Dr. Ritter steered the conversation to war, to mangled arms and legs and charred faces. Russia, 1917. Max had been there, and had been missing two toes ever since. He’d had to amputate them himself. Schmuederrich had also fought the Bolsheviks, in Munich in 1919, and he must have bagged a couple of ’em too, he said. Dörsam had been on the Western Front, in France. That was where Josef’s father had been killed; he himself had still been a child then. They all assured one another that they had always kept the faith. Old comrades.

Outside everything was white. He headed back to Harlem. They’d told him the job was his. His radio equipment was needed, also his knowledge of Morse code. Max, who when it came to Morse was still a beginner, would like to learn from him; they could work together.

He didn’t feel happy about it. He considered whether he should turn the job down.

He went to Club Hot-Cha, bought a ticket, and sat down at a table. The showgirls hopped, stomped, and strutted; with frozen smiles they kicked their legs high in the air. At the table next to his sat a man whose hand sometimes disappeared under the table. Josef was the only one who could see it, and the man didn’t seem to care. Then the dancers walked off and a single showgirl appeared. She wore only feather boas and a pair of hot pants; first she danced with the boas, then she pulled the hot pants off and let the boas drop.

He had wound up at a show like this once before. It was after he had just made it through a three-week journey by boat and the old country seemed to be sinking behind him for good. Carl’s voice and the voice of his mother would only be in his head from now on, or in his dreams.

12

New York, January 1924

HE COULD STILL FEEL HER HAND ON HIS HAIR. SHE’D CUT IT for him the day before. They probably wouldn’t ever see each other again—if you went to America, you were gone. That’s how his mother said it: if you went to America, you were gone. She had sounded composed.

He had set two alarm clocks, but he couldn’t sleep for fear that he wouldn’t hear them and would miss the train and then, just like Carl, wouldn’t be able to go to America.

He was alone for the first time. He lived in a room with lots of people, but no one knew him. Meals were served three times a day in soft, bendable metal dishes.

Only salt water came from the faucets. No one bathed. The men pissed over the railing. By the third day he was doing it too, pissing with a soft sigh of relief into this black something of which the world consisted.