Moskowitz peeked out of his office again. “Stop the racket, or you’ll go with no food at all.”

Batya pulled back into the yard and touched her middle. Her stomach’s softness had indeed melted away in recent months.

Glikel’s final points had hit where it counted. Two days later, Freda hired two cooks. Due to the large quantities of provisions they required, farmers delivered produce to the house a few times a week, which meant that Freda didn’t send Batya to the market as frequently, cutting into Batya’s daily excursions outside the house.

Now that she was venturing out only twice a week, the highlights of Batya’s days were Ulmann’s weekly visits and the times she tangoed in the pavilion, practicing with a sister, or especially when her partner was Señor Rosenberg. He still refused to use his tokens for what they were supposed to buy him, but on the dance floor he displayed Batya’s beauty as if she were his prize mistress. She became acquainted with his body, the minute shift of his firm torso or the press of his right palm on her back. Her body followed his as he led her backward and sideways, whirled and dipped her. In his arms, she became confident enough to point one leg to the sky, draw an imaginary wide arc, and land it gracefully far behind her.

How she loved the applause!

“Bravo!” a man had shouted recently as he clapped his hands. “You should enter the competitions.”

“I might do that,” Señor Rosenberg had replied, bowing. “With this fine partner here we will even win.”

For two months now, Batya had been collecting trash from Moskowitz’s wastebasket and giving it to him, yet no word from her family had reached her.

“They were contacted,” Señor Rosenberg finally told her on his next visit. “They have been in touch with your sister Keyla, and she’ll get on her way to them when summer arrives.”

It was hard to imagine that the freezing winter was now reigning in Russia while the sweltering heat in Buenos Aires didn’t seem to let up. Even when the icy Siberian roads would finally melt, a woman alone with two toddlers would be at risk from robbers and God knows what else. God, please watch my sister Keyla, daughter of Zelda, on her dangerous travels.

Batya handed Señor Rosenberg more documents. “Maybe the rest of the family should wait for Keyla in Odessa? It’s safer from pogroms, right?”

Señor Rosenberg nodded. “We can arrange that.”

Batya recalled her family’s exile five years earlier. They had been only four people then. This time, though, her family would take no furniture or household items, and she was certain that none had a change of clothes.

Three weeks later, while rhythmically kicking the bedpost, Señor Rosenberg whispered to Batya that her family was in Odessa, at a hotel.