Thinking about the first time they kissed took up much of the trip. Then Tatiana slept.

She didn’t know how long the journey took. The last few hours, they meandered on the ice through the small islands preceding Stockholm.

“Tack,” she said to the driver when they stopped at the harbor. “Tack sa mycket.” Alexander taught her that, how to say thank you in Swedish. Tatiana walked across the ice, careful not to slip, walked up granite steps and was out on the cobbled seaside promenade. I’m in Stockholm, she thought. I’m nearly free. Slowly she meandered through the half-empty streets. It was morning — too early for the stores to be open. What day was it? She did not know. Near the industrial docks Tatiana found a small open bakery, and on its shelves there was white bread. She showed the woman her American money. The shop owner shook her head and said something in Swedish. “Bank,” she said. “Pengar, dollars.”

Tatiana turned to go. The woman called after her, but in a strident voice, and Tatiana, afraid the woman suspected she didn’t belong in Sweden, did not turn around. She was already on the street when the woman ran around to stop her, giving her a loaf of warm crusty white bread, the likes of which Tatiana had never smelled, and a paper cup of black coffee. “Tack,” Tatiana said. “Tack sa mycket.”

“Varsagod,” said the woman, shaking her head at the money Tatiana was offering her.

Tatiana sat on the bench at the docks overlooking the crescent of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia and ate the whole loaf of bread and had her coffee. She stared unblinkingly into the blue dawn in front of her. Somewhere east of the ice lay besieged Leningrad. And somewhere east of that was Lazarevo. And in between was the Second World War and Comrade Stalin.

After eating, she walked around the streets long enough to find an open bank, where she exchanged some of her American money. Armed with a few kronor, Tatiana bought some more white bread and then found a place that sold cheese — in fact, all different kinds of cheeses — but even better, she found a café near the harbor that served her breakfast, and not just oatmeal, and not just eggs, and not just bread, but bacon! She bought three helpings of bacon and decided that from now on that was all she was going to have for breakfast.

The day was still long. Tatiana didn’t know where to go to sleep. Alexander told her that in Stockholm there would be hotels that would rent them a room without asking for their passports. Just like in Poland. She found that beyond belief then. But Alexander, of course, was right.

Not only did Tatiana rent a hotel room, not only did she get a key to a room that was warm, that had a bed and a view of the harbor, but it had its own bathroom and in the bathroom was the thing that Alexander had told her about, the shower thing that poured water on her from above. She must have stayed under the hot stream for an hour.

And then she slept for twenty-four.

It took Tatiana over two months to leave Stockholm.

Seventy-six days of sitting on the pier bench looking east past the gulf, past Finland, to the Soviet Union, while the seagulls cried overhead.

Seventy-six days of—

She and Alexander had planned to stay in Stockholm in the spring while waiting for his documents to come through from the U.S. State Department. They would have celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday in Stockholm on May 29.

Austere Stockholm was softened by spring. Tatiana bought yellow tulips and ate fresh fruit right from the market vendors, and she had meat — smoked hams and pork and sausages. She had ice cream. Her face healed. Her stomach grew. She thought of remaining in Stockholm, of finding a hospital to work in, of having her baby in Sweden. She liked the tulips and the hot shower.

But the seagulls wept overhead.

Tatiana never did go to Riddarholm Church, Sweden’s Temple of Fame.

Finally she took a train across the country to Göteborg, where she easily slipped into one of the holds on a Swedish trade cargo vessel bound for Harwich, England, carrying paper products. As during her passage from Finland to Sweden, she and her vessel were surrounded by a heavily armed convoy. Since Norway was German-occupied, there were quite a few incidents of bombings and sinkings in the North Sea. Noncombatant Sweden wasn’t having any of it, and neither was Tatiana.

All was quiet as she crossed the North Sea and docked in Harwich. To get to Liverpool, Tatiana took a train, which had the most comfortable seats. Out of curiosity she bought herself a first-class ticket. The pillows were white. This would have been a good train to take to Lazarevo after burying Dasha, thought Tatiana.

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.