Refugee

Aboard the MS St. Louis, the passengers give a hero’s welcome to Officer Padron—the policeman who rescued Josef’s father from the water. Padron tells Josef and his mother that Landau has been sedated and is recovering in a Cuban hospital. Someone asks Padron when they will be allowed to travel to the island. Josef already knows the answer: “In unison, he and Josef spoke the answer all the Cuban guards always gave: ‘Mañana’” (202).

On the way to Florida, Isabel takes her turn slipping into the water to trail alongside the boat. Isabel’s friend Iván is floating in the water next to her. Everyone has a lively conversation about what to name their boat. The conversation is suddenly cut short when Iván is bitten by a shark. By the time the others haul him into the boat, Iván dies from blood loss. Enraged, Iván’s brother pulls out his police pistol and shoots the shark, which only attracts more sharks: “Another fin appeared, and another, and soon the nameless little boat was surrounded. They were trapped in their own sinking prison” (209).

On the island of Lesbos, Mahmoud and his family find themselves in another tent city while they wait for the next ferry to take them to Athens. Mahmoud’s mother continues her fruitless search to find Hana. They eventually board the ferry with a multitude of refugees as well as some vacationing tourists: “This wasn’t what the tourists had paid for. They were supposed to be on holiday, seeing ancient ruins and beautiful Greek beaches, not stepping over filthy, praying refugees” (214). In Athens, the family is surrounded by other refugees. They can’t afford to wait a week for their travel permits to come through, so Mahmoud’s father decides that they will take a train to Macedonia and sneak across the border.

Outside Havana Harbor, Josef watches from the deck as someone from the island is allowed onboard. The man is a German who has come to claim his daughters and take them ashore. Other passengers demand to know why they can’t be allowed to disembark. At that moment, the ship’s engines come to life. The captain explains that his appeal to the Cuban president has been turned down, and the ship has been ordered to leave. The captain reassures his passengers that they will sail until they find a country to take them. When Josef asks about his father, who is in a Cuban hospital, he’s informed that Landau is too sick to travel. Josef realizes that his family will have to leave his father behind in Cuba.

While traveling between the Bahamas and Florida, Isabel is grieving the death of her friend Iván. The rest of the party makes the unbearable decision to dump the body overboard. Señor Castillo says a prayer over the corpse, and Isabel keeps Iván’s baseball cap as a memento: “Isabel cried, the tears coming without end, flowing up from the hollow place in her chest that threatened to consume her. Iván was gone, forever” (227). Just as the body sinks, Isabel notices the lights of Miami in the distance.

On the way to Serbia, Mahmoud’s family sneaks across the Macedonian border only to find another crowd of refugees waiting at the next train station. A cab driver offers to drive them to the Serbian border. The trip will be expensive, but it is the family’s best alternative. Once across the Serbian border, they take a bus to Belgrade. In the capital city, another cab driver offers to take them to Hungary. This trip will cost even more than the first cab, but they agree to the fare and climb into the vehicle. Mahmoud falls asleep in the car, only to be awakened by a new crisis: “They were stopped in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway surrounded by dark, empty fields. And the taxi driver was leaning over the backseat with a pistol aimed straight at them” (235).

Off the coast of America, the MS St. Louis continues to seek asylum for its passengers somewhere. The US government has turned down the ship’s request, so the refugees will try Canada next. Ten of the male passengers plan a mutiny. If they take the bridge, they can force the captain to run the ship aground somewhere. The conspirators enlist Josef’s aid; Pozner says, “We need you with us […]. We need you to show us the way up to the bridge” (242).

At night, off the coast of Florida, Isabel and her companions are relieved to see the lights of Miami at last. Just then, the boat’s hull cracks and water begins to pour in. While everyone else is bailing for dear life, Isabel and Amara throw the useless engine overboard. The lightened boat floods less rapidly, but another problem looms when a US Coast Guard vessel approaches: “Halt! […] You are in violation of US waters. Remain where you are and prepare to be boarded” (246).

On the road to Hungary, the cab driver demands 300 euros from Mahmoud’s father, then forces the family out of his cab and drives away. They eventually find a bus to carry them the rest of the way to the Hungarian border. Once there, they are confronted with yet another multitude of Syrian refugees. The Hungarian government is putting up a fence at the border. In desperation, the refugees storm the fence, and Mahmoud, among others, is shot with tear gas: “He choked on the gas, and his lungs seized up. He couldn’t breathe. It was like he was drowning on land” (252). Mahmoud is sure that he’s about to die.

In the Atlantic Ocean in 1939, Josef leads his co-conspirators to the ship’s bridge. They easily overcome the few crew members on duty. When the captain is summoned, he refuses to be intimidated. He tells the mutineers that no one will sail the ship without his orders. Less certain of their plan, the conspirators stand down. The captain promises that he will take them to England and run the ship aground there if he must: “Josef threw his pipe to the ground and left without the other men. They were going back to Europe, and there was nothing he could do about it” (258).