They stepped into a heated, brightly lit lobby adorned with gold and marble. The doorman leapt up and pointed toward the service entrance. “Mrs. Dollings is personally expecting us”—words that he had gone over in his head beforehand. They waited for the doorman to call up, the boy staring at the upholstered armchairs and mahogany table. No one invited them to sit.

The grate closed soundlessly. The elevator boy took them to the twelfth floor, the penthouse, now considered the last word in fashionable living. Once it was barely good enough for laundry facilities, storage rooms, and servants’ quarters. In the perfumed hallway they were encased in that silence only the rich were entitled to. They went past apartment doors spaced a generous distance apart from one another to an open door at the very end of the hall. There they were received by a housemaid. He gave the hesitating boy a push, and when he noticed the look on the maid’s face he added kindly, “Oh, go ahead, kid.”

The girl led them into a parlor, the kind of room he had only ever seen in Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers movies. Oriental carpets, antiques, an enormous chandelier, and behind the glass doors a snowy balcony. Everything here was dignified and harmonious. The girl took his hat and coat. He wasn’t even wearing a tie, and he’d been wearing the same shirt for a week. The skin on his face began to get hot, as if he had a bad sunburn.

He heard Mrs. Dollings’s voice and quickly wiped his moist hand on his pants. But there was no handshake. She wore a long, dark dress, was tall and gaunt, and smiled in the warm-hearted, almost selfless manner of very high-placed people—statesmen, movie stars, priests—who from the lofty perch of their position are able to display great kindness toward anyone they choose.

“Good day, ma’am. How are you?” he asked, feeling that he was being hopelessly ingratiating. He was relieved when she returned the question. “Our delivery boy wants to apologize to you.”

But Mrs. Dollings grasped the boy’s hand and led him into the daylight shining through the glass doors. The boy wore a coat that was too big for him and shoes with busted seams.

“How old are you?”

“He’s fourteen, ma’am.”

Mrs. Dollings shook her head—“Nonsense, he’s no more than twelve”—and then sighed and said something about illegal child labor, how it didn’t reflect well on America.

Next she started waving the flyer around, AMERICA FOR WHITE PEOPLE, and started telling Josef about major changes that needed to be made. She ignored the table, as if she feared the unavoidable closeness it would bring. She remained standing, and he made an effort, as he stood next to her, not to inadvertently touch her.