“So it seems.”

“Must have had a wonderful time at Expo. The kids all have a ball. You should have seen mine. Stay long?”

“Not very long,” I said.

Minna came awake while I waited for our suitcase. She wanted to know where we were and I told her we were in New York. For a few moments she fell silent. Then she asked, for the first time, why we had not been allowed to go to the fair. Because those men were stupid, I told her, and wouldn’t let us into their country.

“Did we do something bad?”

“No.”

“Is it because I am not really your daughter?”

“No. It’s because I’m me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I hefted the suitcase, which seemed to have gained weight in transit. “You must be exhausted.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost one.”

“The Expo is closed for the night now.”

“Probably.”

She thought this over. “Where are we going now?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“The toilet.”

I waited for her outside the ladies’ room. She reappeared with a thoughtful expression on her face. “I suppose we ought to go home,” she said.

“No.”

“No?”

“We’re going to Canada.”

“But they won’t let us.”

“Well, the hell with them,” I said. “We’ll find a motel near here and… Minna, do you think you could sleep on an airplane?”

“I am not sleepy.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” I steered her to a chair and told her to wait for me, then found my way to the American Airlines ticket counter. There I learned that we had just missed the last flight to Buffalo, that the first morning flight would leave at 4:55. I got us a pair of one-way tickets on it, checked our suitcase, and went back to Minna. She was sound asleep. She went on sleeping while I drank coffee and read the Times. When they ultimately called our flight, I carried her onto the plane, and she didn’t open her eyes until takeoff, when she sat bolt upright and began talking senselessly in Lithuanian, some gibberish about horses and pigs.