Saul thinks. He thinks of Julia, running to hug him when he gets home, the voracity of her own desires the only thing she can comprehend or act on. He thinks of Sofia, opening her eyes in the morning and smiling at him, the clear light of her laugh, the magma of her rage. He thinks of his mother, whose name was never included on any of the death camp lists, whose house was leveled in the early years of the war, whom no one ever heard from again, and whom Saul has been unable to mourn, the way you are able to mourn someone who is gone, and so instead, whose absence Saul feels like a searing flame, a wrenching thing, a knot in his stomach, his heart, his head, constant. He thinks of the war that destroyed him and dumped him on a foreign shore. He was looking for family when he told Eli he’d join him. But he betrayed a family to do it.

“I can’t,” he tells Joey.

“Well, you’re going to have to explain why,” Joey says.

Saul feels suddenly that he might cry, and the thought of that is so reprehensible that he presses his mouth shut and closes his throat and digs one of his fingernails into the soft skin of his palm until the urge passes. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” he says. “I can’t even begin to thank you for giving me this—this family. But I can’t participate in any more wars. I can’t—the violence, Joey, I can’t do it.” In his heart of hearts, of course, Saul knows that the violence doesn’t bother him as much as it should. But he feels guilty. How can he accept a promotion from a man whose trust he has betrayed?

Joey nods. The air in the room is silent, heavy, waiting. “Do you know the story of my parents, before they brought me here?”

“No,” says Saul. “Well—I know you were a baby.”

“My father was an orchardist,” says Joey. “He grew oranges and lemons. He loved those fucking trees. My whole life, he complained about the citrus in America.” Joey picks up his cup, realizes it is empty. Turns back to Saul. “I’m trying to cut back. So, my father grew oranges and lemons. When he was a boy, they kept the fruit on the island, or they shipped it to Rome. They traded boxes of fruit with neighbors who grew figs, or eggs, or chicory. They traded for fish, or they brought fruit in a cart to a small local market.