Summary
From the deck of the ship, Josef watches his father thrash and scream incoherently in the water. Josef calls for someone to help. He would jump in himself, but he can’t swim. A Cuban police officer on a lower deck dives in. A woman screams and points at two shark fins in the water. As the Cuban pulls Josef’s father back to the boat, Aaron cries out that the murderers will never take him; he asks that they let him die. A man fires at one of the sharks; it bleeds, attracting the other shark toward it and away from the Cuban and Aaron. Once the men are onboard, the passengers who witnessed the rescue weep. Josef thinks about how the Cubans won’t let them in now that they know Aaron has gone mad.
Isabel continues to bail out the falling-apart boat as they struggle to reach Florida. Lito says “mañana” suddenly, tears in his eyes. When Isabel asks, he says it is nothing, just a memory. The nine people on the boat fall into an argument until Amara makes them stop. To keep the boat afloat by making it lighter, they decide two people at a time will swim alongside; it will also cool them down, and cooler heads are needed.
Mahmoud, still floating in the Mediterranean, wakes to the sound of a motor. It is still dark, but he waves the cell phone in the plastic bag to signal the boat over. It is the Greek Coast Guard, and Mahmoud’s father and Waleed are on the deck, hands clasped in thanks. The family is wrapped in foil survival blankets and brought to Lesbos after the boat spends the night rescuing others. There are piles of life jackets on the shore, shed by the thousands of refugees who’d come before them. There are also dead bodies of people who hadn’t been found in time. Mahmoud’s mother asks people on shore about Hana, but no one has seen her. While she cries, Mahmoud’s father whispers to him, suggesting they check the bodies to see if any of them have shoes that will fit them.
Following Josef’s father’s jump, Cuban police boats circle the ship, preventing people from trying to escape or kill themselves. One day, Officer Padron comes on the ship to speak through a translator. He is given a hero’s welcome for rescuing Josef’s father. He tells Josef’s mother that her husband is sedated in hospital, saying it isn’t good, but he’s alive. Padron tries to lighten the mood by playing with Ruthie and joking with Josef. The mood sours when he makes a joke about how everyone is always asking when they can get off the ship. The answer is always mañana.
Somewhere between the Bahamas and Florida, five days since leaving home, Isabel slips into the water, taking her turn. They can do nothing but wait. Isabel’s father whispers “mañana,” which he has been doing on and off for a day. Isabel’s mother calmly informs the group that her labor has begun. She says Isabel came ten hours after contractions started. The group is talking about what they should name their boat when a shark bites Iván’s leg. They pull him into the boat and blood gushes like a garden hose. Isabel’s father makes a tourniquet from his belt, but the blood still flows. Iván dies. Luis fires his pistol at the fin in the water. Lito is too late to stop him, explaining that the blood will just bring more sharks. Soon fins surround their sinking boat.
Greek relief workers have set up tents in the paved parking lot of the Lesbos pier. They still can’t locate Hana. Mahmoud worries his mother blames him for losing her. The family boards a giant ferry headed for Athens. Mahmoud feels the scorn of tourists who are also on the ship; he realizes that people only pay attention when refugees are doing something visible as opposed to being hidden away in camps. He considers how being invisible allowed him to survive in Syria, but in Germany he needs to be noticed. The world needs to see what is happening here. Upon landing in Athens, the family decides to take a train to the Macedonian border and try to sneak across during the night.
One day, Dr. Aber—the father of Renata and Evelyne who already lives in Cuba—is allowed to board the MS St. Louis. He has been allowed to take them off the ship. Other passengers demand that Officer Padron tell them why they can’t leave too. Suddenly the engines start up, and passengers rush to the top of the ladder. The Cuban police hold them back by drawing their pistols. Captain Schroeder calls for calm and explains to the refugees that he went to appeal to the Cuban president personally, but he wouldn’t speak with him. The ship has been ordered to leave the harbor, but the captain assures the refugees they will not return to Germany. He says they will go up the US coast and appeal to President Roosevelt. Josef asks Padron if he can get off to be with his father. Padron looks away and apologizes. Josef rips his collar as the ship moves off, just as his father did at the funeral on board.
Isabel stares at the Milky Way, her eyes blurry with tears. She can’t believe Iván is dead. She can’t look at his body. On the bottom of the boat, Fidel Castro’s face has Iván’s blood all over it. The men eventually decide they must dispose of his body. Lito leads a Catholic funeral prayer, still remembered even though the communists outlawed the religion. They slip his body into the water. It sinks while the sharks are occupied with devouring one of their own that Luis has shot. Isabel finds Iván’s baseball cap in the boat and keeps it. They see the lights of Miami in the distance.
At the Macedonian border, Mahmoud’s father consults his map and decides it is best to try crossing in the forest instead of open farmland. They get across, then walk for hours in the dark. Eventually, a taxi driver pulls up and offers to bring them to the border with Serbia, their next stop. It is a hundred euros, but Mahmoud’s father decides it is better to go than to stay the night in Macedonia. The family doesn’t stay long in Serbia, where there are threats of police raids. Another taxi takes them to Hungary for thirty euros each. Mahmoud drifts off. When he wakes, they have stopped in the middle of a dark field and the Serbian taxi driver is leaning over the seat, pointing a pistol at them.
Josef and Ruthie cling to the ship’s railings, watching Miami and Florida pass. They don’t understand why the US won’t just accept them. Josef knows the ship has become world news by then, with reporters in boats circling them. Eventually, the passengers are assembled for an announcement: the US has rejected them, so the boat is turning back to Europe. Cries of despair ring out as the passengers explain they were only released from concentration camps on the condition they leave Germany. Schiendick watches the chaos happily. Josef is pulled aside by a passenger named Pozner, who tells him they are planning to storm the bridge and take hostages with the intention of running the ship aground in America. Even if it fails, the world will know how desperate they are. He says they need Josef to show them the way to the bridge because he’s been given the tour.
Analysis
In a traumatic scene, Josef watches helplessly as his father thrashes in the water, a Cuban police officer swimming after him. The air of tension grows thicker as sharks circle; luckily, a fast-thinking person fires at one of the sharks, and its blood attracts the other, diverting the predatory creatures away from Josef. His rescuer turns out to be the police officer Mariano Padron—a young version of Isabel Fernandez’s grandfather Lito, who, in 1994, is reliving the painful memory of having to tell the Jewish refugees “mañana” over and over. With this character crossover, Gratz introduces the novel’s first explicit connection between the seemingly discrete storylines.
Gratz continues on the theme of support when Mahmoud and his family are rescued by the Greek Coast Guard. Rather than return them to Turkey and the desperate conditions there, the Greeks support the refugees by providing emergency foil blankets to keep them warm and bringing them to the shore of Lesbos. Once there, Mahmoud sees he and his family were lucky to have survived, with the tragic results of others’ crossings made clear by the image of the drowned bodies that have washed up. Despite their grief over not knowing where Hana is, Mahmoud’s father remains in survival mode, telling his son to search the corpses for shoes they can wear, having kicked off their own to keep from sinking.
In Isabel’s storyline, Lito continues to whisper "mañana," privately processing the remorse he feels for having had to turn the MS St. Louis refugees away. While the mood is briefly lightened by the news that Isabel will very soon have a baby brother, her mother’s contractions having begun, the mood turns dark when a shark attacks Iván. Because the shark hit an artery, Iván quickly dies of blood loss. The depressing situation becomes almost comically grim when sharks swarm the boat, attracted by the blood of Iván and the attacking shark Luis shoots. In a sinking boat full of blood and surrounded by sharks, the Cuban refugees have little hope of survival.
The theme of visibility arises in Mahmoud’s storyline when he and his family board a ferry from Lesbos to Athens. Although they have found some support from the Greek authorities, who have set up tents for the refugees, tourists on the same ferry look upon the miserable refugees with distaste, as though they are intentionally ruining their vacation. Mahmoud considers how it is important for refugees to attract attention, as opposed to being invisible, because as long as they’re invisible, the rest of the world can ignore their plight and refuse to give them any support.
The subject of visibility and its importance for refugees looking for support also arises in Josef’s storyline. Based on a historical event, an internal political dispute among Cuban authorities leads Cuba to renege on the visas they have issued the refugees. Worried they will be taken back to Nazi Germany and to concentration camps, the Jewish passengers plot a takeover of the ship. Taking Josef aside, Pozner explains that their best hope is to attract the public’s attention by making their desperation visible. Otherwise, the world won’t understand the threat that faces them back home.
