There was no longer such a thing as morning or afternoon. He had bought a winter ticket; it was cheaper. Black smoke hissed down on the third-class deck. He knew that up in first class they had an orchestra that played dance music, a smokers’ lounge, and a mail room.

Straw leaked out of the mattresses. Leaked down upon him from the snoring man in the bunk above him. His whole body itched. He lay on his stomach and pinned his hands under him, bits of skin caught under his fingernails.

The men in the other bunks played cards late into the night. He heard of the construction boom in New York. He couldn’t work construction. He was too weak for a job like that. He heard that the cities were overcrowded. In the coming year America would be putting the brakes on immigration. He would have liked to talk to Carl about it, to ask Carl to reassure him, Carl who now sat in Düsseldorf with a bandage over his eye.

Sometimes he heard prayers. Ever since what had happened to Carl, since he had lost an eye and with it his entry visa, he knew that prayers didn’t help.

One morning the city rose before them from up out of the sea. Suitcases, rugs, baskets, feather beds were brought up from the depths of the ship. Solemnly he put on his father’s black suit—good prewar quality, thick material, hardly ever worn. By now the ocean liner had sailed so close to the skyscrapers that he could count the windows, which looked down on them like countless eyes. The photos hadn’t prepared him for the sight. The grandeur, the majesty—it was the difference between being blind and seeing.

They had to wait—first class first. With their cheap tickets they had already made themselves suspect.

Around him crying children and mothers trying to console them. Men who puffed their chests out, thrust their chins forward, as if America would be a cinch. Patches of ice knocked together in the black water, a lazy splinter and crunch. He blew into his hands, trying to warm them.

Finally they let them on land too, and the firm ground under his feet was a blessing. They all wobbled like sailors. At the pier they were herded over to the ferry landing, while the first-class passengers were already on their way to their homes and hotels.

He stood all the way at the back and watched the fluttering train of hungry seagulls that flew in their wake. He didn’t dare throw bread to them. He could feel the others’ eyes on him, all poor devils like him. They sailed toward a building that stood in the middle of the water, a grand, castle-like edifice. Ellis Island.