She shook her head. She had broken her nose when she was only a girl, playing with some older, meaner children, who told her to run straight, that the tree would move out of her way. Another day, she had chipped her front teeth, and he could never get the proper story from her about that. She had always looked concerned, he now realized, as if she had never relaxed a day in her life. Even when she was telling him stories to put him to bed, her lips were clenched as if she might have to interrupt at any moment to fight murderers. But also she promised she could throw it off. If only the money came. If only the man brought the food he promised. If only the stage manager would send for an act at the last minute to fill in. Then it would be all peaches. A contagious feeling, too.

“Mum,” he whispered. The trolley was easing to a stop before them. His people were on board. “Would you like to travel by soap bubble?”

Her eyes popped open, and she was wearing a tranquil smile. It was a look of pure benevolence—I remember that game, it said—which slowly, over the course of a full second, retreated into a pleasurable judgment: she looked as if her son were quite mad. And she still loved him.

As the trolley doors opened, Charlie gave Hannah his arm. He walked her two steps forward, to the bottom rung of the metal stairs. She padded up, one foot above the other, helped into the trolley by hands she did not, at first, question. There was a small crowd around her, greeting her and attending to her carefully, as if she were about to be stored in a reliquary, and men were leaning down to hand him some documents.

In the harbor of San Pedro, a half hour away by trolley, was a ship, and aboard the ship were brand-new leather steamer trunks filled with the finest accessories and clothes available from Bullock’s, Seventh and Broadway. The ship was bound for Southhampton, United Kingdom, and its third-finest stateroom was now festive with local flowers (bougainvillea, for instance, on a wood trellis and packed in its own planter) and equipped with a Victrola and a dozen platters of dance-hall tunes.

It was a beautiful day. The trolley’s windows were all open. The doors closed. Chaplin wriggled his sunglasses in place, for the glare against the metallic car was fierce. He could see silhouettes inside the cabin, calm, patrician men with mustaches and bowlers all surrounding Hannah, asking her to have a seat; he could hear them saying they were going to be friends.