It’s already packed, and the straining crowd outside fogs the windows with its hungry breath. “Get to work, Grossman!” barks Carol. Saul is sure he hadn’t paused for more than half a breath, but he nods at Carol and shuffles behind the row of other sandwich makers to his station.

Saul stacks roast beef in precarious towers; he layers steaming chunks of turkey on rye; he spears slices of brisket and ladles their drippings on top. His hands deftly manipulate loaves of bread, slabs of meat, spoonfuls of gravy and dressing, mustard and mayonnaise. The world narrows down to the thumping, hissing, beating of a busy deli. Thoughts of his mother and his country are subsumed into the squeak of rubber shoes on floor, the sizzle of melting cheese, the clang of empty metal trays being exchanged for new ones, the happy burble and chatter of chair-screeching, finger-sucking customers. Down the counter at the pickle station Lenny has emerged from doing the books in the basement to shout, “One sour, one sour, two half, pickles, pickles, dill pickles, how many, ma’am, yes, three sour, enjoy!”

“Hey, kid!”

Saul turns toward the counter, wondering what he has forgotten. Pastrami on rye, two pickles—he can’t imagine. “What can I do for you?”

The man who spoke to him is tall and dark-featured like Saul, but with the broad chest, the chiseled-out cheekbones, and the smoothed-back hair he has learned to associate with Italians, rather than Jews. “You make a damn good sandwich,” he says.

“Thank you, sir,” says Saul. He can feel Carol’s watchful eye burning a hole through his apron. “Well—” and he moves to take a ticket from the next customer in line. It’s not in his cache of muscle memory to stand still when the deli is this loud and bustling.

“Hey!” says the tall man. Saul turns back around. “Look, kid,” says the tall man, balancing his sandwich in one hand and bringing a pickle to his mouth with the other, “you make a damn good sandwich, I was saying—holy Father, that’s a good pickle—but you seem like a smart guy.”

“I do?” says Saul.

“You do. And I’m in the business of smart guys.” The man finishes his pickle and looks for somewhere to wipe his hands; finding none, he brushes his thumb and forefinger along the cuff of the sleeve of his opposite hand and winks.

“Thank you, sir,” says Saul, “but I really should get back to work.”