Small World: A Novel

by Jonathan Evison

Genres: Literary Fiction; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

Winner of the Housatonic Book Award

A New York Times Editors' Choice! 

One of Booklist’s “Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022”

One of the Los Angeles Times's “10 Books to Add to Your Reading List”

One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads

“A bighearted, widescreen American tale.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Masterpiece . . . The quintessential great American novel.”—Booklist (starred review)

“A vivid mosaic.”—BookPage (starred review)

Jonathan Evison’s Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions.  

The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengers’ lives and those of their ancestors more than a century before, Small World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullhearted, full-throttle pace that asks on the most human, intimate scale whether it is truly possible to meet, and survive, the choices posed—and forced—by the age.
 
The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flair, a grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our country’s injustices, big and small, straight through to its deeply satisfying final words.

Release date: January 11, 2022

Publisher: Dutton

Print pages: 475

Sample

Full Service Reduction

L ater, long after the debriefing, after the interviews, and the hearing, and the retirement party that never happened, the events of that late afternoon would come back to Walter in bits and pieces, shards of memory like shattered glass: the hideous screech of the brakes as the train shuddered and lurched, hurtling toward the unavoidable; the sudden and irreversible recognition of impending catastrophe; and finally, the deafening jolt of impact, and the way the whole world turned on end as Walter’s consciousness seemed to funnel down a hole in the back of his brain.

How long was he out? He could not say. How long before Macy charged into the cab to roust him?

“Wally! Wally, you okay?”

Afterward, Walter dazedly navigated a world wrapped in gauze: a chaos of colored lights assaulting the darkness like some horrific disco, the squawk of radios punctuating the silence, as the dim but unsettling knowledge of his own negligence settled in. Even in his fog, Walter contemplated the passengers: Flowers, and Tully, and Chen and Murphy, more than just names on a manifest, but faces in the broken mirror of Walter’s confusion, people from all over who had bought tickets in good faith, people who had had every expectation of arriving safely at their destination, only to see their lives rent suddenly and irrevocably from normalcy. Walter could not help but wonder what circumstances, what decisions, had delivered them all to that moment.

Walter Bergen

Oregon, March 2019

Eight days after his sixty-third birthday, when Walter Bergen arrived at the yard office, where he had arrived so many mornings over the course of thirty-one years, he walked past the vending machines to the bulletin board and paused to read the notes out of habit, as though they had any bearing on his future—they did not. For today was Walter Bergen’s last day at Amtrak, a milestone that had been steadily and inevitably approaching for months, and a reality he still could not quite allow himself to accept.

As a senior operator, Walter had been offered relocation before the cutbacks, but he took the buyout instead and decided to pull the pin. He’d been a stranger to his family for three decades, and he figured it was time to start making up for lost time. But what would he do with himself beyond write checks for Wendy’s endless wedding arrangements?

His wife, Annie, had no shortage of plans for Walter, and truth be told Walter was none too excited about most of them. She’d been haranguing him for months to join her gym. She’d probably make him take art classes down at the co-op studio, or, God forbid, dance classes. Hell, she’d probably try to make a vegan out of him eventually. And he was 99 percent positive she had some kind of surprise retirement party planned for him that night after work, a possibility he dreaded.

With the clock creeping closer to seven a.m., the reality started to sink in a bit. This was it, the last trip through the office. No more track bulletins. No more wiseass repartee with Nate, or Bill, or Sharon, or Monty, or whoever happened to be on shift. No more tepid coffee, no more faxes, no more bowl of Almond Joys. All of these little rituals and habits that had become the window dressing of his life for the past three decades would be gone tomorrow. Walter still hadn’t cleaned out his locker.

It was a point of pride to Walter that no less than four generations of Bergens had given themselves to the rails at some point, beginning with his great-great-grandfather Finnegan, one of those intrepid and criminally underpaid souls who drove spikes halfway across the prairie and blasted through the mountains all the way to Promontory Point for that historic joining of the Union and Central Pacific lines. On his heels came Walter’s grandfather Emmet, fifteen years a brakeman on the O & CRR. Then there was Walter’s own father, Pete, first a brakeman, then a hostler, and finally an engineer for BNSF. Walter’s love affair with trains had begun before he could even walk. According to his mother, his first utterance, even before “Mama,” had been “Too-too.”

Walter had stopped holding out hope for Wendy by the time she was out of high school. She had no interest in the railroad or diesel engines, which was sort of ironic, all things considered. Walter had taken Wendy on countless ride-alongs since the time she was a toddler. He’d dressed her in overalls and a striped conductor’s cap; bought her wooden trains, electric trains; and, the summer after her junior year in high school, tried to bribe her to do an internship at Amtrak. All of these attempts had been fruitless.

For the Bergens it seemed that the railroad, more than anything else, had delivered on the promise of America. The railroad had meant freedom and opportunity and mobility. And there was no getting around the fact that Walter’s retirement spelled the end of the railroad line for the Bergen name.

It had never been Walter’s idea to retire at sixty-three. He’d figured he’d be running this line for another five years, at least. Walter loved the railroad life; it was practically all he knew. Of course, the job had its drawbacks. The hours could be brutal and the shifts unpredictable. Then there was the fact that management culture had not changed since the Civil War. Hell, most of his superiors didn’t know a train from a horse’s ass. But every job had its drawbacks. The satisfaction that came with a job well done, the tangible result of piloting a train safely and smoothly from point A to point B, far outweighed the shortcomings.

“Wally,” came a familiar voice.

Walter spun his head around to see Nate, clutching a Garfield coffee mug, cap pulled low over his forehead.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were dead,” Nate said, pleased with himself.

“Get out of here,” said Walter.

But he couldn’t help feeling a little pang of nostalgia watching Nate go. Good old Nate; affable, familiar, consistent as hell. Pretty serious case of halitosis, but Walter had learned over the years how to keep just enough distance between the two of them to avoid breathing it in. It was hard to fathom that he’d smelled Nate’s breath for the last time. Walter leaned against a folding table in the rear of the office (for the last time) and checked his forms, sipping his tepid coffee.

No flags, no holdups, no obstacles. A little snow in the forecast, but surely not enough to foul up the schedule. Swilling the last of his coffee, Walter walked out the back door, tossing his paper cup in the garbage pail. Hopping off the platform and crossing the yard, Walter paused to watch the goat clatter slowly up and over the hump. God, the beautiful racket of it all: the sighing and hissing, the rattle and clack of the cars over the rails. These were the sounds that had made America the greatest country on earth. More than any other sound, Walter would miss the deafening but plaintive cry of the horns, which no matter their proximity always managed to sound far away. For this was the very sound that had captured Walter’s imagination as a child, the sound of possibility, the sound of faraway places, the sound of American ingenuity.

Walter looked up at the sky just in time for the first wet snowflake to hit his face before he continued on across the yard.

Bill Boyce was waiting in the roundhouse, clipboard in hand.

“Wally,” he said. “I heard you died.”

“Eat me,” said Walter.

They began their walk around, inspecting the running gear back to front, as Bill checked the boxes. There was a little water leakage under the engine, but nothing excessive. Bill had checked the seals and the head gasket as recently as last week and found everything in order.

“So, when’s the big wedding?” said Bill.

“July,” said Walter.

“Bet that’s gonna clean you out.”

“Pshh. You’re not kidding. You have any idea what a caterer costs?” said Walter. “A dance floor? Twenty-five blown-glass votives? Damn flower arrangements?”

“I don’t wanna know. Should have had a boy, Wally.”

“Don’t make much difference anymore,” Walter said.

“Suppose not. Riggings look good,” said Bill, checking the box.

“Hell, Wendy thinks she’s a man, as far as I can tell. I guess I’m okay with that. You just figure she might have some interest in trains, considering.”

“What’s her partner’s name again?”

“Kit.”

“Like Kitty?”

“Just Kit.”

“What kind of name is that?”

Walter sighed, “I dunno, Bill. There’s a lot I don’t know anymore.”

Bill set a supportive hand on Walter’s shoulder and gave him a clap on the back.

“Let’s go ahead and check the cab,” he said.

Before he mounted the cab, Walter took a deep breath and savored the familiar smell of the yard one more time. It had taken him a few years, but he’d grown to love the smell of diesel. It clung to every stitch of his clothing and even his skin, according to Annie. Wasn’t a laundry detergent in the world that could get rid of the smell, but it meant a paycheck. And it meant a lot more: It meant speed, and power, and passenger satisfaction. It was a noble fuel, diesel; it burned slowly and efficiently.

“She still getting shaky at seventy-nine?” said Bill.

“Little bit,” Walter said. “Not so bad as she used to. About threw me out of my seat a couple years back.”

“How about acceleration?”

“Full of oats.”

Bill paused in his box checking to scratch his neck and peer out the cab window as the snow began falling harder, splatting in fat drops against the windshield.

“So, what are you gonna do with yourself, Wally? You gonna start doing crosswords? Model trains?”

“Thinking about a second career,” said Walter.

“Porno, huh?”

“Haven’t got the necessary equipment, I’m afraid. Always did want to play center field for the Mariners, though.”

“I’d say you’re strictly DH material with that gut,” said Bill.

“Look who’s talking,” said Walter.

After Bill checked the last box, he gave Walter another pat on the shoulder that nearly morphed into an awkward hug but came up mercifully short.

“Well,” said Bill.

“Get out of here,” said Walter.

Once Bill was clear of the ladder, Walter turned on the wipers and began activating the switchboard with robotic precision. He ducked down the corridor to the engine room and primed the engine, then, returning to the cab, he set the brakes. He could have done it all in his sleep.

Wishing he had another cup of coffee, Walter walked the length of the corridor past the passengers, nodding to the occasional soul who looked up to engage him. Once he released the hand brake, he walked past them again in the other direction. If Walter did his job right, some of those folks would be napping by the time he delivered them. That was the real sign of a good engineer: sleeping passengers.

Once the train was prepped and ready to roll, Monty assigned Walter a clear track, and Walter eased the throttle forward a notch and began crawling out of the yard, right on schedule.

The Bergens

Atlantic Ocean, 1851

Alma and the twins huddled atop their tiny pallet in the darkness, all that was left of the Bergens of Cork. Their throats scorched, they cloaked their faces against the fetid air. It was the only way. Stomach clenched, head throbbing, blood running thick as sap, Alma was slow to apprehend her thoughts. But two words saved her, two words she kept upon her ravaged lips, two words that buoyed her against starvation and infirmity, and fear for her children’s lives, two words she clung to amid the relentless chorus of crying infants and moaning women, as the chamber pots sloshed and the great hull creaked and tossed on the open sea. They were the same two words emblazoned upon the stern of that cruel maritime enterprise tasked with delivering the Bergens like flotsam upon the distant shore. They were a prayer for the future, these two words: Golden Door.

The New World; not like the Old World. Not like the windowless, thatch-hoveled, mud-hutted torment they’d left behind in the festering, fallow remains of Magh Eala, Cork, no longer the rebel county, no longer sacred soil, but a diseased and forsaken shell of itself. The New World was a world of promise, a world of opportunity, a world where with any luck the Bergens, and the Callahans, and the Cullens would not starve. And for this promise Alma had left her dead behind: a husband who’d given all he had, and a child who’d never had a chance.

Even as her ragged breaths sawed at the putrid air, Alma was determined to thwart death. She would surrender no more. She would not allow Finnegan to give up.

“Why won’t he eat?” she said to Nora in the darkness.

“He doesn’t like the biscuits,” said Nora.

“And how would you know? Did he say as much?”

“No, Mummy.”

“Of course he didn’t,” said Alma.

The boy had not spoken since the baby had died last fall, just two weeks after his father had succumbed to the fever. The appearance of a single magpie that morning on the eave of the hut had portended the death of the baby. It was Finn who’d discovered the infant in her crib, eyes glassed over, mouth agape, tiny fists clutched to her chest. Her name had been Aileen, and she was neither the first nor the last to perish from starvation. But Aileen had been a Bergen, and she’d been a blue-eyed ray of hope, and her big brother had adored her. That God should take his father was bewilderment enough for the nine-year-old boy. That he should take his infant sister was apparently too much for him to bear. That was the day he retreated into himself. Strike his thumb with a hammer, and he would not cry out in pain. No matter how his mother had tried to coax him out as the weeks and the months progressed, he remained unreachable.

Were it not for his twin sister, Finn might have disappeared altogether. For it was Nora who spoke for Finn, and only Nora who seemed to understand his needs or comprehend his grief. Only Nora could read his thoughts. That they could be so intimately connected by thought and by birth, and yet look nothing alike, was difficult for Alma to comprehend. Nora was brown eyed, with her father’s dark hair and features, his broad nose and thin lips. Finn, meanwhile, was fair and redheaded, with high cheekbones, full lips, and blue eyes.

“Child, nobody likes the biscuits,” said Alma. “But he must eat them.”

To label them biscuits at all was a misnomer. They were practically inedible, with their charred black crust and gooey middle. Their only flavor was that of smoke, pure and unadulterated. All the water in the world could not wash them down comfortably, though six pints was their daily ration between them.

But the Bergens were stuck with biscuits, for they had nothing more to cook, neither pork, nor mutton, nor so much as a mush of oats. When they were permitted to escape steerage for the open air of the deck, upon those rare occasions when fair weather allowed for it, it was not to prepare food, but only to draw a breath of fresh air. Stretching their limbs, they watched as the others bickered and squabbled around the cooking grates.

The last of the pigs had been slaughtered days ago. With a pang of bottomless longing, Alma had smelled the fatty meat as it was seared upon the grates, though the bounty did not stretch as far as steerage, but was consumed in the relative comfort of cabins by those who could afford such luxuries. Those down below, if they had any oats left, were not apt to distribute them freely. And possessing but a few sovereigns reserved for their transportation to Chicago, which Alma had sewn into the lining of Nora’s skirt, the Bergens had little to bargain with.

“Make him eat,” she said to Nora.

“Mummy, he won’t do it.”

“Nora!” she said.

“But, Mummy, I can’t get him to. I’ve tried.”

“You must.”

And as Nora began to reason gently with her brother, Alma’s eyes began to cloud, and she soon felt the sting of tears running down her cheeks beneath her dirty veil.

That afternoon Finn did not eat. Passengers were confined like human ballast to the dark stench of the hold all day, where frequent retching from all corners joined the chorus of moaning. As the vessel was tossed upon the turbulent sea, passengers were heaved and flung about below. Children were thrown from their berths. Pots were upended. Steerage was soon awash in human waste, and yet, somehow the unmistakable odor of vomit still managed to penetrate the noxious air.

It was night by the time the seas calmed. Now that the infants were mostly sleeping, and the retching had subsided, the chorus of woe seemed to play out in a slower, less urgent measure. Still, the air was only slightly less stultifying as Alma looked down at the sleeping twins, their shadowy forms entwined on the tiny berth. Their love for each other was fierce. Where biscuits and water and sunlight failed them, love would see them through to the New World. It had to.

And what would they find on the other side of the Golden Door? What did America have to offer the likes of the Bergens, conquered lo these eight centuries, penniless and unskilled? What awaited them in America but more soil, soil that would only forsake them eventually? What awaited them but more bosses and middlemen and Protestant gentry? And what would sustain them in the absence of familiarity?

Coughing into her veil, Alma checked it for blood.

Covering the twins in a blanket not fit for a horse, Alma stole into the cramped darkness, her heart hammering in her chest. Once again desperate measures were required. For five years, Alma’s life had been little more than a series of desperate measures, a sequence of sacrifices and humiliations. And so far, she’d always answered the call.

The ruffian was not hard to find, even in the dark. When Alma drew close enough to him in his cramped corner of the hold, his stinking breath was unmistakable.

“And what if I don’t feel like bargaining this eve?” he said, clenching Alma’s forearm.

“Then, I will go.”

“Let’s say I’ve got a small bag of oats,” he said.

“I’ll bet you have,” she said, straining against his grip.

He forced a gruff kiss upon her lips. And so it began.

When it was over, and the ruffian grunted one final time, his weight pressing down on her, Alma coughed in his face before he could turn away.

“Gah,” he said, wiping the blood from his face.

Blindly he rose, swiping at his eyes as Alma gathered her skirt and her small bag of oats and scrambled to her feet.

In the morning the weather broke, and those in steerage were allowed on deck in shifts of twenty-five and thirty. The wind was wet and frigid, and still the boat rocked, and Alma’s stomach rolled.

After much jostling for position at the grates, including a near skirmish with a childless woman from Wexford, Alma proceeded to prepare a mush of oats and water, dressed with a precious dash of salt.

Much to everyone’s relief, Finn inhaled the mush with such vigor that both Nora and Alma saved better than half of their portions for the boy so that he might eat them later.

“He goes after it like a hog,” said Alma.

“It’s disgusting,” said Nora.

“Perhaps we should slow him down,” said Alma. “He’s likely to get sick.”

“I’m likely to get sick watching him,” said Nora.

In a week, if they could hold on, they would reach New York, and with the help of the Callahans, distant cousins of Cork, if all went as planned, they would charter transportation to the great state of Illinois. Whatever awaited them in Chicago, it was sure to be grander than a mud hut. For it was said that beyond the Golden Door, anything was possible. This was the promise of America.

---

•   •   •

Never in her twenty-nine years had Alma witnessed such a dizzying and disconcerting array of human endeavor as she did walking through the Bowery for the first time upon that chill afternoon in February of 1851, just hours released from five weeks in the insufferable prison of steerage.

Shouldering their humble burdens, Finn and Nora flanked their mother so close that Alma could feel their wonder and anxiety radiating from them. Wide-eyed, they trudged past tailors and grocers, cigar makers and alcohol dealers. For blocks on end they wandered, parched and bewildered, over streets of brick and cobblestone, narrow boulevards choked with horse carts and barrows loaded with all manner of staples, wares, and refuse. The noise of the street was cacophonous, the smells too various to catalog or even ponder. Stately structures of stone and brick, peaked and corniced and flagged, their sheer façades punctuated with awnings, were situated alongside humble row houses. They passed two great brick edifices with glassed windows, both of them taller than any poplar, squatting so close together that they were almost touching. And yet, squeezed between them, as though in the grip of a vise, huddled a little wooden shanty crossed with clotheslines strewn with rags. New York had the unmistakable look of a place that was growing too fast.

And yet, here they came—Germans, and Irish, and Italians, and nationalities Alma could not guess at—like lemmings to the shores of America: the poor, the tired, the homeless wayward masses. Within a mile the Bergens had encountered countless people, and of every conceivable variety, stature, and dress, speaking in tongues hitherto unimagined. Who knew that such variety even existed? No two people were the same. The only thing they all seemed to share in common was that they were all apparently in a hurry. And though Alma shared their urgency, she was too exhausted to hurry her pace.

Further on, the weary Bergens found their spirits uplifted, if only briefly, as they passed a stone cathedral grander than any they’d ever laid eyes on. Graceful in its sprawl, its spire reached halfway to the clouds. The lay of the great city was like nothing Alma had ever imagined. Street after street, it seemed to go on forever. And surely the Bergens could not last forever. They had to locate the Irish settlement at Five Points. They had to find these alleged Callahans to light their way on the next leg of their American journey. For the Callahans were expecting them, or so Alma had been led to believe.

As hard as Alma tried to temper her expectations for life behind the Golden Door, nothing prepared her for the conditions that greeted her in Five Points, which comprised a bowl-like depression in the east side of Lower Manhattan, like a swamp that had been drained. There were no stately structures nor brick streets east of here, nothing so uplifting as a towering cathedral. No, there were domiciles no more decorous than sheds, windows broken and patched, beams rotting, and stairways caving. No two bore any resemblance beyond the haste with which they were constructed.

There was mud and sewage coursing down narrow streets, packed with the filth of unwashed humanity. And not just humanity, but pigs, and chickens, and mongrel dogs, all running loose and underfoot. The stench of the place was nearly as stultifying as the ship’s hold, and the Bergens found themselves covering their noses out of habit.

“Mummy, it’s ghastly,” said Nora.

To which Alma did not reply, for she hadn’t the wherewithal to defend the place.

As if in direct response, Finn paused in that instant to double over and retch in the middle of the street.

“He doesn’t like the smell, Mummy.”

“You should think he’d be used to it by now,” she said.

Alma was close to retching herself, and not only from the smell, but from the unique dispiritedness of one who has run from a terrible situation only to arrive in one that is potentially worse.

“C’mon, boy,” said Alma.

Finn straightened himself up, wiped his mouth upon his coat sleeve, and trudged onward through the swamp of mud and sewage.

God, but why had Alma listened? Why had she chosen to believe? Already it was clear that the Bergens were as likely to starve in America as anywhere else. Surely Five Points ran rampant with the same fever that plagued Ireland. They should never have undertaken this terrible voyage. Better to die at home, among the rest of the dying.

“At least they’re Irish, Mummy,” said Nora.

Indeed, that they were among the Irish was the only thing in which Alma could take comfort. Filthy and depraved as the denizens of Five Points might have appeared, they were Irish, and they were mostly Catholic, and they were familiar.

When they reached Orange Street, they veered left as they had been instructed so many months ago. Orange Street, alas, had nothing more to offer than the other streets: mud, and filth, and wooden shacks. But upon one of these dwellings they would surely locate a shingle with the name Callahan, and their prospects would improve immediately.

And yet, dwelling after dwelling, they did not come upon such a shingle.

Late in the afternoon, a desperate Alma began to make inquiries.

Callahan, eh? None I can think of hereabouts. Was a CallaHAM in the summer, I recollect. But he’s gone to Albany. County Cork? Well, there’s the O’Briens. And the Kellys. Swing a cat, and you’re likely to hit a Murphy on Orange Street. But not any Callahans that I know of.

Shortly before dusk, hopeless and exhausted, Alma sat down upon an upturned cart and began to weep inconsolably into her hands.

“It’s okay, Mummy,” said Nora.

An instant later, Alma felt a gentle hand upon her shoulder.

“Are you okay, miss?”

Turning to greet the voice, Alma was confronted by a dark-haired woman, roughly her own age, with a familiar lilt to her speech.

“Are you from Cork?” said Alma hopefully.

“No, Waterford,” said the woman. “Are you in need of help?”

Alma wiped the tears from her face and straightened the lap of her skirt.

“I suppose I am,” she said. “We have only what we carry in these bags. We’re searching for cousins by the name of Callahan. Perhaps you know of them?”

“Alas, I don’t. But you and yours are welcome tonight under my roof. This is not a place to be outdoors at night.”

“God bless you,” said Alma.

Of all the names in the world, even just the Irish names—from Aibreann to Ina to Siobhan, from Deirdre to Fiona to Sian—the dark-haired woman whose kindness saved them was called Aileen, the very same as Alma’s deceased daughter.

Aileen led them to a dwelling as dark and dreary as any mud hut back home. It comprised but a single room, furnished with one bed, currently occupied by an indistinct figure.

“Aileen? Is that you?”

“Aye, Father,” she said. “I’ve brought some friends from Cork.”

“Oh?” he said without shifting in his bed. “What friends have we from Cork? Who’s that?”

“I’ve only just met them, Father,” she said. “They’re just off the boat, and nowhere to go. A mother and twins.”

“Twins?” said the old man.

“Yes, Father.”

“Bring them here,” he said.

“They’re not identical, Father.”

“Oh?” said the old man.

Alma motioned to the twins, who approached the old man’s bedside and presented their faces. The old man groped blindly at Nora’s face, running his open hand over her forehead, then her nose, then down her cheeks to her chin, where he brought his thumb and fingertips to a point.

“Now the other,” he said.

Leaning in, Finn closed his eyes against the old man’s groping fingers as they ran over his forehead, around his nose, down his cheeks to his chin, where they made their point.

“Fascinating,” he said. “What are your names?”

“I’m Nora,” said Nora.

“And you?”

“He’s Finn.”

“Is that right, Finn?” said the old man.

“He is Finn, sir,” confirmed Alma.

“Why doesn’t he say it himself?” said the old man.

“He doesn’t speak, sir,” said Nora.

“Ah,” said the old man. “An idiot, my apologies. Blessed in the eyes of God, no doubt.”

“Not an idiot, sir,” said Alma. “He is capable of speaking, he’s done it before. It’s just that, well, he has chosen not to speak.”

“Has he?” said the old man. “And you’re certain he’s Irish? Who knew such a thing was possible? And he’s not slow, you say?”

“Far from it,” said Nora. “He notices things before I do.”

“Fascinating,” said the old man. “An Irishman who sees things and doesn’t speak his mind.”

Alma breathed a deep sigh of relief at the old man’s playfulness.

For dinner they ate potatoes, an irony that was lost on no one, boiled over an open fire in the alley and consumed greedily in the candlelight of the little room.

The old man, though sightless, was nonetheless garrulous and seemed to enjoy the company.

When the twins finally fell asleep on the floor, Alma and Aileen sat in the darkness of the cold room and commiserated like old friends.

“You must be an angel to find me,” said Alma.

“Just a girl from Waterford who once found herself crying on a street corner like you.”

The shabby room seemed to grow warmer with each intimacy. Alma’s persistent cough abated, if only temporarily. Against her better judgment, she allowed herself to believe that maybe the Golden Door was not a mirage. And Aileen was there to indulge this hope.

“Once you get away from the filth of the city, once you get out in the open country, it’s beautiful,” Aileen explained. “It’s not like this in the West.”

“No,” said the old man, surprising them with his wakeful state. “In the West everybody gets to starve on their own terms.”

“Oh, Father, stop.”

“You’ve been west?” said Alma.

“No, she hasn’t,” said the old man. “Nor have I. But I know already that this New World is no better than the world we left behind.”

“Oh, stop being so gloomy, Father,” she said. “Not everybody is blind and lame.”

“You’re right, of course. I’m a dreary old man. What do I know of the West? I suppose I just long for the familiar.”

“Well, here you have it,” said Aileen.

“Aye, you’ve got me again,” he said.

At some point, the fabric of their voices covered Alma like a blanket, and she succumbed to sleep, heavily and gratefully.

In the morning Aileen pulled back the burlap window shade, and a slant of sunlight flooded the room. Cold and achy, the Bergens and the Murphys stirred from their cramped resting places and shared a half loaf of bread, not too terribly stale, with a smear of chicken fat. The old man, shaking off his gloominess altogether, entertained the twins throughout the morning with a humor that managed to inspire mirth even in Finn, though the boy was never moved so far as speech.

“The Bergens will do fine out west,” said the old man. “Assuming you have the money to get there,” he said.

“Perhaps not,” she said, casting her eyes down. “But my aim is to come by it in the near future.”

“Until such time, you are welcome to room with the Murphys,” said the old man. “That is, if you can stand us.”

“God bless you,” said Alma.

And so, for nearly a fortnight the Bergens depended on the kindness of Aileen Murphy and her father. By day, Alma left the twins in the care of the old man as she scoured Manhattan for prospects, awaking early each day and not returning until dusk. Aileen, meanwhile, went to work six days a week in a garment factory on the West Side.

As spring approached, Alma had only managed to come by income sporadically, and she began to feel as though she was abusing the kindness of the Murphys. Her determination to announce their departure before they wore out their welcome was only reinforced by the return of her persistent cough. Soon her handkerchief was spotted with blood, and a weakness gradually took hold of her. For days she managed to put a hopeful face on her suffering, but soon it was beginning to show.

“Mummy, you’re pale,” said Nora.

“I’m fine,” she said.

But nobody was convinced.

Alma would never know Aileen’s motivations for certain, whether she was trying to cast out Alma’s illness or trying to save their lives, but one night in the spring, as they squatted over a supper of scorched potatoes and wilted cabbage, Aileen made an announcement.

“I’ve made some inquiries, and I believe I’ve found a route to Chicago that is the most economical, if not the most timely.”

“Does this mean you’re coming with us?” said Alma.

“I’m afraid not,” said Aileen. “But I’m going to help you get there.”

“How?”

“By providing you the funds you lack,” she said. “I’ve managed to stash a little away.”

“Oh, Aileen, I could never—”

“You could,” she said. “And you will. Just hear me out.”

“But, Aileen, I simply—”

“Let her talk,” said the old man.

“Alma, darling,” she said. “My father is blind, he’s infirm, he can barely walk. He’ll never make it out of Five Points, let alone New York. Isn’t that right, Father?”

“Why would I bother?” said the old man. “I can starve right here.”

“But what about you?” said Alma.

“Darling, I could never leave him. He’s all I’ve got.”

“She’s right, you know,” said the old man. “I may not look like much, but it’s true.”

“I’ve got my job,” said Aileen. “I’ve got my friends. We don’t need much to get by.”

“What about when . . . ?”

“Please!” said the old man.

“He’s right. Don’t be fooled,” said Aileen. “He’s hearty as an ox.”

“Don’t doubt for an instant that I’ll outlive her,” he said.

“It’s likely true,” said Aileen.

“She’s stuck with me,” said the old man. “And I’ll no sooner go west than I’ll fly in a hot-air balloon. So take the money.”

“Take it,” said Aileen. “Please.”

And thus it was owing to the kindness of the Murphys, veritable strangers in a strange land, that the Bergens were granted the means by which to make their passage west to Chicago.