“Your mamma’s not here,” Stephie tells him. “She can’t come to you. But you’ll be getting a new mother here, one who’s just as nice.”

“Mamma, mamma,” the little boy wails. The lady in the summer suit lifts him up and carries him.

“Come along,” she says to the other children. “Follow me.”

They walk behind her in a line like ducklings and enter the station, the building with the high, arched glass roof. A man with a big camera moves toward them. The sudden flash is blinding. One of the smaller children screams.

“Stop it, mister,” the lady escorting them says curtly. “You’re frightening the young ones.”

The man goes on taking pictures anyway.

“This is my job, lady,” he says. “Yours is to look after the poor little refugee children. Mine is to take the heartbreaking pictures so you’ll get more money to do your work.”

He takes a few more shots.

Stephie turns her face away. She doesn’t want to be a refugee child in a heartbreaking picture in some magazine. She doesn’t want to be someone people have to give money for.

The lady leads them to the far end of a large waiting area, part of which has been cordoned off and is full of grown-ups. An older woman with glasses moves toward them.

“Welcome to Sweden,” she says. “We are so glad you got here safely. We represent the local relief committee. You’ll be safe here until you can be reunited with your parents.”

This lady speaks German, too, but with a funny accent.

A younger woman takes out a list and begins calling names: “Ruth Baumann… Stephan Fischer… Eva Goldberg…”

Every time she calls a name, a child raises his or her hand, then walks over to the lady with the list. The lady double-checks the name against the brown name tags that the child, like all the other children, has hanging from his or her neck. One of the adults who’ve been waiting steps forward, takes the child, and departs. The children who are too small to respond to the roll call are pointed out and collected from their bench.