She would have a vegetable garden, she thought. Having discovered tomatoes, a couple of years earlier she had planted a tomato plant in the kitchen yard behind the concrete trough where they scrubbed clothes. Freda had thought it was a waste of Batya’s working time. She poured the soapy water on the plant, killing it. More important, Batya thought, she would plant a tree. Permanency was symbolized by a tree planting, by the confidence that one would always be there to watch it grow.

“Did you say Jewish schools?” Batya asked Kolkowski.

He nodded. “The Argentine government doesn’t forbid Jewish studies, and certainly doesn’t kidnap the students for the army.”

Her father had been delighted to have only daughters, free from this danger that loomed over boys. Forcefully conscripted before their bar mitzvahs and reeducated in military schools, they served in the czar’s army for twenty-five years. By then they were no longer Jewish. “Your Baron really plans a mass exodus?” Batya asked. “A million Jews?”

“It’s already started. We have an office here, in Buenos Aires. Señor Farbstein, who runs it, buys the land, sends experts to show our people how to ranch, and hires teachers for the Jewish schools. No one calls them ‘dirty Jews,’ and no priest accuses them of killing Jesus.”

Her family’s salvation was right here in Buenos Aires! Señor Farbstein. Batya rolled the name on her tongue. She could taste the hope.

The next morning, she snuck out again, this time straight to the Immigrants’ Hotel, and watched as the newcomers, still wearing their too-heavy peasant clothes, loaded valises onto wagons. Batya approached a woman sitting on a bench and nursing an infant under a cape. “Where are you all going?”

“To the train station, to take us to Moïseville.”

Moïseville. A new Moses, like his namesake who had led the Israelites out of Egypt, was freeing the Jews from the czar and his incessant edicts. Decent people like her father could rise from abject poverty to farm in peace. Could it be true?

“Just one more question, please,” Batya said as the woman rearranged herself and picked up a large bag. “Who paid for your ocean passage?”

“The Baron. May his name be linked to the greatest tzaddikim’s. That’s who.”

Batya skipped on the broken sidewalk on her way back to the house. Moïseville. Her family’s salvation. Her own safe haven. It had a name. Once there, never again would a man come near her body. Never again would she dress and paint her face, sit at her window, and smile at passersby.

Batya completed her morning chores, retreated to her room, and opened her tkhines book. She prayed for the Baron, for his good health and long life. The new Moses. Miracles happened after all.

Chapter Thirty