But Kipnis was whispering in Impik’s ear. “It’s a bet! They made a bet with each other!”

Then he turned to Nisel. “He’s going to make the whole speech without once saying Jew!”

The next morning, at sunrise, the orphans showed up at the Hotel Europa. As they walked down the hallway, toward Impik’s room, they passed a half-open door. Kipnis stopped. He wanted to know what was there. Lipiczany looked. It was a small room, on the corner, with a washstand and a circular window. A pair of black boots stood at the foot of an unmade bed. This sight, a perfectly ordinary one, filled the orphans with terror. Who had been sleeping in the rumpled bed? The boots—so large, so black, so shiny: whose were they? Kipnis gripped Nisel’s hand. Lipiczany threw his arms around Kipnis. Each one was thinking the very same thought. What if this were the room of the Elder? What then? Would they denounce him? Call the police? They could not strangle him alone! Trembling and shaking, holding each other, they squeezed through the door of the American’s room. They told him yes, they wanted to go.

It’s time to end now. To end. No comments. No questions. You know how these children happened to sail from Liverpool. As for Trumpelman, every now and then you hear some fantastic story that he has turned up in one place or another. Still breathing. Still alive. Impossible! Not true! His age would be more than one hundred! Ladies and gentlemen, we do not have to think of him any more.

III

The ship, the Urania, had been scheduled to dock in the morning, but because of all the rough weather it did not reach the harbor until late in the afternoon. The sun, aquiver, was going down on the left, over the land. The passengers crowded against the rails on the starboard side. At first Lipiczany thought that the city looked like a plaything, like piled-up blocks you could knock down with your hand. But as they drew nearer, and turned up the river, it loomed larger, more frightening, and it was the boat that seemed like a toy.

Kipnis, from cold, from excitement, was shivering beneath the blanket. “What do you see? Do you see the towers? Are they shining? Is it true that they reach the sky?”

Lipiczany stared at the city. It was like some awful machine. The cold red light of the sun beat at the windows of buildings. From the doorways, and on the streets, people were walking, stumbling, pressing against each other. Above them the smoke and steam from thousands of chimneys spread like a lid on the air.

“Tell me! The New World! The city! What is it like? Here is the palace of the common man!”

Nisel rested his head against Kipnis’ shoulder. “Yes, like a palace,” he said to his friend.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leslie Epstein was born into a filmmaking family in Los Angeles. His father and uncle were, respectively, Philip G. and Julius J. Epstein, legendary wits and the writers of dozens of films, including Casablanca, for which they received an Academy Award. Leslie studied at Yale and then Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. He has published eight other books of fiction, most recently San Remo Drive (Handsel Books), as well as Pinto and Sons, Pandaemonium, and two volumes on the adventures of Leib Goldkorn.