“I knew you were different,” he said. “Señor Farbstein thought your courage was remarkable. Now I see that you’re also smart.” He grabbed her hands. “We will need all of this ‘garbage’ in the coming months.”

“Months? How long until you take me out of here?”

He waved the papers. “This information is critical. It will establish our case. Can you get more?”

“Every day. Except maybe on Shabbat.”

He flipped through the letters and pointed to the one with Zwi Migdal’s emblem. “You see this? These are the ones we need the most.”

“When will you get my family out?” Batya countered.

“We’ll telegraph the Baron’s office in Paris tomorrow. That office can telegraph Odessa. Do you have your father’s address?”

She banged the headboard against the wall for good measure, then walked to her dresser. She slid out the top envelope from under the red ribbon that contained all her father’s letters. Then she thought about her uncle’s lost envelope so long ago. She rooted in her drawer, found a pencil stub, and handed it to Señor Rosenberg. “Copy the address.”

He copied it at the edge of one of the documents, then said, “You continue to get us these papers, and your wish will come true. But be careful.”

After he left, Batya retrieved her father’s letter and pressed it against her lips. “Very soon, Papa. Very soon.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I’m not going to eat this dreck!” Glikel shouted.

“You eat what’s there to eat,” Freda shouted back.

Batya emerged from the kitchen yard, where she’d hung her underthings to dry. The shouting also drew Moskowitz out of his office, so she stepped back.

“Who do you think you are?” Moskowitz said to Glikel, not raising his voice.

“Look! I’m losing weight because I can’t eat this shit!”

“Did your kurve mother eat better?”

“My mother was an honest woman,” Glikel screamed. “You’re the son of a kurve yourself!”

Moskowitz slapped her face.

“Calm down,” Freda ordered her. “Get back to your office,” she told her brother, as several sisters gathered to watch the scene. “I’ll handle her.”

“You taste the dreck they’re sending us from the food halls,” Glikel screamed at her. “We used to have good food. Jewish cooking, Argentine meat—”

“You tell me how we can cook here for so many girls,” Freda replied. “Most brothels have the midday meals delivered.”

“Delivered with cockroaches floating in grease,” Glikel spat. “Right, sisters?” When no one dared agree, she went on. “You can’t tell a potato from a chicken’s pulke. They won’t feed it to the pigs. Soon, we’ll all be so skinny that the clients will go to houses where the girls are plump and pretty. We’ll get poisoned from this dreck and die—”