Ram said goodbye to them the following morning, before he went again to the pier.

That day, she still did not come. Other travelers walked from the ferry dock through the terminal doors: they had spent time on Angel Island too, coming from Tokyo, from Peru, Panama, Australia. He asked the young clerk who sat behind the immigration counter. Was there a list of people who had arrived on the SS Colombia, departing from Hong Kong?

“Immigration don’t share the manifest list,” the young man said, his face like stone, clean-shaven and unlined. Ram wondered if he knew that the lives of the people around him depended on who was on that ship, and who was not.

“My wife—she—” Ram said.

“No public list—”

“If I am giving to you her name, you can look for me?”

The clerk glared at him as if the request was unreasonable. But he unlocked the drawer on his desk and brought out the paper. Ram gave Padma’s and Shankar’s names, spelling them out.

“Nothing like that here,” the clerk said, running his finger down the manifest as if looking at an accounting ledger. In one quick movement, he replaced the document inside the drawer and locked it again.

Ram felt a chill in his gut. There had been a mistake. The clerk had not looked carefully enough. The four Hindustanees had traveled with them on the voyage. Perhaps she was in quarantine. Perhaps she was ill. Perhaps she was wandering the streets of this same city, their son by her side, lost.

The next morning, taking the trolley through a rain-soaked gray city, he went again. A different clerk sat behind the counter. For a moment, their eyes met. Ram had seen him before, in another part of the building. The terminal was less busy that morning. There were no people milling about.

“Hey, you,” Ram heard the clerk say. He gestured for Ram to approach him. “You still looking for passengers?”

“My wife—” Ram said.

“You been here for most of a week and I’m tired of looking at ya.” He was balding. Wisps of gray hair floated about his head. “Here, you can see for yourself,” he said, “I’m not so good at reading these strange names.” He tossed the list across the desktop. Ram leaned over the paper. “Be quick about it.”

“If her name is not there, what is the meaning?” Ram asked.

“That she wasn’t on the boat, mate. Everybody on that boat is on that list.”

Ram’s stomach clenched in fear. “If the name isn’t there, then the person didn’t come?”

“That’s how they do.”

But he saw her name. It had always been there, he knew now, only misspelled: Saker, male; Pudam, female, with one child. His throat went dry.

“Why does an ‘X’ appear by their names?” he asked. “And this—‘SI’?”

“Means they were questioned.” The clerk did not meet his eye.