Becoming Julius

He remembered rain, and Budapest as a dim gray shape beyond his view, the rooftops in the distance hidden by a dense wet fog. His leather suitcase on the bed, open and full to bursting, its brown straps frayed and brittle. His brother’s on the floor, the straps tightly closed. Rain splattered the windows. That day was a miserable, cold spring; not a good one for traveling. His parents were preparing one last meal for them all, and then they’d say goodbye to the only world they’d ever known.

He held his tallis, its cotton smooth, with knotted corners that had barely been handled in the reverie of prayer, a gift from his grandfather, who also gave one to his brother Shmuel. Should he leave it behind? He stared at his brother’s suitcase, not knowing if his was in there.

He folded the tallis gently, placing it atop his other belongings. Testing the suitcase to see if it could close, he had fearful visions of it flying open somewhere on their journey. 

His tefillin were already at the bottom of his suitcase. He took no chances with this religious article. He’d said his morning prayers early, before the rain, draped in his tallis, his tefillin wrapping his arm and his forehead, so he would be sure to have time to pack them carefully. He didn’t even know if he believed in the rite, but he did it anyway. Maybe in America he’d feel differently.

Just then his mother walked into his room. She stood next to him in silence. She only came up to his shoulders. 

“Come,” she said. “Finish after we eat.”

His mother had been cooking all day, the house smelled of brisket with carrots and onions and challah baking. He pulled the leather straps around the suitcase, tightening them. His father entered his room. He and his father had never been close. His father worked hard to provide for the family but showed little affection. He prayed at the synagogue, although only on the highest holy days.

He put his suitcase on the floor, done at last.

“Frimmke,” his father said to his mother. “Come downstairs for our last meal in this house.”

She gave his hand a squeeze and followed his father out.

His parents had never learned English. He had been trying to learn the language for years because he wanted to read Mr. Mark Twain in the original. His younger brother and sister barely understood that they were going to the New World, but he knew of the adventure awaiting them. Mostly he felt fear about the journey, first a train to somewhere he’d never been, and then a huge boat where they would crowd into steerage.

The train ride from Budapest had begun with an aura of excitement. Their first destination was Hamburg. They arrived at the Passagierin Halls, and he was amazed to find thousands of expectant immigrants, all waiting for their ship to be announced. There were families, old men and women, the sick and the healthy. Their commotion made a thunderous din, and he could hear the screams of children, crying, shouting, shrieking. His father held the tickets. They needed to wait for the next day when their ship would be announced for boarding. They spent the night in a dirty flophouse near the docks. His mother had brought hard biscuits for them to eat.

The ship was almost too massive for his eyes, with smokestacks billowing black clouds. They walked among hundreds of others, were led onto the ship, then down into steerage. He gripped his suitcase so tightly he saw his knuckles were white. His brother and sister held their small suitcases, his mother and father surrounding them, never taking their eyes off any of them. He noticed the stares of the first-class passengers, who looked on from their own deck far above them, as they descended below. They followed a minor officer into dark halls, and then were assigned iron bunks that contained only mattresses made of straw, many already coming apart, leaking brown strands.

He saw families clinging to one another, staying together for protection like theirs, and groups of men eyeing all the steerage passengers, gauging from whom they could steal whatever they could get their hands on. His father said to them before they boarded the train, “Keep your suitcases within sight at all times!” The floors were wood, and worn, scratched, and rutted, but were swept every morning, then sprinkled with sand. Some mornings the new sand smelled worse than the day before, a choking damp. 

There were lines, always lines, queuing up to eat, to shit, to wash. There were only two washrooms for steerage, and both used by men and women at the same time. They had to wait with hundreds of others to do their daily business. The voyage was to last twelve days, and the few receptacles allowed to the steerage class for laundry or washing soon became harder and harder to locate. There was nothing for those who became seasick, and by the third day the whole steerage area was filthy and unbearable, with a pale scent of vomit clouding his senses. His sister continuously wept. His brother only stared at the floor. His mother and father never spoke a word.

Some days he stayed in his bunk for most of the day. At night the gangs went to work. He heard women being attacked, crying, and begging for mercy in foreign tongues. Small bands of men pounced on innocent sleeping passengers, he heard clubs pounding on flesh, the crack of bones, then trunks being dragged to another part of the hallway for looting. He fought sleep as much as he could, but always dozed off. He was shocked awake in the morning when children began running about. There was horror one morning as a mother discovered a dead child by her side, the sweeping panic as the cry “Typhoid!” ripped through the darkness. An infestation of lice was unavoidable, a horrible crawling itch everywhere, and by the fourth day there was blood under his fingernails, the taste of blood on his tongue. The smell of blood seemed to be a constant in the air, mixing with the other, now thick, nauseating stenches.

Every day his mother handed out her biscuits, which were as hard as wood. She told them to suck on them until they softened.

His father brought them to the deck one at a time, his mother guarding their luggage. From the deck he saw an uninviting ocean, mysterious and cold. But in steerage there seemed to be an ocean of hands: anonymous hands reaching for his body in the night as he let down his guard in exhaustion, women’s hands reaching for tenderness or protection, men’s hands reaching for a quick feel or trying to pick his pocket, children’s hands reaching for anything. And there were the eyes, staring through him, burning, accusing, demanding, or waiting for him or his family to leave their bags unattended. He saw no friendly faces and spoke not a word the whole time. After a while he didn’t even hear his own voice inside his head. 

His sleepless nights and wasted days merged. He could not tell one from the other.

He recognized German, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish, but other languages remained  babel to him. He witnessed arguments, fights that no one attempted to stop, saw one man stabbed in broad daylight. The man lay bleeding, his attacker vanishing in the surrounding crowd, until the ship’s crew dragged him away. 

The continuous rocking of the ocean churned his stomach. On days with his father on deck the sun seared, but on the seventh and eighth days it stormed, and the heaven’s blackness lasted beyond the borders of the night. The ship was flung on the water, hit with terrible waves, and there was now a slick veneer of vomit covering every bit of steerage floor space. In the endless dark his mother and sister wept without end. He tied his handkerchief around his face, but it didn’t help. He tried to walk to the bathroom once to be sick himself, but slipped on the wet sand that was soaked with vomit and fell in a pool of stinking phlegm. He retreated to his bunk, where he clung to his parents, along with his siblings, until the storm passed. The next day steerage passengers weren’t allowed on the open decks, and they all had to spend the hot day in the horrible stinking darkness, as if they were being punished. He later found out that they had been banished from the clean air and dry calm seas so the first-class passengers could have free rein of the ship, to air out their own cabins. 

The next night his father decided to get some air when darkness fell and grabbed him by the wrist to accompany him. They stepped over people lying in the hallways, who were either unconscious or asleep. He kicked a bottle that slid along until it hit a wall and shattered. When they made it to the deck, the air smelled sweet, and he took a deep breath. The stars were brilliant and he relaxed as he exhaled. He had never seen such stars, never knew the sky could hold such a heaven as this. There were small groups of people standing around, and he heard the whispered conversation of a dozen different languages. From the other end of the deck he recognized the anger of the thugs who had taken to looting and bullying whoever they could. Suddenly a man came running their way. He saw terror in the man’s eyes, and in an instant three others caught the man and began beating him, kicking him until his cries were barely audible. Then they lifted him, and without a moment’s hesitation threw him overboard. They looked in every direction, challenging anyone to accuse them. One pulled out a bottle and all of them drank. He glanced into the ocean, searching for any movement on the water, but there was nothing. His father grabbed his hand and they returned to their bunks, and stayed there until the middle of the next day, to the whimpering choking crying spasms of his brother and sister.

As the days passed he noticed a few families, like his, who huddled together in the dark corners of steerage, keeping to themselves. Men his father’s age, protecting their families, girls his sister’s age, packed close to their mother, never venturing away by themselves. Finally, one day, there came a cry from the deck, then a cheer, then thunderous pandemonium. His father led them all up to the deck, making sure they had their suitcases, and through the distant fog and mist of the ocean he saw it too. Land in the distance. The cry went out, in English, “Inspection!  Inspection!” and he realized that this was the moment of truth: they would be taken in or sent back. He explained this to his parents, and the look on his mother’s face reflected his own panic. Everywhere he looked that there weren’t people, there was  baggage: suitcases, bundles, sharp objects wrapped in rags, wooden containers, wicker baskets, boxes, trunks. His father pulled him away from his family, and sat him down firmly on a large crate that had two leather handles nailed into the sides.

“You tell them this is ours,” he said, “and if they ask you what is inside, you say, gifts from my grandmother. You understand?”

He didn’t understand. This wasn’t their crate, but no one else claimed it. He nodded his head.

Then his father leaned close to him and whispered, “I know what this is. I knew the man they threw into the ocean. This is ours now. Do you understand?”

The ship passed through the narrows; there was land on either side.  He couldn’t believe the buildings in the distance. And the ships! There were so many other ships crowded into this one lane of water.

He tried to get a better view. His father sat his siblings on the crate and told them not to move. He could tell his sister was relieved to not be standing in such a crowd. His brother looked terrified.

There was a commotion over the side of the ship. A smaller boat appeared alongside it, and uniformed officers climbed aboard, one obviously a doctor. He could hear the crisp English being spoken, and he tried to remember the lessons he had stolen in moments of quiet, any words from Mark Twain. The doctor went from one to another, looking at them, occasionally pointing to a passenger.

Then a hushed silence came over the deck. He looked out to where everyone’s gaze was drawn, and there she was, the great statue rising from the waters near the shore. She was beautiful. There was laughter and shouting, people were hugging and kissing each other. It was as if all the terrors of the previous days were imagined. 

Off to the left of the statue he saw the red brick buildings of Ellis Island, and straight ahead the skyline of New York. Budapest seemed tiny by comparison. Even Hamburg was nothing compared to this.

When he heard his family name called, he practically screamed in answer. His father barely registered that they had been called. His own voice sounded alien to him; he barely recognized it. He and his father lifted the crate, and both his hands were now full, one gripping his battered suitcase, the other holding a leather strap nailed to the heavy crate. He had no idea what they were lugging. When they all boarded the ferry, they were each given a card with a letter and a number. The ferry docked at Ellis Island, and the crowds began leaving, dragging their whole lives with them. 

Now he seemed to be the head of the family, as he was able to read signs and hear English words in this chaos. He followed the crowds and led his family into a vast building. There were more lines, thousands of people, enough to fill a hundred ships. He understood that both men and women were able to shower, so he explained that his mother and sister should go one way, and he and his father and brother would watch their bags, and when they were finished they would switch. Afterwards he felt vaguely clean for the first time since their departure.

Their baggage was examined, including the mysterious crate, where he got a glimpse of its insides. He only saw rags wrapped around many items. He did as his father instructed him and explained that these were from his grandmother back home. Then they stood in another line. They were of a group of thirty immigrants, as seven other groups of thirty were also moved to the large arena of the Registry Hall. There was noise everywhere, children screaming, thunderous horns of the ships outside. Inspection officers went from one passenger to another, looking at the card they had been given. The officers wrote on a piece of paper and tagged the immigrants’ clothing. He watched as an American came to him and took the paper. The man looked at the number and letter, wrote it on some paper, and stuck the paper to his coat. Then he did the same with his parents and his siblings. Then the whole group moved to lines according to the letter on their tags. 

Groups of two and three men in white went from person to person, pieces of chalk in their hands. Some people were marked with an H or an L or an X. He didn’t know what this meant, and it made him nervous. This was clearly a health inspection, because many who received the X were obviously quite ill. A few who coughed wore the L.  His mother looked as if she would fall over with fear.

Then the doctors surrounded him, touching him, probing with their fingers. One doctor grabbed his head and stared into his eyes. Another pulled his ears, opened his mouth and looked inside as if he were a horse. A third pointed to a door, and spoke to him in quick English. He barely understood, but knew he was to go through that door. They hadn’t marked him with any letter. He tried to explain that he had to wait for the others, but the man yelled at him, “Go! Go!” and he left his family, hoping they would soon join him. He knew this meant he was healthy enough to pass through. When he entered the door, there were lines leading up to small desks. He took his place at the back of one and slowly made his way to the front.

As he was about to get to the desk, he turned to see his family enter the room. He waved them over and they joined him, his father dragging the crate.

The man sitting before him began firing questions at such a speed he could hardly understand. The first was, “Your name?”

He didn’t want to say his name. Standing here, in America, it suddenly sounded alien. He thought as quickly as he could, and all he could remember was the play he’d read in English, trying to learn more than he could from Mark Twain.

“Julius,” he said.

“Last name!” the man said.

Their surname was a collection of sounds not impossible to say in English, but he spoke slowly and watched as the man wrote down his new name, Julius, and his last name, which mostly remained the same.

“This is my family,” he said. “Can I help them answer for you?”

“Okay,” the man said, looking at the paper before him, and began reading, “How did you pay for your passage? Do any of you have a job waiting? Are you joining relatives? Do you have an address? Where were you born? Where did you last reside? Are any of you anarchists?”

He answered as fast as he could, his whole body shaking as the man shouted these questions at him. They were headed to a place called Brooklyn where his father had a cousin. He felt like the fate of his family was in his hands, in his ability to speak this new language. He gave his siblings new names as well, Gdanke became Jenny, his brother Shmuel became Sam, both names from another English book he had read. His father went from Menasheh to Max, and his mother became Dorothy, leaving Frimmke behind. He wasn’t sure they were aware they now had American names.

The last question made him stop. He was shaking from nerves, hunger, fear. His father stared at him with a look that was part terror, part anger.

“Anarchist?” he asked the man timidly.

“Yes, yes. Do you understand? Are any of you anarchists?”

“No, no anarchist.”

“Okay then, here you go.” The man gave him a card that was clearly stamped ADMITTED, then handed one to each member of his family, pointed to another door and shouted “Out!”

Ferry boats were leaving. He hoisted his half of the crate by its leather handle, grabbed his suitcase, and led his family to the ticket gate, where they each presented their cards to the man waiting, and he paid with American money to board the ferry. He had enough left over for the head tax. The steerage passengers had been allowed to change their currency on the ship, and when his father gave him all the German marks he had, that’s when he knew he was now in charge of his family. Then they were once more on the water, heading to New York. For the first time he noticed how magnificent a day it was. The sky was as blue as the beautiful Danube of his Budapest. The air smelled sweet. 

The ferry docked with a crash. And suddenly they were in the turmoil of a city he could never have imagined. The buildings, the crowds, more people than he had ever seen, the honking of so many automobiles, horses crowding the streets, young boys hawking newspapers, screaming in an English he barely understood. A noise that left him dizzy. So much life. It was paralyzing, electrifying, terrifying. For the first time, he allowed himself to say the word out loud.

“America.”

And a stranger passing by looked at him, looked at them all, shook his head and laughed, and said, “That’s right, rabbi, America.”