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intended.
    The immigration center was an old fort roofed in with a high round three-level room ending in a cupola with a huge flag flapping in the rough wind. It had been a concert hall between being a fort and being what it was now. To one side stood an employment exchange in a long shed. The hawkers were already out, waiting to hire likely-looking men at cheap wages. The boardinghouse keepers and brothel recruiters were beginning to mass by the huge double doors of the fort, where the immigrants would pour out.
    “There’s a ship, look, bringing the greenhorns. Pretty soon the folks will start coming out. That’s when the boardinghouse keepers swarm them. We can ask if they remember Shaineh.”
    “We can try. You’re a good boy, Sammy.”
    “Not so good. I got to get by what way I can.”
    “So do we all.”
    A decision was forming in her. She was always making plans, it was her nature. She had to try, always. “The only good thing that’s come out of all this pain is that I have some money now, money I saved for my parents and my family to come over. I sent them the money order but it came back.” Freydeh licked her fingers for the last taste of the corn. “I have enough once I get this money order cashed to get my own place. Then when I save up more, I’m going to start my own business.”
    “What kind of business?” Sammy squinted at her. She couldn’t even say if he was fair or ruddy or dark, although she had tried to clean him up. He needed a real bath, a good scrub-down. Baths were hard to come by except in the summer when the pools in the East River were open.
    “I’m going to make rubber condoms.”
    Sammy laughed. Then he squinted at her again. “You serious?”
    “There’s money in it. I know a gonif makes a living at it. I can do it as well as him. And you’re going to help me, Sammy.” She had noticed the squinting before. She wondered if he needed glasses. Of course he wouldn’t know if he did.
    He turned and glared at her. “Don’t make fun of me.”
    “You want to live in a box in Pig Alley?”
    “I get by.”
    “Barely. You’re a smart kid, Sammy. I got nobody to look after till I find Shaineh and I’m going to need help.”
    “Like what kind of help?” His eyes were fixed on hers now. He sat rigidly, waiting to hear what she would say. “I can do anything.”
    “I’ll need help making the molds. We buy the rubber in sheets. I’ll do the selling, to establish customers, and you’ll do a lot of the deliveries. I can’t be making the stuff and running around delivering it too.”
    “But after you find your sister, you won’t need me.”
    “For all I know, Shaineh is married by now. She was the pretty one in the family. Looking at me, you can’t picture her. She was slighter than me, very light brown hair, with a face like a flower, Sammy.”
    She stood, paced for a moment, sat back down on the bench. “And how do I know if she’d want to work for me? She might be a seamstress by now.” She sighed, putting her hand on his arm. “Sammy, I haven’t seen her since she was twelve—just a couple of years older than you are now. So what do I know from nothing about her? She’s my kid sister and she’s lost somewhere in New York—and that’s all I know.”
    “Bad things can happen when you’re all alone.”
    “You know it.” And she was sure he did. She wasn’t about to ask. Better he should keep those things to himself, not to be ashamed. “Okay, let’s go to where the boardinghouse keepers shout their wares to corral the poor people staggering out.”
    The boardinghouse hawkers were lined up waiting, although nobody had come through the doors yet. She and Sammy pushed from one to another, describing Shaineh, mentioning the ship she had come on, the date she had landed. They had almost given up when they found one enormous red-faced woman who smelled like soup.
    “I remember her. She wasn’t interested. Then that evening, she came staggering in, exhausted.