“Why, you’re the brother of the Italian girl who came to lunch a few months back,” she said. “Your sister works at the Triangle Factory.”

The boy said nothing. And Mary remembered the terrible tragedy that had happened there in March. That awful fire. It was a huge scandal—one hundred and forty people had died, mostly the Jewish girls who worked there.

“I hope your sister was all right,” she said anxiously.

For a moment, Salvatore Caruso did not reply. He was looking at the older woman. He realized, which Mary still did not, that Hetty Master had just died. That would be enough for this nice lady to worry about today.

“She’s fine,” he said.

Empire State

1917

FOR OVER A century, the United States of America had avoided the tragic quarrels and follies of the Old World. Three years ago, when the countries of Europe, trapped in their complex tangle of rivalries and alliances, had begun the Great War, William and Rose Master, like most thinking Americans, had hoped their country could stay out of the futile quarrel. And for a while it had seemed that this would be accomplished.

Was there a strategic necessity to become engaged? Not really. Was there an emotional reason? Although most Americans assumed that their country was predominantly English, there were in fact more Americans of German descent than either English or Irish. Nor, in the year 1917, were the British too popular. For Britain’s cruel crushing of the Easter Rising had enraged Irish Americans, at least; and the British naval blockade had harassed countless American vessels. President Woodrow Wilson, who still liked the British, sent them food. But that was about it. If the Europeans wanted to tear themselves apart again, most people said, that was their problem. Avoid foreign entanglements.

In the end, it was Germany that brought America into the war. Up until recently Wilson, trying to keep his country neutral, had managed to handle the Germans. When their submarines sank the Lusitania with Americans on board, he’d protested, and the German high command had stopped the submarine war. Now, however, everything had changed. The Germans had behaved abominably: seeing Russia collapsing into chaos, and the British nearly starving, they had concluded that they could win the war with a final push. Suddenly, German submarines had gone into action again. “Since your ships carry food to the British,” Germany told President Wilson, “we’ll torpedo any American vessel on the seas.” In an astounding insult to the United States, German representatives even told Mexico: “Attack America, and we’ll help you take back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.”

It had to be war after that. The massive American mobilization now in progress would soon teach the Germans what it meant to tangle with the free nation across the Atlantic. Only last week, William and Rose had gone down Fifth to Washington Square Park to see the big bonfire where some enterprising young people were burning an effigy of the German Kaiser.