“Where are you from?” Batya asked.

Dora only shook her head.

Batya understood. In time, after she gained Dora’s trust, they would talk.

When Batya brought up a tray, Dora ate hungrily, using her fingers. Following the meal, Batya led Dora to the shower. She used her own quinoa soap bar, which bubbled up when applied to the hair, to rinse away the filth of the ship. She wrapped Dora in a soft cotton sheet, then led her to the bed and tucked her in, tightening the light blanket around her as if in a hug. Dora wept, and Batya sang her a Yiddish lullaby until she fell asleep. Although Dora had surely been raped repeatedly during her ocean crossing and probably locked up and starved, she had been lucky to be auctioned off directly upon arriving rather than passing through Nina’s training brothel.

In her sleep, the girl cried and kicked. Sitting on the edge of Dora’s bed, Batya recalled how she, too, had been a suicide risk and could have died from the infection that had spread through her abdomen. By now Batya knew that Rochel had been ordered under threat to see that Batya lived and be broken into the profession, yet her friend’s ministering had been genuine; Rochel’s kindness came from a well of humanity that hadn’t been dried up by cynicism and betrayals. Batya must succeed with Dora the same way.

The girl slept on. Midday rain poured down, then stopped, but the sky remained overcast. At siesta time, the house and street quieted down. Batya watched Dora sleep and wondered if she had a family, and the thought led Batya to her own sister. In her latest letter, written through a scribe, Surale had reported that their father was aging. Aggie had long stopped producing milk, but he didn’t have the heart to sell her to the butcher, so the task had fallen upon Surale.

A commotion from the street drew Batya to the window. The chamber assigned to Dora faced a side courtyard. Batya opened the window and squeezed her head out between the twin bars crossing it. A man wearing a skullcap—a modern Jew—stumbled into view in the alley past the courtyard, clearly drunk. “I’m tired of being lumped in with all of you ruffians and kurves!” he shouted. “I lost a business deal because of you! The goyim think all Jews are ganefs—but I’m not a thief like you, filth of the earth!”