Homeland

by John Jakes

“Inspectors,” Valter whispered, as though he meant the police, or something even worse.

  Pauli had never been in such a huge room, or one so noisy. By groups they were herded between waist-high iron railings which covered most of the floor, rather like animal runs. In each of several aisles, a uniformed inspector scrutinized the immigrants one at a time. Ahead of Pauli there was a mother with a small boy in her arms. The inspector spoke to her in a tired, harsh voice. “How old is your child?” She shook her head to show she didn’t understand. A younger interpreter behind the inspector repeated the question.

  In German she said, “He was just two last month, Your Excellency.”

  After the translation: “I’m not an excellency, I’m from the U.S. Public Health service. Put the boy down. Any child over two must walk without aid.”

  More translation. Trembling, the woman set her son on his feet. The boy stuck a finger in his mouth, hesitating. His mother gave him a hard shove. Tears filling his eyes, he toddled past the examiner, who immediately waved the next person forward.

  Pauli kept watching. The inspector had a piece of chalk. When something didn’t suit him he chalked a big letter on the immigrant’s coat. F, H, X—Pauli had no idea what the letters meant. His heart was hammering when his turn came.

  “Name?”

  “Pauli Kroner. Number 8-11.” Nervousness garbled the rehearsed phrases. “I work—yes, I—ich bin—I—good worker.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Valter, a little more fluent in English, helped out. “He is good worker. He will work hard.”

  “Not so fast. He won’t work or do anything else unless we pass him. You’re pale, youngster—”

  “Blass,” snapped the interpreter.

  “Have you been sick?”

  “Krank?”

  “Sir, yes—here.” He touched his stomach. “But—” Sweat broke out all over Pauli’s forehead. He struggled for the English; didn’t dare reach for his book. “Only little. All right now.”

  The inspector seemed to study him forever. “You don’t look all right. But you’re young, I guess you’ll live.” Again a long scrutiny. Then he waved his piece of chalk. “Go on.”

  The words eluded Pauli, but not the meaning. He dashed past the inspector with a new and grim appreciation of the part that chance and whim played in these proceedings. All of the inspectors had a tired, irritated air, as if their hours were too long, their tasks too hard. They might turn anyone back on any pretext. It made the odds all the worse.

  Bad as he felt, Pauli vowed he’d get through the ordeal. He started to move forward in the aisle. His hair nearly stood up when a familiar voice cried out. Horrified, he looked down the adjoining aisle and saw the widow Wolinski collapsed in her daughters’ arms … wailing.

  8

  Herschel

  THE WOLINSKIS HAD REACHED the station of the third inspector, the dreaded “eye man.” He was standing with a helper at a table on which sat his cap, a basin of strong-smelling disinfectant and a pile of hand towels.

  Herschel was relieved to see that the inspector was middle-aged, comfortably stout, with a face as rosy and kindly as that of a Christmas saint. His little blue eyes sparkled as he summoned Slova Wolinski to his side with a gesture. He took a moistened towel from his helper and gently cleansed her left eye, then her right. Next he picked up a small instrument which looked like a common buttonhook and with it lifted Slova’s left eyelid for inspection. “Ah,” he said, not happily.

  By then fat tears were running down Slova’s face. The inspector examined her right eye in similar fashion. “Here too.” He removed the hook and clasped her hands in his.

  “My dear woman”—the helper translated into Polish—“both of your eyes display the characteristic granulation of trachoma. It’s a degenerative eye disease, very common in people who come through here. I’m afraid you must go to quarantine, and your relatives with you, unless you choose to separate.”

  Yes, yes, we will separate, Herschel thought as his ears rang and the floor seemed to ripple beneath him. He tried not to cry; Slova was crying loudly enough for both of them.

  “No, sir,” he said, “we agreed to stay together—” The helper translated; he had to raise his voice because Slova was wailing like a madwoman, overcome by her surroundings, so many strangers, the terrifying examination. “We would all land or we would all go back, that was our promise to each other.”

  Sadly, the inspector said, “That way, then,” pointing.

  9

  Pauli

  PAULI PASSED THE EYE man without incident. He advanced between the iron rails to the end of a line of people in single file. Similar lines flanked it. All led to the inspectors who conducted the final interviews at a row of trestle tables stretching across one entire side of the hall. The sight of the tables made Pauli’s stomach tighten. As if sensing this anxiety, Valter laid his hand on Pauli’s shoulder. Pauli shut his eyes and rehearsed his phrases yet again.

  Person by person, the line ahead of him melted. And then it was his turn.

  The inspector had sleek dark hair like wet otter fur, and a veined nose, and the ugliest, most villainous features Pauli had ever seen. The man motioned. “You, lad. Step up.”

  “Manifest 8, line 11,” the translator said. The inspector grunted and ran an inky finger down the page of a thick ledger. “Name?”

  “Kroner, sir. Pauli Kroner.” With a scratchy pen the inspector wrote in the ledger.

  “Age?”

  The second man translated it into German. Pauli said, “Fourteen years. But I will be fifteen on the fifteenth of this month.” The inspector wrote again.

  “Traveling with anyone?” Pauli shook his head. “Can you read or write any English?”

  Pauli burst out with his phrases. “Yes, thank you! America wonderful country!” The translator laughed, not unkindly. Then he asked a question:

  “Where in the old country did you start from?”

  “Berlin, sir. But my family is Swabian.”

  “I guessed it from the red in your hair. Fine people, Swabians. I’m from the region myself, came over eighteen years ago.”

  Despite the translator’s friendliness, the inspector continued to regard Pauli with a blank expression. “Who paid your passage?” he said.

  “My aunt back in Germany. But I worked to earn part of it.” More English: “I will work hard here—good worker!”

  Slitting his eyes, the inspector said, “Do you have a job waiting for you?”

  Valter had coached him on that question. If you answered yes, you would be turned back, because you might be taking work from an American. Pauli said, “No, sir, although I hope to have one someday. My uncle will help me with that, I think.”

  “Is your uncle here?”

  “No, he is in Chicago.”

  “But he’s your sponsor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Show me something to prove it.”

  “I had a letter from him, in German, but two bullies on the ship stole it.”

  The inspector eyed Pauli for a long time. Then, without emotion, he said, “Lad, there’s a problem here.”

  “Sir?” Pauli’s ears rang again. Pains like knife blades tortured his vitals.

  “United States immigration law prohibits entry of unaccompanied children under sixteen. Your uncle should have come for you personally. Then we wouldn’t have a problem.”

  “I’m sure he thought—ah—” Pauli turned red, struggling. “Der Brief—”

  “The letter,” the translator said.

  “Yes, thank you, I expect he thought the letter would be enough.”

  “So it would. If you had it.”

  “Sir, he couldn’t come here, he is a very busy rich man, my uncle—”

  “I appreciate that, but the law is the law. You will be detained and examined by the Board of Special Inquiry.”

  “What is that?” Pauli’s courage was flagging with this bad news and the avalanche of strange words.


  “Three officials who pass on all cases like yours. You’ll be held here on the island until you have your hearing.”

  “Then they will let me go to Chicago?”

  The translator looked away. The inspector said, “To be honest, probably not, unless you are a very persuasive speaker. You aren’t allowed to have help in making your case. No lawyers, relatives, friends—no one.”

  Pauli’s nerve almost crumbled then. But he held on; dug his nails into his palms. “Sir, I did have proof that my relatives are waiting for me. It was stolen.” His mouth twisted. “I should have lied about my age.”

  After a moment his shoulders drooped. “No, I am not a good liar.”

  The ugly inspector pondered. Then he swung around to face his assistant. “Mr. Steiner, I would hate to make a mistake in this case. Don’t you think this young man looks sixteen? He looks sixteen to me.”

  “Sir, I feel sorry for him too. But he’s already stated—”

  “Sixteen.” The inspector scratched out the age previously written down in the ledger; wrote a new one. He took a square of colored pasteboard from a cigar box and handed it to Pauli, who turned it over, unable to decipher the English printing.

  “Sirs—what is this?”

  “Your landing card,” the translator said, faintly smiling.

  “Welcome to America,” said the ugly inspector. “It’s a long way to Chicago. Be careful.”

  He waited until he saw old Valter receive his card and then rushed to the holding area where the Wolinski children were trying to console their exhausted, defeated mother. Herschel tried to hide his sadness as he ran to the rail separating the rejected ones from all the others.

  “Goodbye, goodbye,” Pauli said, waving his card.

  That English word Herschel understood. Tears appeared in his blue eyes as he shook Pauli’s hand. Valter came up and stood silently by the boys.

  Herschel spoke in Polish and Valter translated. “Good-bye, you’ve been a good friend. I’ll go back with mama and my sisters now but I promise you I won’t give up. They can ship me back to Poland a thousand times, I’ll still try once more. We will meet in this country one day. I am going to be an American—you can be sure of that!”

  He leaned over the rail and gave Pauli a strong hug. Then he shook Valter’s hand. “Goodbye to you, sir.”

  “Please tell him to take care of himself,” Pauli said to Valter in German.

  Herschel replied, “Oh, definitely. You too.” He managed to smile as he cocked his index finger. “Bang, bang.”

  Herschel rejoined his mother and sisters. Pauli and Valter walked away. After a few steps Pauli looked back, standing in a broad moted beam of sunshine falling through one of the arched windows. Somehow the babble of tongues, the occasional wails of rejection, the loud voices of the inspectors, no longer seemed threatening. Despite the hubbub, the great registry hall had a solemn beauty, churchlike and holy.

  Pauli waved. Herschel waved back. Pauli took a breath and, with his landing card tight in his hand, went on with Valter toward double doors marked as the exit in half a dozen languages. One ordeal was over. Now the next began.

  “Here’s something interesting,” Valter said to him just on the other side of the doors. “The inspector didn’t like my name. Either that or he couldn’t understand it when I said it. I am now Walters.” He showed a paper with the name written in block letters. “See? Mr. Walters. He put it in his book that way.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Valter was bemused. “Why, I don’t know yet. I suppose I had better, it’s official.”

  Along the upstairs corridor they came upon several offices. The largest displayed a big sign. CAMBIA VALUTA—WECHSELGESCHAFT—BUREAU DE CHANGE. They passed it by; Pauli had nothing to take him in there.

  They also bypassed the mail and telegraph rooms. But one smaller room attracted him. It advertised itself in two languages:

  DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT

  German Aid Society

  Jeder willkommen!

  “I’d like to go in here for a minute,” Pauli said.

  “Fine,” Valter said, “I’ll see you downstairs in the baggage hall.”

  Inside, a woman wearing a billowy white long-sleeved blouse and spectacles greeted Pauli from behind a desk. Speaking German, she asked his name. He gave it. She asked his destination. He wanted to impress her with English.

  “I am—uh—zu uh, to—Chicago going.”

  Still in German, she said, “Very good, but don’t put the verb at the end. ‘I am going to Chicago.’ ”

  “Yes, I forgot, it’s hard,” he muttered, red with embarrassment.

  “You will learn soon enough,” she said in a kind way. She handed him a ticket. “This is good for passage on the scheduled barge service to the New Jersey Central railway terminal, just a short distance north of here. You must have seen it from the ferry.” Pauli nodded. “It’s the policy of the agency to give every new arrival from Germany a ticket plus one dollar.”

  She pressed the large heavy coin into his hand. He clasped it tightly, feeling a little more secure.

  “It’s a very long way to Chicago, Herr Kroner. Hundreds of miles. I want to advise you of possible dangers. First, avoid strangers. If one happens to accost you, leave immediately. Second, if you have valuables, keep them hidden. Under no circumstances deal with labor contractors who promise jobs in distant cities. Most of them are unscrupulous, and if they have any jobs at all, the jobs pay slave wages.”

  Pauli hated to hear such things. He was still glowing with the euphoria of his successful arrival.

  “You’ll find that Americans are wonderful folk, by and large,” the woman continued. “But the nature of the American system permits a great deal of latitude when it comes to making money. Some therefore make it dishonestly.”

  “I will remember.”

  “Goodbye, then, Herr Kroner. All the best of luck to you.”

  Standing, she shook his hand with great gravity, as though he were undertaking a journey to China, or possibly the nether regions.

  Pauli met old Valter in the baggage hall, near the railroad room where busy agents sold tickets to all parts of the country. Valter showed another scrap of paper. “My son Willi is traveling from Pennsylvania to meet me at a lodging house in New York. Here is the address. How-stone Street, I suppose that is the way it’s pronounced. Come with me and meet my son and we can discuss how you’ll travel from here.”

  Pauli thought this over and decided he didn’t want to lose any time getting to Chicago. He had no plan for that yet, but he would formulate one very soon.

  “No, sir, thank you, I’m going straight over to the place called New Jersey.”

  “But you haven’t any money.”

  “I have this ticket for the ferry. I have one dollar from the German aid office. After I spend that, I’ll work.” He grinned and said in English, “I am good worker.”

  So they embraced, and parted.

  The sun shone down on the open barge. The day had grown hot. The barge’s little steam engine chugged roughly, noisily. Pauli sat apart from the other eight passengers, watching the railway sheds of the New Jersey Central terminal rising up ahead. The terminal stood on land that thrust into the river; behind it was an ugly panorama of decaying houses and ramshackle commercial buildings. The picture seemed to daunt the others; they said little. To Pauli, the vista was exciting, magical—flawless. He remembered the baker of Wuppertal, who had predicted just such a reaction—then warned that it would fade.

  Ridiculous. It wouldn’t happen to him.

  He recalled something Herschel had said. “I want to become American in every respect.” Yes, absolutely. That meant abandoning his German name; taking a new one. He relished the idea of examining choices, rejecting all until one stood out, shining and perfectly right. The search would make the long but informative journey to Chicago that much more enjoyable.

  The barge nudged the terminal pier. Oily slick on the water reflected white clouds
drifting overhead. Pauli was overwhelmed with happiness, and when he stepped on the pier he couldn’t contain it. He dropped his grip and whirled around. Yes, he could still see her, rust-red and beautiful in the sunshine sparkling on the surface of the harbor. Standing so tall as she looked seaward for the next ship …

  She had welcomed him without reservation.

  He flung out his arms, and began to spin and hop in a storklike dance. The other immigrants stared at him.

  “America,” he cried. “America, America!”

  “Fucking crazy greenhorn,” said one of the two deckhands tying up the barge. “They’re all alike.” The other deckhand said, “He’ll learn.”

  For a while Pauli wandered the waterfront, just looking around. He tried to ignore his empty stomach, which was snarling at him. The day got hotter, and sticky. He sat on his grip in the shade of a warehouse wall. It was no cooler there. He needed to calm down, curb his excitement, organize his thoughts.

  He must get to Chicago. He needed to do it before autumn brought bad weather, which would make traveling difficult. He ordered his problems, and their solutions, logically. First, how would he travel?

  That was easy; surely freight trains ran back and forth across America. He knew how to catch rides on those, Berlin had taught him.

  He didn’t know the route, however. He needed to study maps. It occurred to him that, just as in Germany, there might be libraries he could consult.

  Fine, now to the third problem. Even traveling free on freight trains, he would need money to eat, and he had only one United States dollar. That wouldn’t go far. He needed to work a little, perhaps a few weeks, to put some cash in his pocket. Where could he find a job?

  Again, a little concentration answered the question. There were many Germans in America, and there had to be some in this town. Germans could always be found where there was beer.

  Pauli set out to find a beer garden in Jersey City.

  In the late afternoon he located one, a small noisy establishment on a side street. In the soggy heat, more oppressive than any he remembered from his homeland, he crossed the outdoor garden in search of the proprietor. About a third of the tables were occupied, the patrons cheerfully red-faced and perspiring. The place had a familiar Gemütlichkeit, a friendly and cozy atmosphere; it could have been a beer garden in Berlin.