The Lies They Told

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Genres: Coming of Age; Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

In rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement – when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin – in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope for readers of Susan Meissner, Kristin Hannah, and Christina Baker Kline.

When Lena Conti—a young, unwed mother—sees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Island, she vows not to let the officers take her two-year old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imagined, and she is separated from her mother and teenage brother, who are labeled burdens to society, denied entry, and deported back to Germany. Now, alone but determined to give her daughter a better life after years of living in poverty and near starvation, she finds herself facing a future unlike anything she had envisioned.

Silas Wolfe, a widowed family relative, reluctantly brings Lena and her daughter to his weathered cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. Though the hills around Wolfe Hollow remind Lena of her homeland, she struggles to adjust. Worse, she is stunned to learn the children in her care have been taught to hide when the sheriff comes around. As Lena meets their neighbors, she realizes the community is vibrant and tight knit, but also senses growing unease. The State of Virginia is scheming to paint them as ignorant, immoral, and backwards so they can evict them from their land, seize children from parents, and deal with those possessing “inferior genes.”

After a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindedness, her own worst fears come true. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and Epileptics, Lena face impossible choices in hopes of reuniting with her daughter—and protecting the people, and the land, she has grown to love.

Release date: July 29, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Ellis Island

May 31, 1928

A sick, nervous sweat rolled down Magdalena Conti’s neck when she saw what the soldiers were doing. If she’d known the dangers awaiting her here on the other side of the Atlantic, she would have stayed home and taken her chances. Now she was trapped, surrounded by the heart-wrenching cries of terrified mothers, shrieking children, shouting men, and weeping women echoing inside the cavernous building. The harsh noises bounced off the arched ceilings and surged through the locked gates and iron bars like a rolling storm. As if the pandemonium of thousands of desperate people crammed together in the enormous, boiling space wasn’t bad enough, the rank odors of sweat and fear hung in the air like an invisible haze, trunks and luggage scraped across the wooden floor, feet shuffled and stirred up dust, and voices murmured and shouted in what seemed like a hundred different languages, adding to the chaos in Magdalena’s anxious mind.

How was it possible that just a few hours earlier she’d longed to get off the ship, couldn’t wait to leave the foul confines of steerage and set foot on the shining shores of America? Maybe the rumors were true—maybe Ellis Island really was the island of tears. Maybe the Americans still detained “alien enemies” like they had during the Great War, or maybe they’d reverted to hanging pirates, criminals, and anyone else deemed a threat. Maybe the soldiers were taking immigrants out back and shooting them. Right now, anything seemed possible.

Up ahead, a stern-looking soldier behind a high desk questioned her fellow steerage passengers before sending them on for further examination. Another soldier pulled a frail-looking woman with a cane from a young boy’s side and hauled her away. A second soldier grabbed a man with one arm and an old woman trying to catch her breath and disappeared with them down a dim hallway. Two more soldiers removed an entire family from the line, ignoring the parents’ frantic pleas and nervous questions. Sometimes a soldier would pry a toddler from their mother’s arms, taking the child in one direction while the parents were dragged in another, all of them reaching for each other, screaming and fighting desperately not to be separated. Husbands and wives were yanked apart too, confused and struggling to break free. Quite often the soldiers wrote letters on the immigrants’ coats with white chalk—C, H, X, N, P, L, S—before sending them away.

No one knew what the letters meant.

No one knew where the men, women, and children were being taken, or why.

Trying to contain her panic, Magdalena looked down at her two-year-old daughter, Ella, strapped to her chest in a red shawl, and placed a protective hand over her knitted cap. Already small for her age, partially thanks to malnourishment stealing the milk from her mother’s breasts soon after she was born, Ella gazed up at her with tired, anxious eyes, her thin face betraying the nearly constant hunger she’d suffered during the first difficult years of her life. Doing her best to give her daughter a reassuring smile, Magdalena hummed a lullaby, her voice shaking. If the soldiers tried to take Ella away, they’d have to break Magdalena’s arms to do it.

She’d heard the tragic stories that made their way across the ocean about grieving mothers who lost their babies to contagious diseases while being quarantined on Ellis Island, of husbands and wives who lost spouses the same way. She’d heard about fathers who had finally saved enough money to have their families join them in America, only to lose children on the way, to mourn babies they’d never seen. But she had no idea families could be intentionally torn apart, that babies could be ripped from their mother’s arms.

Obviously, she’d made a terrible mistake.

But what choice did she have?

The country she loved as a little girl no longer existed. Germany had not yet recovered from the aftermath of war, with so many men drafted and killed, so many civilians starved, so much land plundered. The men who survived were left stranded, jobless, hungry, and bitter, and the economy was still suffering the effects of out-of-control inflation. For years now, she and her family had survived on half a cup of milk a day between them, and the majority of their meals consisted of potatoes and turnips. She’d tried talking her mother into moving out of the city into the country, where they could have a garden and chickens, but they had no means to buy a house or land, and Mutti knew nothing about gardening or raising poultry anyway.

In America, opportunities were endless; one could easily move from poverty to riches. And that was why she’d gotten on the ship. Because she would do anything to make sure her daughter never went hungry again. But the terrifying possibility of being separated from Ella had never entered her mind. Now, that fear erased everything.

With every passing minute, the temperature inside the building seemed to rise faster and faster. On top of feeling like she was roasting, Magdalena’s feet and legs ached, and Ella seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Trying not to hyperventilate, she hooked one hand through her brother’s arm for support, and to remind herself that she was not alone.

Enzo looked down at her with a faint smile, exhaustion and dread shining in his brown eyes. Despite the fact that his stomach, like all of theirs, had twisted with hunger more times than they cared to remember, at fourteen, he was already taller than her and Mutti, and his quiet, stoic presence always made Magdalena feel protected. Even with their wooden trunk resting on one broad shoulder, he stood straight as a tree, as if the battered chest filled with their meager belongings weighed nothing.

Mutti used to make her feel safe too, but she had aged greatly in the three years since typhoid took Vater, and her shoulders slumped under the burdens she carried. Magdalena was reluctant to add to her load by leaning on her for comfort, especially after putting her through the shame of having a seventeen-yearold unwed daughter turn up pregnant. Oh, how some of the neighbors had talked behind their backs during the long wait to be approved to go to America! And how foolish Magdalena had been, believing the British officer’s promise to take her home to meet his family and get married. He even said she could send money back to Mutti after the wedding.

She should have known Officer Jonathan Dankworth was too good to be true when he came to her rescue after the wheel of her hand wagon fell off in the village square, clattered along the cobblestones, and landed near his boot. She had feared a scolding but unlike the other British soldiers who still treated German citizens like the enemy, he had politely offered to help, looking genuinely concerned. Or so she thought. After his attempt to fix the wheel failed, he insisted on carrying the wagon—and the load of sewing inside—back to her apartment, despite the fact that she lived twenty blocks away. By the time they reached her building, he had charmed her into meeting him near the river that evening, where he would be waiting on a park bench with wine, imported cheese, and British shortbread. At first, she agreed to his invitation because her stomach growled at the mention of cheese and shortbread, and it had been forever since she’d tasted wine, but as they sat for hours in the moonlight next to the river, his easy smile, intelligence, and willingness to see her as an equal, along with his silver-blue eyes and chiseled jaw, ultimately won her over in the end. Over the next three months, he professed his love to her, provided her family with extra provisions, and promised to rescue her from the devastating poverty of post-war Germany. By the time she realized she was expecting his child, he was already gone—back to his wife and children, his fellow comrades said.

It had taken weeks for her heartache to turn to anger, and finally to gratitude that she was rid of a man who’d turned out to be a liar and a cheat. At least he’d taught her more English than she’d learned in eight years of school. And of course she’d always be thankful for Ella, her very reason for living. It helped knowing that he was the one losing out; he would never see his daughter’s dimpled smile or fall in love with her toes and tiny fingers. He would never hear her laugh or have even one memory of her. All the wondrous joys of being Ella’s parent belonged wholly to Magdalena, and he could never take that away from her.

She glanced at Mutti’s gray, pallid face, the dread in her chestnut eyes making Magdalena’s already exhausted legs tremble. For the first time in the fourteen days since leaving home, Mutti looked more than tired and sick. She looked scared.

“Are you feeling all right, Mutti?” Magdalena said.

“I am fine, Lena,” Mutti said, the familiar nickname another comforting reminder that Lena and Ella were not on their own. “Bitte, do not worry about me.” She put a loving hand on Ella’s small head. “Just hold tight to our kleine Engel, little angel.”

Lena nodded, her chin quivering. Protecting her child was more important than anything in the world, but she worried about Mutti too. They’d already been waiting for hours, first on the ship, then on the barges, and now in line. Yes, it was getting close to their turn, but now that they could see what all the commotion was about, Mutti was looking worse by the minute. On the ship she’d been too seasick to do anything but sleep and take sips of cool water, only coming around once they were anchored in New York Harbor. Lena and Enzo had been sick too, especially during the two-day storm that had rolled the ship like a toy, making it rock and crack. But not nearly as sick as Mutti, who’d been unable to even lift her head during the worst of it.

Lena had wiped the sweat from Mutti’s face, held her up while she vomited, and worried constantly that they might lose her—a possibility that had never occurred to her when they set out. But after an old man in the same bunkroom passed away, the terrifying thought took hold like poison in her mind. At one point the weather was so bad the steerage doors were locked and tied shut to keep the passengers from going up on deck and being swept overboard, and Lena thought for sure they were all going to die. But luckily, the storm ended quickly and Ella had been fine, other than being uneasy and hungry. Again.

Now, Lena looked around at the weary, fearful passengers in the other lines—at the unshaven men carrying trunks on their heads or shoulders, at the women wearing embroidered skirts and babushkas, carrying or holding the hands of small children. Many were whispering desperate prayers, and all their faces were gaunt with hunger. So many helpless and hopeful souls, crowded and anxious, their clothes reeking of steerage and sea-sickness. Who knew what they had suffered before stepping on board the ship—what losses, atrocities, or other hardships they’d lived through before deciding to come to the United States? And now, on top of everything, they had to worry about being torn from the people they loved most. As if that weren’t difficult and confusing enough, for some infuriating reason the first- and second-class passengers had been allowed to disembark straight into Manhattan, while the steerage passengers were taken from the ship, put on barges, and sent over to the Ellis Island inspection station, where they were being lined up and judged like cattle.

Before turning forward again, Lena caught the haunted gaze of a pregnant woman in another line, a curly-haired toddler bound to her chest in a tattered gray scarf. The young mother’s feverish, bloodshot eyes reflected everything Lena felt, every hope and untethered fear, every impossible dream, every possible nightmare. Lena scanned the people around the woman for another family member, a husband or mother, but she appeared to be alone. Hopefully she was meeting someone in America, someone who would look out for her and her children. Remembering the con men she’d been warned about—who targeted immigrant women traveling alone by offering rooms in boardinghouses and jobs in “good Christian homes,” when in reality they’d end up putting them to work as unpaid servants, or worse, forcing them to sell themselves for money—Lena felt compelled to invite the young mother to stand with her and her family. Then the woman peered at Ella with narrowed eyes and Lena looked away, suddenly worried that the stranger could tell she had no husband … and that she had come to America under false pretenses.

Of course, that was ridiculous. No one could possibly know that the man who had agreed to hire Mutti and Enzo had no idea she and Ella were also coming. No one else in the world knew the truth. She felt the slight weight of the leather pouch on the cord around her neck, hidden beneath her peasant dress, two blouses, a knitted sweater, and her wool coat, all of which she’d been wearing since they left Bremerhaven. Mutti wore a similar pouch beneath her clothes, a dumpling-sized sack holding the other half of what little money they had after selling everything they owned to buy Lena’s ticket. They’d been warned to bring enough cash to prove they wouldn’t end up begging in the streets, but she had no idea if a few dozen Rentenmarks would be enough—the new German money had only been in circulation a few years. Before that, two billion Papiermarks were barely enough to buy a loaf of bread, and people had burned the old money in their woodstoves to keep warm. Now there was no telling what the new Mark was worth in the United States. Hopefully what they had in their pouches would be sufficient, because other than the clothes on their backs, the individual satchels they each carried, a few pots and pans, Mutti’s sewing basket, a hand-sewn quilt, and other sentimental possessions in the ancient wooden trunk, the money was all they had.

Just then, the line moved forward, jolting her out of her thoughts. Soon they would be in front of the stern-looking soldier behind the high desk. Up ahead, a couple with a young girl stepped up to him. The soldier took one look at the child and motioned another soldier over. The mother grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and frantically shook her head.

“No, per favore!” she cried, backing away. “No!”

Her husband stepped in front of the soldier, his arms out, ready to protect his family. “Il bambina resta con noi,” he said, his voice hard.

“Il bambino e malato,” the soldier said, stumbling over the Italian words. “Ha bisogno di cure mediche. Capisci?” And then, in English, “She is ill. She has measles. We will treat her in the hospital but you must pay for her care or she will be sent back home. Do you understand?”

The husband’s face crumpled in misery and he nodded. He turned back to his wife, spoke soft words to her, then stepped aside. With watery eyes, the woman knelt down, stroked the girl’s cheek, and whispered in her ear. The child cried out and threw her arms around her mother, who hugged her for a moment, then stood and led her over to the soldier. When the soldier took her by the wrist and led her away, the little girl shrieked, struggling to get free.

“Voglio andare con mia mama!” she cried.

“No,” the soldier said. “You must come with me.”

“Va tutto bene,” the mother called out. “Ci rivedremo presto amore mio.” Then she fell into her husband’s arms, weeping. Within seconds, another soldier appeared and led the parents in the other direction, the mother burying her face in her hands.

“What’s wrong with her?” Enzo asked.

Mutti, who understood Italian better than her children, thanks to having married a man from that country, explained. “They said she is sick and needs medical attention. I think I saw a rash on her face.”

The exchange reminded Lena that, although Mutti knew Italian and German, she knew very little English. And Enzo knew even less. Now that they were in America, she needed to teach them more.

Determined to appear strong and healthy despite the fact that she’d just spent endless days and nights in the bowels of a rat-infested ship taking care of her daughter, mother, and brother, with little food, less sleep, and thousands of sick and reeking steerage passengers, she let go of Enzo’s arm, stood up straighter, and rubbed the moisture and grit from her eyes, which felt swollen from exhaustion and foul air. She pushed loose locks of her grimy hair away from her face, hoping that, despite her petite frame, she looked older than nineteen. Now more than ever she had to look capable and strong, even while terrified. Ella needed her. Mutti and Enzo did too.

She took off her brother’s cap, wiped his sweaty bangs off his forehead, put his cap back on, then smoothed his coat and straightened Mutti’s collar. After everything they’d been through and everything they’d lost, they had to stay together. They just had to. Then she had another thought, and a chill ran through her. What if they were all denied entry? What if they were deported for some strange reason? They had nothing to go home to now—no home, no jobs, no money.

She could barely believe they’d done it, sold what few items they owned and come all this way. She’d never forget walking out the door of their cramped apartment for the last time, looking back over the worn threshold into the place she’d always called home, trying to remind herself that nothing had been the same since Vater died anyway. Not her mother, her brother, or herself. Sometimes she wondered if Mutti wanted to leave Germany to run away from her heartache.

Except moving across the ocean wouldn’t mend Mutti’s broken heart or bury her misery. She and Lena and Enzo would carry the wretched grief, the horrible, heavy agony of losing Vater, in their hearts forever, no matter where they went. Between sorrow, starvation, and the pain of being deserted by Ella’s father, Lena thought she was more than ready to start over someplace new. But now, being inside Ellis Island where dreams were being shattered and families were being ripped apart, she longed desperately for the tiny kitchen with the woodstove and handmade table, the even tinier bedroom she’d shared with Ella, the cobblestone streets and the sound of cathedral bells outside her window.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, she struggled to push away the hollow ache of homesickness. There was no sense in wanting something she couldn’t have. The decision had been made to come to America and that was that. Not to mention it had taken months for Mutti’s and Enzo’s numbers to come in so the man who agreed to hire them could buy tickets. Things will be better in America, Mutti had said. We will have steady work and you will no longer need to spend your days picking up coal by the train tracks or searching through garbage for food. We will never again be hungry and poor.

She wanted to believe her mother’s words, but right now it seemed impossible. And what if their American benefactor refused to take her and Ella in?

Before she knew what was happening, it was their turn. She stepped up to the soldier standing behind the high desk, nerves crackling under her skin. Between the badge, the black leather straps across the chest of his uniform, and his grizzled face, the soldier looked even more intimidating up close. His badge read: IMMIGRATION OFFICER.

“Name, number, and nationality,” he barked without looking up from his clipboard.

“Magdalena Sofia Russo Conti,” Lena said. “Number 527. German Italian.” She put a hand on Ella. “And this is my daughter, Ella Gianni Conti. Number 526. German. This is my mother, Katrina Pauline Conti, Number 528, German, and my brother, Enzo Nikolas Conti. Number 529. German Italian.”

The officer looked up then, scowling and studying her through small, round spectacles. “Are your mother and brother unable to speak?”

“Nein,” she said. “I mean, ja. Yes.” Cringing inside, she berated herself for speaking incorrectly. “I am sorry. I was thinking it would be better for me to answer for them. They are still learning English and—”

He held out his hand. “Inspection cards and papers.”

Digging her papers out of her coat pocket, Lena translated for Mutti and Enzo. They held out their cards and papers.

“You were born in Italy?” the officer said, eyeing Lena.

“Yes. We moved to Germany when I was one year of age.”

“Are you Jewish?”

“No,” she said.

“Male or female?” the officer said.

Lena raised her eyebrows. “Me?”

The officer nodded.

“Female,” she said.

“Occupation?”

“My mother and I took in laundry and sewing. In America we hope to—”

“Where is the child’s father?”

For a second, she thought about telling the truth, that Ella’s father had abandoned them, but being honest about the situation might be too big a risk. And Ella’s father might as well be dead anyway. “He is deceased.”

“And you were not married.” It was not a question.

She swallowed. How did he know? Then she remembered; she still had her mother’s last name. “He died before the wedding.”

With a disapproving scowl, he scribbled something down on a piece of paper, then looked at her again.

“Can you read and write?”

“Yes.” She gritted her teeth. Why were they being asked so many questions? They had already been screened numerous times, before leaving Germany and again at a checkpoint before getting off the ship to take the barge to Ellis Island. Inspectors had boarded the ship on rope ladders to look for signs of smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, plague, and leprosy. And once the ship passed inspection, more officers came aboard to ask additional questions before they docked.

“Last residence?”

“Beckingen, Germany.”

“Final destination?”

“Virginia.”

“What city?”

She turned to her mother. “Where are we going? What is the city?”

Mutti cleared her throat and in broken English said, “Old Rag Mountain.”

The officer wrote down the name and regarded Lena again. “Do you have a sponsor?”

Lena frowned, confused by the English word.

He sighed. “Is a friend or relative meeting you here?”

She nodded. “Yes. A cousin to my mother.”

“What is this person’s name and where does he live?”

“His name is Mr. Silas Wolfe. He lives in Virginia in …” She glanced at Mutti again, unsure, then she remembered. “Old Rag Mountain.”

“Have you been to the United States before?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Have you ever been in prison or a hospital or institution for the care and treatment of the insane?”

She only understood the words hospital and prison but answered anyway. “No.”

“Have you come here because of any offer, solicitation, promise or agreement, expressed or implied, to perform labor in the United States?”

“I am not sure what you are asking me,” she said.

“Have you been offered or promised a job or work in this country?”

“Yes,” she said. “My brother will work for Mr. Wolfe, and my mother and I will take care of his house and children.”

“Where is his wife?”

“She is dead,” she said.

“Are you a polygamist?”

She frowned again.

“A two-timer,” he said. “An adulteress, a person who breaks the laws of marriage.”

She knew what breaking the law meant. “No.”

“Are you an anarchist?”

“I’m sorry?” she said, raising her brows.

“Are you a troublemaker? A person who doesn’t follow rules?”

“No.”

“Did you pay for your own passage, or was it paid for by any other person or by any corporation, society, municipality or government, and if so, by whom?”

“Mr. Silas Wolfe paid for my mother and brother,” she said. “We paid for my ticket.”

“Are you in possession of at least twenty-five dollars?”

“We have thirty-four German Marks.”

“Between all of you?”

“Yes,” she said.

The officer scoffed. “You do realize that is less than ten U.S. dollars.”

A coil of fear twisted in her gut. Would they be turned away because they didn’t have enough money? She nodded, unsure of what else to say.

“Your sponsor will need to report to the Board of Inquiry to sign papers proving he has work for you,” the officer said. “Do you understand?”

Another flash of panic ignited inside her chest. How was Mr. Wolfe going to prove he had work for her when he had no idea she was coming?

“Do you understand?” the officer said again. “No one is allowed entry who might become a public charge. We will not allow you to become a burden to the United States.”

She nodded.

When he’d finished interrogating her, he questioned Enzo. She translated.

“I thought you said he could speak English,” the officer said.

“Only a little,” she said. “But he is learning more.”

Enzo shrugged at some questions and looked baffled by others. She did her best to explain everything. In some instances, she answered for him.

“How many feet does a cat have?” the officer said.

She translated.

“That’s a stupid question,” Enzo said to her in German.

“Just answer it,” she said.

Irritation pinched the officer’s features. “Is he feebleminded?”

“I do not understand what you—” she said.

“Is he an idiot? A moron? Insane?”

She was unsure what the words meant, but could tell by the man’s tone that they were not good. “No,” she said, “He worked delivering telegrams in Germany and—”

“Four,” Enzo said in English, holding up four fingers and glaring at the officer.

“He will need to be questioned further by the Board of Inquiry,” the officer said. He came around the desk and marked Enzo’s coat with a chalk X. “Make sure he doesn’t wipe it off.”

“Why?” Lena said. “What does it mean?”

“It means he needs to be more thoroughly examined,” the officer said. “The only way to keep America pure is by checking immigrants for poor stock.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I am still not understanding.”

“I don’t have time to explain. There are others waiting.” He studied Mutti. “Is your mother unwell?”

“No,” Lena said. “She was ill on the ship but she is better now.”

The officer looked doubtful. “What was wrong with her?”

“The waves made her very sick,” she said.

In addition to the same questions the officer asked Lena and Enzo, he asked Mutti how long she was married, if she had other children, if she had any differences with her husband, and if they got along all right. Lena hated the pained look on her mother’s face when she translated the ridiculous inquiries. Why did her relationship with Vater matter? Her poor father was dead and buried three thousand miles away, cold and alone in the graveyard next to the stone church where Lena and Enzo were baptized as children.

Finally, the officer gave them each a stringed tag stating their name, ship, manifest number, and destination. “Display these landing tags on your clothes where we can see them,” he said.

In English and nine other languages, the back of the card read: When landing at New York this card is to be attached to the coat or dress of the passenger in a prominent position.

Lena tied a tag to Ella’s jacket button and her own, while Mutti and Enzo tied the tags to each other.

“Move along to the doctor behind me,” the officer said.

Lena glanced at the soldier behind him, then looked at him again, perplexed. “I see no doctors,” she said.

“Those men are military surgeons,” he said. “Doctors. Now move along. They will tell you what to do next.”

For the first time, she noticed the men behind him were wearing different uniforms. After she explained everything to Mutti and Enzo, the three of them moved past the desk toward the first doctor. When they were about ten feet away from the doctor, he held up a hand to make them stop. Then he pointed at Lena and Ella.

“You first,” he said. “Put the child down and make her walk.”

Trembling, Lena unwrapped Ella from the shawl with Mutti’s help and put her on the floor, the weight of her warm little body on her chest suddenly gone, like a terrible hollowness inside her heart. What if one of the soldiers grabbed Ella and carried her away?

Ella reached up for Lena, crying, “Mama! Mama!”

“Come forward,” the doctor said, motioning Lena toward him. “She will follow you.”

“It’s all right,” Lena said to Ella. “Don’t cry. Come with me and I will pick you up again.”

Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Ella followed, Lena walked toward the doctor, her arms and legs vibrating. Ella toddled after her, wailing.

The doctor studied them while they walked, looking them up and down with critical eyes. When Lena reached him, he told her to hold out her hands, palms up. “Do you have any deformities? Crooked fingers or an artificial limb?”

She shook her head.

He gave her hands a quick glance, then told her to turn them over. “Have you been in the company of anyone with cholera, plague, smallpox, leprosy, or typhus?”

Some of the words were unfamiliar, but she understood the term typhus. “No,” she said.

Ella pulled on the hem of Lena’s coat, her face red and wet. “Up, Mama. Up.”

“Loosen your collar, please,” the doctor said.

Lena opened her coat, unbuttoned her sweater and two blouses partway, then unhooked the collar of her peasant dress.

The doctor felt underneath her jaw, then told her to look down as he examined her scalp. When he was f