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  TROPICAL SECRETS

  TROPICAL SECRETS

  HOLOCAUST REFUGEES IN CUBA

  MARGARITA ENGLE

  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

  NEW YORK

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Publishers since 1866

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, New York 10010

  www.HenryHoltKids.com

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  Copyright © 2009 by Margarita Engle

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Engle, Margarita.

  Tropical secrets : Holocaust refugees in Cuba /

  Margarita Engle.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Escaping from Nazi Germany to Cuba in 1939, a young Jewish refugee dreams of finding his parents again, befriends a local girl with painful secrets of her own, and discovers that the Nazi darkness is never far away.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8936-3 / ISBN-10: 0-8050-8936-5

  1. Jews—Cuba—History—20th century—Juvenile fiction.

  2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Juvenile fiction. {1. Novels in verse. 2. Jews—Cuba—Fiction. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Fiction.

  4. Refugees—Fiction. 5. Cuba—History—1933–1959—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.5.E54Tr 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008036782

  First Edition—2009

  Book designed by Meredith Pratt

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. ∞

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  To my parents

  Martin and Eloísa Mondrus

  No se puede tapar el sol con un dedo.

  You can’t cover up the sun with one finger.

  CUBAN FOLK SAYING

  CONTENTS

  June 1939

  July 1939

  December 1941

  April 1942

  Historical Note

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  TROPICAL SECRETS

  JUNE 1939

  DANIEL

  Last year in Berlin,

  on the Night of Crystal,

  my grandfather was killed

  while I held his hand.

  The shattered glass

  of a thousand windows

  turned into the salty liquid

  of tears.

  How can hatred have

  such a beautiful name?

  Crystal should be clear,

  but on that dark night

  the glass of broken windows

  did not glitter.

  Nothing could be seen

  through the haze

  of pain.

  DANIEL

  My parents are musicians—

  poor people, not rich.

  They had only enough money

  for one ticket to flee Germany,

  where Jewish families like ours

  are disappearing

  during nights

  of crushed glass.

  My parents chose to save me

  instead of saving themselves,

  so now, here I am, alone

  on a German ship

  stranded in Havana Harbor,

  halfway around

  the huge world.

  Thousands of other Jewish refugees

  stand all around me

  on the deck of the ship,

  waiting for refuge.

  DANIEL

  First, the ship sailed

  to New York,

  and then Canada,

  but we were turned away

  at every harbor.

  If Cuba does not

  allow us to land,

  will we be sent back

  to Germany’s

  shattered nights?

  With blurry eyes

  and an aching head,

  I force myself to believe

  that Cuba will help us

  and that someday

  I will find my parents

  and we will be a family

  once again.

  PALOMA

  One more ship

  waits in the harbor,

  one ship among so many,

  all filled with sad strangers

  waiting for permission to land

  here in Cuba.

  Our island must seem

  like such a peaceful resting place

  on the way to safety.

  I stand in a crowd

  on the docks, wondering why

  all these ships

  have been turned away

  from the United States

  and Canada.

  DANIEL

  One of the German sailors

  sees me gazing

  over the ship’s railing

  at the sunny island

  with its crowded docks

  where strangers stand

  gazing back at us.

  The sailor calls me

  an evil name—

  then he spits in my face—

  but I am too frightened

  to wipe away

  the thick, liquid hatred.

  So I cling to the railing

  in silence,

  with spit on my forehead.

  I am thirteen, a young man,

  but today I feel

  like a baby seagull

  with a broken beak.

  DANIEL

  This tropical heat

  is a weight in the sky

  crushing my breath,

  but I will not remove

  my winter coat or my fur hat

  or the itchy wool scarf

  my mother knitted

  or the gloves my father gave me

  to keep my hands warm

  so that we could all

  play music together

  someday, in the Golden Land

  called New York.

  If I remove

  my warm clothes,

  someone might steal them,

  along with my fading

  stubborn dream

  of somehow reaching the city

  where my parents promised

  to find me

  beside a glowing door

  at the base of a statue

  called Liberty,

  in a city

  with seasons of snow

  just like home.

  PALOMA

  My father’s secrets

  torment me.

  Almost every evening

  I hear him whispering plans

  as he dines and drinks

  with other officials,

  the ones who decide

  what will happen

  to all the sad people

  on their patient boats.

  Last night

  I heard my father say

  that all these refugees

  from faraway places

  are making him rich.

  I heard him bickering

  with his friends

  about the price they will charge

  for permission to come ashore

  and find refuge

  in Cuba.

  DANIEL

  The only riches I have ever known

  are the sounds of pianos, flutes, and violins,

  so when the German sailors on this ship

  keep telling me that I am rich

  and that I should pay them

  to stop spitting in my face,

  I feel like laughing and crying

  at the same time.

  I have only a few coins

  sewn into a secret place

  inside my heavy, itchy coat,

  but my parents war
ned me

  that I will need

  that little bit of money

  no matter where I end up,

  so I must let the sailors spit.

  I keep telling myself

  that if I ever reach New York

  or any other safe place

  I will look back on this day

  of heat and humiliation

  and none of it will matter

  as long as I am free

  to play music

  and to believe

  that I still have a family

  somewhere.

  PALOMA

  When I overhear my father’s secrets,

  I understand—

  any ship turned away from Cuba

  will have no place to go,

  no safe place on earth.

  Those ships will return

  to Germany,

  where all the refugees

  will suddenly be homeless

  and helpless

  in their own homeland.

  My father thinks it is funny,

  a clever trick

  the way he sells visas

  to enter our small island nation

  and then decides

  whether the people

  who buy the visas

  will actually be allowed

  to land.

  DANIEL

  Land!

  Solid ground,

  the firmness of earth

  beneath my shoes,

  even if it is just a filthy street

  crowded with beggars

  wearing strange costumes

  and people

  of all different colors

  mixed up together,

  as if God had poured out

  a bunch of leftover paints

  after making brown rocks

  and beige sand. . . .

  PALOMA

  Drumming . . .

  someone is drumming

  on our front door. . . .

  It’s the sound of a vendor

  knocking at the door

  and singing in Spanish

  with his raspy Russian accent,

  singing about cold, sweet ice cream,

  vanilla in a chocolate shell,

  like some sort of odd sea creature

  from the far north.

  Papá would be furious

  if he knew that I am a friend

  of the old man who sells ice cream

  door to door.

  Papá would be angry

  not only because Davíd

  is poor and foreign

  but also because he is Jewish,

  a refugee who came to Cuba

  from the Ukraine

  long ago.

  I open the door

  and greet Davíd.

  I buy the cold treat quietly—

  whispering is a skill I have learned

  by watching my father

  make his secret deals.

  PALOMA

  The next singing vendor

  who comes along

  is a Chinese man selling herbs

  and red ribbons to ward off

  the evil eye.

  I buy one strand of protection

  for each of my long black braids

  and a third for the dovecote,

  my castlelike tower

  in our huge, forested garden—

  the tower where I feed my winged friends,

  wild doves who come and go as they please,

  gentle friends, not captives in cages.

  Even bright ribbons and cold ice cream

  are not enough to make me feel

  like an ordinary twelve-year-old girl.

  I feel like a fairy-tale princess

  cursed with deadly secrets

  that must be kept silent.

  DANIEL

  Hundreds of refugees

  crowd into the central courtyard—

  an open patio at the heart

  of an oddly shaped Cuban house.

  I am not accustomed to buildings

  with trees and flowers at the center

  and a view of open sky

  right in the middle of the house

  where one would expect to find

  a stone fireplace

  and sturdy brick walls.

  Brown-skinned Cubans

  and a red-haired American Quaker woman

  take turns trying to give me

  new clothes made of cotton,

  but I refuse to take off

  my thick winter coat.

  I find it almost impossible

  to believe that I will ever

  see my parents again,

  but at the same time

  I secretly remember

  their dream

  of being reunited

  in a cold, glowing city.

  I don’t see how I can survive

  without that tiny sliver of hope,

  my imaginary snow.

  DANIEL

  A friendly old man

  gives me one ice-cream bar

  after another.

  He says he had to flee Russia

  long ago, just as I have fled Germany.

  He tells me he understands how I feel—

  I am certain that no one

  could ever understand,

  but he speaks Yiddish

  so I shower him with questions.

  He tells me his name is David

  and that over the years

  he has grown used to hearing his name

  pronounced the Spanish way—Davíd,

  with an accent on the second syllable,

  like the sound of a musical burst

  at the end.

  I promise myself that I will never

  let anyone change the rhythm

  of my name.

  DANIEL

  Two days later, I am still wearing

  my heavy coat.

  The old ice-cream man tells me

  that I will have to stay here in hot, sweaty

  Hotel Cuba,

  so I might as well remove

  my uncomfortable clothing.

  It takes me a while to figure out

  that David is joking.

  I am not really in a hotel

  but in some sort of strange

  makeshift shelter for refugees.

  The ice cream is charity,

  my melting breakfast

  and messy dinner.

  DANIEL

  A girl with olive skin and green eyes

  helps David pass out festive plates

  of saffron-yellow rice

  and soupy black beans.

  The girl has wavy red ribbons

  woven into her thick black braids.

  She glances at me, and I glare back,

  trying to tell her to leave me alone.

  The meal is strange, but after two days

  of ice cream, hot food tastes good

  even in this sweltering

  tropical weather.

  My coat is folded up beside me.

  I am finally wearing cotton clothing,

  cool and comfortable,

  a shirt and pants donated

  by strangers.

  What choice do I have?

  I still cling to my dream

  of a family reunion

  in snowy New York,

  but in the meantime, here I am

  in the sweaty tropics,

  struggling to breathe humid air

  that feels as thick as the steam

  from a pot of my mother’s

  fragrant tea.

  DANIEL

  The girl asks me questions

  in Spanish

  while the ice-cream man translates

  into Yiddish.

  Back and forth we go,

  passing words from one language

  to another,

  and none of them are my own

  native tongue, Berlin’s familiar

  German.
>
  Still, I am grateful

  that Jews in Europe

  all share Yiddish,

  the language of people

  who have had to flee

  from one land to another

  more than once.

  DAVID

  I am glad that I have plenty

  of ice cream and advice

  to give away

  because what else can I offer

  to all these frightened people

  who are just beginning to understand

  what it means

  to be a refugee

  without a home?

  DANIEL

  David says that removing my coat

  was the first step

  and accepting strange food

  was the second.

  Now, he wants me to plunge

  into the ocean.

  Others are doing it—

  all around me, refugees wade

  into the island’s warm

  turquoise sea.

  David insists that I must learn

  how to swim, if I want to cool off

  on hot days.

  He speaks to me with his hands dancing

  and his voice musical, just like the islanders