When the war ended, the job changed. Somehow, and against all of his intention, Paolo has ended up in a mostly-for-show office on Nevins Street, where he spends his days tapping pen against paper and coming up with business ideas that range from dog grooming for aging Upper East Side socialites to intercepting ocean liners and hustling the passengers out of a few bucks in return for a tour of the city. For an hour a day, he alters the books that let the Family pay taxes without disclosing where their money comes from; Luigio Travel does a hefty business. At the end of the week, he turns his notebooks over to Joey and says, I think I’ve got some good ones here, boss. And Joey, out of pity or generosity, continues to pay Paolo the same as he did when Paolo was an indispensable forger during the war. And so Paolo fights a never-ending and vicious battle between the part of himself who is comforted and relieved to sink into the same set of tasks week after week, and the part of himself who dreamed of something bigger. Who thought it, whatever it was, would feel like more, when he got there.

—

During the day, now, Saul waits outside cafés while Joey takes meetings, or he is paired with an older Uncle, and asked to remind someone of their debt, which usually means punching the indebted man in the jaw a couple of times and asking about his children; occasionally twisting a wrist or brandishing a switchblade and threatening the loss of a finger.

Saul misses the ferry ride to Ellis Island, the soft German he could speak to reassure the families he was meeting, the ease with which he could help them. Speak English, not German, he would tell them. They’ll spell your surname wrong. Let them. Don’t cough. Stand up straight. Now that it’s over, Saul wonders why his interaction with those families ended where it did: at the other side of the Ellis Island ferry, as he handed them brown paper packets filled with falsified degrees and resumes and letters of recommendation with which they could start over as Americans. He wonders who they were: families so desperate they paid their weight in gold for a few false documents and a promise; once, a teenage girl, alone, who told him her family had sold their jewelry for her ticket. When will they be able to come? she asked, and Saul had said, don’t cough or touch your face when you get to the front of the line. Use only the first syllable of your surname. Weeks passed when he told this to four families, nine. Why didn’t you run after them, beg them to ask their relatives about your mother, kiss the hands that had touched European soil? Love for a place that wants you dead is an evolving beast.