wonderful,” she said. The details and expressions on the people’s faces were stunningly good.
“How can we help you?” Frankie asked.
“I need sumvere to live.” He spoke the broken but functional English of a smart kid who had taught himself.
“Do you have any family here in New York?” Frankie asked.
“My cousin, he shares an apartment vith some fellas in the Bronx. But it costs two dollars a veek to stay vith them.”
Grace wondered where Sammy had been living until now. “What about your parents?” she couldn’t help asking.
“I vas separated from my father at Vesterbork.” Westerbork was a transit camp in Holland, Grace recalled from a family they had helped weeks earlier. “My mother hid me vith her for as long as she could in the vomen’s...” He paused, fumbling for a word. “In the barracks, but then she was taken, too. I never saw them again.”
Grace shuddered inwardly, trying to imagine a child trying to survive alone under such circumstances. “It’s possible that they survived,” she offered. Frankie’s eyes flashed above the boy’s head, a silent warning.
Sammy’s expression remained unchanged. “They vere taken east,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “People don’t come back from there.” What was it like, Grace wondered, to be a child with no hope?
Grace forced herself to focus on the practicalities of the situation. “You know, there are places in New York for children to live.”
“No boys’ home,” Sammy replied, sounding panicked. “No orphanage.”
“Grace, can I speak with you for a moment?” Frankie waved her over to the corner, away from Sammy. “That boy spent two years in Dachau.” Grace’s stomach twisted, imagining the awful things Sammy’s young eyes had seen. Frankie continued, “And then he was in a DP camp for six months before managing to get here by using the papers of another little boy who died. He’s not going to go to another institution where people can hurt him again.”
“But he needs guardians, an education...” she protested.
“What he needs,” Frankie replied gently, “is a safe place to live.” The bare minimum to survive, Grace thought sadly. So much less than the loving family a child should have. If she had a real apartment, she might have taken Sammy home with her.
Frankie started back toward the boy. “Sammy, we’re going to start the process of having your parents declared deceased so that you can receive payments from social security.” Frankie’s voice was matter-of-fact. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, Grace knew. He was helping a client (albeit a young one) get what he needed.
“How long vill that take?” Sammy asked.
Frankie frowned. “It isn’t a quick process.” He reached in his wallet and pulled out fifty dollars. Grace stifled a gasp. It was a large sum in their meager practice and Frankie could hardly afford it. “This should be enough to live with your cousin for a while. Keep it on you and don’t trust anyone with it. Check in with me in two weeks—or sooner if things aren’t good with your cousin, okay?”
Sammy looked at the money dubiously. “I don’t know ven I can repay you,” he said, his voice solemn beyond his years.
“How about that drawing?” Frankie suggested. “That will be payment enough.” The boy tore the paper carefully from the notepad and then took the money.
Watching Sammy’s back as he retreated through the doorway, Grace’s heart tugged. She had read and heard the stories in the news, which came first in a trickle then a deluge, about the killings and other atrocities that had happened in Europe while people here had gone to the cinema and complained about the shortage of nylons. It was not until coming to work for Frankie, though, that she had seen the faces of the suffering and began to truly understand. She tried to keep her distance from the clients. She knew that if she allowed them into her heart even a crack, their pain would break her. But then she met someone like Sammy and just couldn’t help it.
Frankie walked up beside her and put his arm on her shoulder. “It’s hard, I know.”
She turned to him. “How do you do it? Keep going, I mean.” He had been helping people rebuild their lives out of the wreckage for years.
“You just have to lose yourself in the work. Speaking of which, the Beckermans are waiting.”
The next few hours were a rush of interviews. Some were in English, others she translated using all of the high school French she could muster, and still others Frankie conducted in