At last, Rochel broke the silence in a voice that was uncharacteristically angry. “Although she was purified, Nettie was still tme’ah and had to be buried outside the fence.”

“Even if she weren’t a prostitute, committing suicide is killing God’s image. That alone would have excluded her from being buried inside the fence. But God should have made an exception.” Batya raised her head heavenward. “Don’t You see that living as we do is more of a desecration of Your image than killing it?” She caught herself. She was becoming like her father, telling God how He should run His world.

She felt Rochel’s shoulders heave and wondered how many times her friend, too, had wished to die.

Just then, the sky opened. Rain poured down like buckets of water drained from heaven to shower dust off the trees and houses, to wash Nettie’s sins into the earth. Holding Rochel’s hand, Batya ran.

Freda stood at the door of the house, counting the sisters as they entered, as though any of them might dare take the opportunity to escape.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Back home, Batya checked on Dora, who was still curled on her bed and not speaking. Batya assumed that she was granted days rather than weeks to break through to the girl, and was saddened that once again her entreaties bore no results. Dora sulked and remained unresponsive, until Batya just left the tray and returned to her room.

She picked up her tkhines book, hoping that even when they were read from a stolen book, God would accept her prayers for Nettie’s departed soul and for Dora’s tortured heart. Outside her window a family of pigeons had settled in the gutter. Maybe, somehow, the pigeons would fly sky-high with her words, and God would pluck her pleas from the air . . .

She opened the book at random. “May my dough be blessed as the blessing hovered over the dough of our Mothers Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah,” she quoted the kitchen blessing uttered by generations of women before her.

No matter that she didn’t have a kitchen. From now on, she, too, would learn the many blessings that governed every minute action performed by women in their daily lives. She would say them as she washed her laundry, chopped vegetables, or cared for a sore on a sister’s foot. To begin, she walked to the window and thanked God for the pigeons’ company, for the moment of forgetfulness they offered.

Heavy steps outside the door interrupted her, and Batya quickly tucked the book under her mattress an instant before the door opened. Freda must have heard her moving about; Batya couldn’t feign taking the rest of her siesta.