The lady pays the taxi driver and walks ahead of Stephie, holding Nellie by one hand and Nellie’s suitcase in the other. Stephie drags her own heavy suitcase behind.

When they get to the gangway, the woman buys tickets from one of the crew members. She speaks to him in Swedish, pointing to the girls. At first the man shakes his head, but the woman continues talking until, finally, he nods.

“Come on,” he says to the girls, showing them to two seats in the covered section of the boat. Nellie looks disappointed.

“I want to stand out there,” Nellie says to Stephie, pointing to the deck. “Ask him if it’s all right.”

“You ask!” says Stephie.

Nellie shrugs and sits down. When the engines begin to throb, Stephie realizes they never said goodbye to the lady from the relief committee, and she hurries to the aft deck. The lady is gone.

The boat pulls away from the pier and out to the middle of the river. Black smoke rises from the smokestack, dissolving into thin mist.

Nellie stays in her seat, looking as pitiful as a rag doll. Stephie notices that her sister’s coat is buttoned crooked, and that one of her cheeks has a smudge of dirt on it. She rubs at the smudge with her handkerchief.

“Where’s this boat taking us?” Nellie asks.

“We’ll soon see,” Stephie replies.

“To the bathing resort on the coast?”

“Sure.”

“Tell me what it’s like,” Nellie requests.

“There are long, soft, sandy beaches,” Stephie tells her, “and palm trees growing along the boardwalk. People lie on deck chairs under colorful beach umbrellas. The children play in the water and build sand castles. There are ice cream vendors, carrying freezer boxes around their necks.”

Stephie’s never been to the seaside. But Evi, her best friend in Vienna, was at an Italian resort two years ago. After ward, she told Stephie all about the beach and the palm trees, the beach chairs and the ice cream vendors. Stephie and Nellie and their mother and father always spent their summer vacations at a little country hotel on the shores of the Danube River. Or at least they used to, before the Nazis came along.