The furrow between his eyes deepened. “The committee will regard an unchaperoned woman as a scandal. And a former prostitute sent to a village filled with lone men?” Sergio shook his head as if hearing the voices of argument. “It’s a question of morals. You may put this life behind you, but others might not view you the same way. We must be careful to help build a society of the highest principled values, and it might seem to some—”

Cold, sharp pain constricted Batya’s rib cage. She cut him off, her tone bitter. “It might seem to some that I will contaminate the village?” This was no different from her visit to the women’s section in the synagogue. For the “good” Jews, she would be forever tme’ah.

“Only if you are alone there. I’m concerned about your safety.” He looked at her. “Also, until twenty-one you’re not even of emancipated age. We’re not sending unaccompanied minors—”

“It’s settled then.” She could barely suppress the fury in her voice. After all these months he was letting her down. “I’m taking the other offer.”

“Please don’t. Give me two weeks.”

She felt a roar in her head. “Ten days. Not a day more.” Her heart contracted at the recollection of the ring and its intertwined letters. She must find a way to buy this time extension out of Ulmann. She stuck her hand inside the mattress, retrieved the page she had torn from the ledger, and handed it to Sergio. “Or you’ll never see the rest of this.”

Chapter Forty-Six

The next morning Batya woke up earlier than her usual late morning habit. Skipping breakfast, she seated herself at her window, her shawl covering her shoulders, in order to catch Ulmann before he spoke with Moskowitz. Her anxiety mounted at the thought that by the end of the day she could be free and installed in Ulmann’s apartment, but instead she must beg him for ten more days. Ten more days in which strange men would use her body and she must pretend to enjoy their foul nearness.

And Surale’s words in her letter kept pushing at her guilt. Every one of her family members would be disillusioned, either in the farming colonies or in a Buenos Aires slum. When Freda sent her to the market today, Batya would visit the bank and ask the clerk to help her mail to Surale the succinct response she had managed to scribble by herself: I told you how things are for me. Now act.

On top of it all, there was no twisting away from the fact that she was willing to deceive Ulmann when keeping both his ring and her options open. Her good, honest man deserved better, except that she couldn’t figure out what else she could do.