp when an officer tapped Janine on the shoulder. Her parents watched in alarm as he led her away, explaining he needed to ask her some questions. The Orthodox Jew she had insulted on the day that the
Lipari
sailed from Marseille had reported her emotional outburst in favor of France, which raised concerns regarding her sympathies now. Did she still maintain that this chance to leave France represented
exile
to her? Did she really imagine, as a Jew, that she could conceivably be better off there? His rhetorical questions still hung in the air when one of the British inspectors who had been searching the ship entered the office and placed a thick envelope on his superior’s desk. With horror, Janine recognized Roland’s parting letter—her most treasured possession. Testimony to the discipline with which her parents had reared her, she had obediently left it behind with her things in the hold.

“No! No!” she exclaimed. “Please! You must give that back!” She lunged for the letter while she struggled to say what she needed in English. “That is only for me!” Silent tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks.

“I understand your sentiments, but we shall have to examine this,” the officer said as he flipped through the twelve densely packed, handwritten French pages, his caution punctilious at this critical checkpoint. When he came to the last page, with writing that extended all the way to the bottom, he had to rotate it to read the signature, which ran sideways along the paper’s left margin in larger script than that of the text. He frowned at the name and then at the envelope, which offered no indication of where and when the letter was sent. “Who gave this to you?
Schatsy
, is it? A German name, if I’m not mistaken. Whoever that is, he certainly had a great deal to tell you! I’m afraid I shall have to order a translation of this, and that will take time, obviously.”

No explanation and no amount of begging and blushing, of tears and pleading would induce the official to return it to her. All correspondence found on the ship, her letter included, would have to pass scrutiny by censors, he said. While she did not appear a dangerous person, the risk of permitting an Axis spy to enter undetected into Allied territory was simply too great, given the current state of the war. If her loyalties lay where they belonged, with the Brits and the Yanks, she would surely approve of every safeguard. The letter, he said, would be waiting for her, under her name at the main post office, poste restante or general delivery, when she got to Havana. But she would have traded an arm to take it with her.

“By the way, young lady,” the officer added before he dismissed her to join the family and get on the bus, “in future, I’d advise being more careful about the sorts of things that you say. These are difficult times, and words can be weapons.”

Three days later, almost all the 500-odd refugees were returned to the ship to continue their journeys to Mexico, Cuba, or the United States, depending upon which visa they held. Thirty-three remained in Jamaica. There were 235 bound for Mexico, 280 for Cuba, and only 10 for the States: American visas, most coveted, were the hardest to get for Jews fleeing Europe. Many of those on their way to Havana did not plan to stay there, but hoped to continue on to the States as soon as they could.

On April 16, more than a month after leaving Marseille, the
San Thomé
reached the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. Unexpectedly, thirty-seven former fighters of the International Brigade from five different countries, all scheduled to disembark there, were forbidden to land. There were threats of shipping the former Loyalist fighters back, and they were terrified of returning to Europe. Negotiations sputtered on for ten days as all the passengers miserably languished, until finally money changed hands. The Mexican Central Jewish Committee, supported by the Joint, agreed to post bonds, which proved crucial to winning the refugees’ entry. In the interim, though, some daring young men even dove off the boat and into the water, viewing the prospect of creeping ashore as preferable to facing the risk of being hauled back to the Fascists in Europe. Bored with waiting, Norbert taunted his parents that he was planning to jump off as well.

But the long delay, even while fraying the refugees’ nerves, inspired the locals to organize parties, which was more to his liking. Night after night—attracted, perhaps, by the allure of young foreign girls on the ship—handsome Mexican harbor policemen with pistols strapped to their waists boarded the
San Thomé
with musicians. Cheap local cane liquor called
aguardiente
may have helped to make the passengers friendly, and the music of
sones
lightened the mood. Steamy tropical nights sweated the notes of marimba and bamba played on harps, tambourines, and four-stringed guitars plucked with picks fashioned from cow horn. The Mexicans danced with young Europeans and tried to teach their dazzling footwork to people who, having run for their lives just weeks before, barely even knew where they stood or whether they ought to celebrate yet.

On one of these evenings, the
San Thomé
’s attractive Portuguese captain, Antonio Bravo, having noticed Janine, invited her to dine with him in his personal quarters. He was at least two decades older than she, nearly bald and not very tall, but with a strong cleft chin and bright blue eyes, he cut an elegant figure in his well-fitting white uniform with its high collar, brass buttons, and epaulets. Sigmar was flattered the captain had singled her out, and as he calculated that such a connection might somehow prove useful, he urged her to accept. But did he stop to consider that after cold and lonely weeks on the ocean, shepherding refugees over the waters of war, the captain might seek something more from a beautiful woman who dined in his quarters than polite conversation? Certainly not. In good German fashion, Sigmar took in the title, the gold braid that adorned the captain’s square shoulders, the sense of authority that Bravo exuded, and he determined it quite safe and proper that Janine should go. Naïvely, he could not conceive of liberties taken, not under the eye of her very own father.

“My, such an honor!” Sigmar reflected aloud. “My daughter invited to dine with the captain!”

For history’s sake, Janine brought along her little autograph book, in which the captain obligingly pasted his picture and also penned an inscription in English: “I
think every time the best and lovle
[lovely]
girl on my ship
.” But the invitation would not be repeated, nor would she have accepted again. As they sat and talked on his deck after dinner, the captain took hold of her hand and without any warning urgently clasped it between his legs, where her fingers encountered a limp little bird. It attempted to flutter, but she yanked back her hand and ended the evening, realizing that nothing was ever as simple as her parents believed, nor could she ever tell them about it. It seemed too much to expect them to withstand the shock of her broaching a sexual topic. The captain’s behavior nonetheless marked the start of a new education. Without Roland at her side, she learned the language of strangers’ desires, which totally changed her views about men and affected the way she would one day teach me about them: skeptically, with mistrust and with warnings about all of the ways one’s heart might be broken.