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burned by its fires.
    Now, on her arrival day, she stood at the rail and watched Buenos Aires grow larger. The waters of the port teemed with ships, and the docks teemed with people. Argentinos. People who inhabited this city’s streets, slept in its beds, listened to its everyday secrets. And somewhere on that dock, Dante. How would he look? How would it be between them? She checked her hat again with her hand. The pins were solid, the pearls still in place. It gave her strength to face this moment, to have such a delicate thing on her head, though she also feared that she would not be able to live up to the womanhood it demanded of her. So far she had succeeded, at least, in transporting it intact across the ocean. This had been her mother’s charge: don’t let anything happen to your hat . It had been her mother’s hat, the best one she owned, even before she’d sewn on a strand of real pearls, so that, Mamma said, no matter how exhausted or worn Leda looked after the journey, she would have one thing befitting the dignity of the moment, because you have to look your very best when you arrive in Buenos Aires, you don’t want him to think you’ve fallen, even if you’re tired. Not to mention, Mamma added as she stitched, that you’ll be a bride without a gown. Leda thought about this now as sheleaned against the rail: a bride without a gown. Those words made it sound as though she were arriving naked, stepping off the boat with her elegant blue hat and nothing else, vulnerable, shamed. The image stung her. Perhaps Mamma had meant for it to sting.
    The ship made contact with the port. Clank . The yoke of land. Leda felt a rush of excitement around her. Three hundred and sixty-eight Italians pressed their way toward the gangplank to taste their first encounter with Argentina. A small cluster of men walked up the gangplank and boarded the ship, uniforms starched, buttons gleaming. Three of them wore stethoscopes.
    “Form two lines, please, and have your documents ready.”
    The crowd obeyed. Leda joined a line, trying to edge toward the front, but the men’s bodies pushed her out of the way. Her heart beat loudly in her chest. Her skin was lined with sweat from the humid air. The line snaked back and forth along the deck, and from where she stood it was impossible to see the docks below the ship. She took out her handkerchief and wiped her face; she had to look fresh and healthy for the officials, so they could have no reason to deny her entry. Of course, from everything she’d heard, there was no reason to worry. Argentina was promoting immigration. They wanted workers. They did not take the old, sick, or unsound of mind. She was young and healthy, though she’d lost weight from motion sickness and her frame had become even skinnier than before. Her bones jutted. She wiped her face again. She hoped there would be no problems. As for soundness of mind, she sometimes doubted that she had it, as she had always been strange, off-kilter to the rhythms of those around her, but surely that was not a reason to be denied the Américas. She was very good at hiding her strangeness. The line inched forward. She would be standing here a long time. She was hungry and hot. Dante must be close now, just down the gangplank on the dock, waiting for her. She wondered what was going through his mind. What he would think when he first saw her. Would he see how thin she was? Would he want her less than before? She squared hershoulders and stood tall. Dante, she thought, it’s too late to return me. We are going to start our family, our home, our children—she had not thought much about the children, though she knew they were part of it, inevitably, a few hazy forms around the dinner table, though not too many, not a large brood please, she had seen too many women, including her mother, buried in their own progeny—and it shall be good. We will lose the old nightmares and launch new dreams.
    There was Fausta, in the line snaking in