Batya swallowed. The doctor had renewed the certificate testifying that she was free of disease. For an added barrier to the clients’ use of rubber, he had fitted her with a small protective cup even though her scarred uterus could no longer produce “work accidents” in the form of pregnancies. Every day, inserting it was a ritual that separated Batya from Esperanza.

Batya took the pesos Freda pushed in her direction and rose to leave.

“You didn’t say thank you,” Freda called from the door to Batya’s back. “Ungrateful bitch.”

“Thank you,” Batya tossed over her shoulder, and in her head added, A farshlepte plog, a chronic plague.

She skipped mealtime and rushed to the bank where she safeguarded her money before its doors closed for siesta. Most sisters had no concept of a future and spent all their earnings on new clothes, hats, and toiletries. No doubt Moskowitz was aware that a few of his kurves saved money in the local banks. His tacit silence on the matter, Batya suspected, was because these savings might buy a kurve who had outlived her usefulness her freedom from him, or if she died, he’d inherit it, as was the pimps’ union rule.

The British bank was one of the foreign banks that had sprouted in the growing city of Buenos Aires, an institution that Batya hoped was immune to Zwi Migdal’s influence. The bank clerk she favored, a fumbling and pedantic aging bachelor with fingers stained with ink, had issued Batya a small savings book in which he recorded each of her deposits. Should it ever get lost, he explained, blushing when he raised his eyes to her, her deposits were also logged in his ledger. Today again, he made sure to show Batya his meticulous entries, and the respect with which he treated her touched her anew.

Leaving the bank, she hugged the savings book to her chest, then tucked it in her skirt pocket. She dashed over to the hospital to visit Nettie.

The sentry at the door stopped her. “We have enough diseases here without someone like you bringing in more,” he said.

“Please check on my friend,” Batya said. “Nettie Blum. She was brought in earlier.”

But the sentry waved her away.

Batya stepped back. The only places she wasn’t shunned were the ones to which she brought her money—the market, the seamstress, and the bank. She’d have to wait until Freda found time to come here to inquire. The matron would, if only to check on her property. At least Nettie’s free medical treatment in the public hospital wasn’t costing the house.