She spent two weeks in dank and industrial Liverpool, until she found out that a shipping company called the White Star sailed once a month to New York, but she needed a visa to get on board. She bought a second-class ticket and appeared on the gangplank. When a young midshipman asked for her papers, Tatiana showed him her Red Cross travel document from the Soviet Union. He said it was no good; she needed a visa. Tatiana said she didn’t have one. He said she needed a passport. She said she didn’t have one. He laughed and said, “Well then, dearie, you’re not getting on this boat.”

Tatiana said, “I do not have visa, I do not have passport, but what I do have is five hundred dollars I would like you to have if you let me pass.” She coughed. She knew that five hundred dollars was a year’s salary for the sailor.

The midshipman instantly took the money and led her into a small room below sea level, where Tatiana climbed onto the top bunk. Alexander told her he slept on the top bunk at the Leningrad garrison. She wasn’t feeling well. She was wearing the larger of her two white uniforms, the one she had been given in Helsinki. Her original one had long stopped fitting her, and even this one did not button well around her stomach.

In Stockholm, Tatiana had found a place to wash her uniforms called the tvatteri, where there were things called tvatt maskins and tork tumlares that she put money into, and thirty minutes later the clothes came out clean, and thirty minutes later the clothes came out dry, and there was no standing in cold water, no washboards, no soaping. She didn’t have to do anything but sit and watch the machine.

As Tatiana sat and watched the machine, she remembered the last time she and Alexander made love. He was leaving at six in the evening, and they finished making love about five fifty-five. He had just enough time to put on his clothes, kiss her, and bolt out the door. When they made love, he had been on top of her. She watched his face the whole time, holding on to his neck and crying and pleading with him not to end, because when he ended he would have to leave. Love. How did they say it in Swedish?

Kärlek.

Jag älskar dig, Alexander.

As the tork tumlare twirled her Red Cross uniform and stockings, Tatiana was so grateful that the last time she and Alexander made love, she saw his face.

The trip across to New York took ten nauseating, spluttering days. When she arrived, it was the end of June. Tatiana had turned nineteen years old on the White Star line in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

On the boat Tatiana coughed and thought about Orbeli.

“Tatiasha — remember Orbeli—”

Coughing up blood, Tatiana summoned her sinking strength and the foundering energy of her heart to ask herself — if Alexander knew he was going to be arrested and couldn’t tell her because he knew she would never go without him, would he have gritted his teeth and set his jaw and lied?

Yes. Everything she knew about Alexander told her that would be exactly what he would do. If he knew the truth, he would give her one word.

Orbeli.

Her chest hurt so much it felt as if it were about to tear apart her breastbone.

When the White Star line docked in the Port of New York, Tatiana could not get up. Not that she wouldn’t. She just couldn’t. Delirious after a passage of violent coughing, she felt as if something inside her were leaking out.

Soon she heard voices, and two men came into the room, both of them dressed in white.

“Oh, no, what do we have here?” said the shorter man. “Not another refugee.”

“Wait, this one is wearing a Red Cross uniform,” said the taller man.

“She obviously stole it somewhere. Look, it barely buttons over her stomach. It’s obviously not hers. Edward, let’s go. We’ll report her to the INS later. We’ve got to empty this ship.”

Tatiana moaned. The men came back. The taller man looked her over. “Chris, I think she’s going to have a baby.”

“What — now?”

“I think so.” The doctor felt for something underneath her. “Her water may have broken.”

Chris came up to Tatiana and put his hand on her head. “Feel her. She’s burning up. Listen to her breathing. I don’t even need a stethoscope. She’s got TB. God, how many of these cases can we see? Forget it. We still have all the cabins to go through. She’s our first. I guarantee she won’t be the last.”

Edward kept his hand on Tatiana’s stomach. “She’s very sick,” he said. “Miss,” he said, “do you speak English?”

When Tatiana didn’t answer, Chris exclaimed, “You see?”

“Maybe she has papers? Miss, do you have any papers?”

When Tatiana didn’t answer, Chris said, “I’m done. I’m going.”

Edward said, “Chris, she’s sick, and she’s about to have a baby. What do you want to do, leave her?” He laughed. “What kind of a damn doctor are you?”

“A tired and underpaid one, that’s what kind. PHD doesn’t pay me enough to care. Where are we going to take her?”

“Let’s bring her to the quarantine hospital on Ellis Island Three. There’s room. She’ll get better there.”

“With TB?”

“It’s TB, not cancer. Let’s go.”

“Edward, she’s a refugee! Where is she from? Look at her. If she were just sick, I’d say all right, but you know she’s going to have the kid on American soil, and bam! She’s entitled to stay here like the rest of us. Forget it. Deliver her baby on the boat, so that she’s got no claims on U.S. soil, and then put her in Ellis. As soon as she’s better, she’ll be deported. That’s fair. All these folks think they can come into America without permission . . . well, no more. Look how many we’ve got. Once this damn war is over, it’s going to get even worse. The entire European continent is going to want to—”

“Going to want to what, Chris Pandolfi?”

“Oh, easy for you to judge, Edward Ludlow.”

“I’ve been here since the French­Indian wars. I’m not judging.”

Chris waved Edward off and left. Then, sticking his head back into the room, he said, “We’ll come back for her. She’s not ready to have a kid now. Look how still she is. Let’s go.”

Edward was about to walk away when Tatiana groaned slightly. He came back and stood by her face. “Miss?” he said. “Miss?”

Lifting her hand, Tatiana found Edward’s face and placed her palm on his cheek. “Help me,” she said in English. “I’m going to have a baby. Help me, please.”



Edward Ludlow found a stretcher for Tatiana and fetched a reluctant and grumpy Chris Pandolfi to help him carry her down the plank and onto the ferry that took her to Ellis Island in the middle of New York Harbor. Years after the heyday of Ellis, the island’s hospital had been serving as a detention center and quarantine for immigrants and refugees coming to the United States.

Tatiana’s eyes were so clouded she felt half blind, but even through her haze and the ferry’s unwashed windows she could see the valiant hand offering a flame up to the sunlit heaven, lifting her lamp beside the golden door.

Tatiana closed her eyes.

At Ellis she was carried to a small, spartan room, where Edward laid her on a bed with starched white sheets and got a nurse to undress her. After examining her, he looked at Tatiana with surprise, and said, “Your baby has crowned. Do you not feel that?”

Tatiana barely moved, barely breathed. Once the baby’s head came out, she convulsed, gritting her teeth through palpitations that felt like distant pain.

Edward delivered her baby for her.

“Miss, can you hear me? Please, look. Look what you have. A beautiful boy!” The doctor smiled, bringing the baby close.

“Look. He’s a big one, too — I’m surprised you could get a baby this size out of little you. Brenda, look at this. Don’t you agree?” Brenda wrapped the baby in a small white blanket and laid him next to Tatiana.

“He’s early,” mouthed Tatiana, staring at her baby. She placed her hand on him.

“Early?” Edward laughed. “No, I’d say he was right on time. If he were any later, you’d be having him back in — where are you from?”

“The Soviet Union,” Tatiana said indistinctly.

“Oh, dear. The Soviet Union. How did you ever get here?”

“You would not believe it if I told you,” said Tatiana, lying on her side, shutting her eyes.

“Well, forget all that now,” Edward said brightly. “As it is, your boy is a U.S. citizen.” He sat by the chair near her bed. “That’s a good thing, right? It’s what you wanted?”

Tatiana suppressed a groan. “Yes,” she said, pressing her swaddled son to her feverish face. “It is what I wanted.” It was hurting her to breathe.

“You’ve got TB. It hurts right now, but you’ll be all right,” he said gently. “Everything you’ve been through, it’s all behind you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” whispered Tatiana.

“No, it’s good!” the doctor exclaimed. “You’ll stay here at Ellis, get better — Where did you get a Red Cross uniform? Were you a nurse?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s great,” he said cheerfully. “You see? You have a valuable skill. You’ll be able to get a job. You speak a little English, which is more than I can say for most people who come through here. It’ll separate you from the chaff. Trust me.” He smiled. “You’re going to do very well. Now, can I get you something to eat? We have sandwiches with turkey—”

“With what?”

“Oh, I think you’ll like turkey. And cheese. I’ll bring it for you.”

“You are a good doctor,” Tatiana said. “Edward Ludlow, right?”

“Right.”

“Edward—”

“It’s Dr. Ludlow to you!” Brenda, the nurse, exclaimed loudly.

“Nurse! Let her call me Edward if she wants. What do you care?”