She was owned forever. Like an African slave registered to her owner she could be exploited—or tortured if she rebelled. Then again, if the slaves in North America had become free, maybe so could she.

Now in Moskowitz’s office, she glanced at the newspaper on his chair. Still neatly folded, it hadn’t yet been read. Since she was supposed to pick up only the newspapers thrown on the floor, she must wait a day or two until she could follow up on another story that had caught her interest.

She touched the bold letters of the headline, “Alfred Dreyfus Is Facing Trial,” then examined the grainy photo of the Frenchman in his military uniform, wearing a hard-edged hat. The accused man’s face looked gentle, his gaze straightforward. There was none of the hardness about him that she had learned to expect from officer clients. Nor was his expression menacing or devious as a spy’s must be.

Of course, he was Jewish, and a Jew could be as unscrupulous as any goy. Yet this man’s eyes seemed innocent. How could a powerful man, an officer, be trapped in a net of lies, as his attorney claimed? The answer came as soon as she asked it. France was in Europe, and Europe was bad for the Jews.

Batya sighed and crouched to collect the older papers from the floor, refolding each page slowly in order to steal glances at the headlines. In Australia—was that the country near Germany?—women demanded the right to vote for something called parliament. The bubonic plague broke out in Hong Kong, wherever that was. Such a plague had once killed most of Argentina’s Negroes, she’d heard, which was why there were so few of them now. If such a plague were to arrive here, it would seek new victims and might find them in the Jews of Buenos Aires.

Batya rose and listened for sounds from the corridor. Hearing none, she scanned the neat stacks of papers on Moskowitz’s desk. Most were tucked between cardboard covers held together by thin leather strips. On top of the right-hand pile rested a letter, like many others she’d seen, from one of Moskowitz’s colleagues in Europe regarding a new shipment of girls. The folder next to it had to do with Zwi Migdal. She leafed through pages: boring reports from meetings, with phrases such as “allocation of mutual credit fund,” which she didn’t comprehend. But she understood the parts about money that financed members’ travels back to Europe to recruit more girls. She’d seen these reports since last year, when Moskowitz had become even more prominent in the organization.