At a small table against the wall, one man sat alone, apart from most of the guests seated on the benches that flanked the two long tables. His brown hair was combed and parted neatly on the left side, then slicked down; in the light of the hanging lantern, its top shone golden. Unlike the peasants and peddlers around him, he was dressed in the most elegant clothes Batya had ever seen—a dark blue suit of good wool, a sparkling white shirt with a clean collar, and a wide, short tie with a gold pin that matched the buttons on his shirt. A large diamond glittered on his middle finger. He drew from his pocket a gold watch that was secured to his jacket button by a gold chain, glanced at it, tucked it back in, and then motioned with his finger for Batya to refill his mug. He tilted his chair back, chewed a cigar under his thin, waxed moustache, and examined the gaiety in the room without joining the laughter that seemed contagious among the others.

When Batya served this man of great importance his plate of fatty meat and boiled cabbage, he thanked her softly in Yiddish, which surprised her. In all her father’s stories about his customers, the rich Jews of Bobruevo, whose dachas had a separate back door for peddlers like him, he’d never described a man who dressed this well. Even the landowners and officials Batya had seen, all Russians, wore worn and mended clothes.

The man’s presence in the inn created a great excitement in the kitchen. The cook and the innkeeper’s wife gossiped that he had traveled all the way from America to find himself a virtuous Jewish wife. He was on his way to his home village, where several potential brides had been lined up for him to choose from.

The evening stretched on, and the raucous merriment in the room grew louder. When Batya came through with a pitcher of beer to refill glasses, one man grabbed her waist, and his big arm closed around her narrow frame. She tried to pull away, her heart pounding, recalling the thugs who had violated Miriam. The man’s arm tightened.

“Let go of her,” the elegant stranger called out in Russian. “Don’t you see she’s just a girl?”

The man hesitated, then released his hold and, still leering, returned to his beer.