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cabaret singer. I was fourteen, and I sang songs about women who loved the wrong men—men who told them lies, promised them everything and then dumped them when they were old and useless to anybody else. I had learned these songs on the radio. Twenty seemed so old to me then as if it would never be an age I would reach. At that time I couldn’t even imagine growing old. I belted my songs with tremolos, pathos; the audience loved my singing, after all I was the only entertainment. And I loved being acclaimed.
    Annette and I walked on the deserted sandy white beaches philosophizing about life and imagining what was ahead for us. Her parents were also waiting to get visas to go to America where they had family. We promised each other eternal friendship. Now that our life was routinized we became aware that we were living strange days. We didn’t go to school. It didn’t bother me, but I was impressed to hear Annette say we were missing important years of learning.
    The day came when Annette and her parents left for America, and after she had left, life in Ericeira was boring for me. I pressured my mother anew to let me go. The departure of my boat fell on the exact day of my father’s departure for Africa. My mother had to see us off from two different docks at the same time that day.

Chapter 9
    Philadelphia, PA USA 1943
    I waved good-bye to my mother. I saw her smaller and smaller as the Serpa Pinto , a Portuguese boat, left March 2, 1943 from Lisbon. I was on my way to America, alone. It hit me, in one blow, that this departure, this separation had been my own doing, my choice. And I saw the bottomless ocean around me and my helplessness. I began at this moment to lose the me I was. I felt a loss from which I never quite recovered.
    The trip took twelve days. We arrived March 14, 1943 in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. I began to miss my parents hard, and I felt a pain forming a small ball and locating itself just below my throat.
    I had no one to turn to except a redheaded German girl I had befriended on the boat and to whom I taught several French words. I don’t know the exact number of children who were in our group. Many years later, L.H.F. found the passenger list where I am listed. I remember a boy who was carrying diamonds in his anus. I have exchanged memories with several friends and some stories were remembered by several people after fifty years. The boy who had the diamonds in his rectum was a Portuguese Jew whose father was a furrier. There was a reporter from Life magazine, and I have some photographs taken by a professional photographer that I believe were taken by him. I remember well that there was a US sailor who looked like a movie star. He had twinkling eyes, and I had a crush on him. For some odd reason he had been stranded in Lisbon. I was seasick for a few days and that was a new experience, as was this trip on a big boat. Otherwise it was an uneventful voyage.
    We disembarked in Philadelphia. My chest felt tight and I could hardly breathe. To leave the boat—another change—was bringing forth my miserable feelings of anguish and anxiety all over again. The American authorities interviewed us on the docks. A boy told me they were the FBI but I didn’t know what he was talking about. They were asking questions concerning the guides who got us out of France and Spain. One boy told me his interviewers knew all about his trip across the mountains. I was frightened with the same sensations of doom I had had when we had to travel as mutes. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I couldn’t utter anything. I kept thinking about the boy with the diamonds and that made me feel better. Imagine if I had to hide diamonds, I thought to myself.
    After the interviews, The American Service Committee handed our group over to The Children’s Aid Society, and we were taken to New York. Someone from the group told me they had taken us to Kingsbridge Hospital in