When he was about to leave, he hugged her tightly and buried his face in her hair. “Cherish our ring and remember that this is the last time I’ll be traveling to Montevideo without you.”

So he’d still try to figure out a way to buy her from Moskowitz. With tears brimming in her eyes, Batya hugged him back.

Sergio returned a few days later. “There’s a tango competition coming up in Río Negro. That’s south of here, a long train ride that will require an overnight stay,” he told Batya in her chamber. “I’ve secured Moskowitz’s permission.”

“No more, I said.”

He let out a small smile. “Instead of heading south, though, we’ll go north, to Santa Fe. It will take Moskowitz two days to realize that you’re gone.”

This was it. What she had prayed for. Yet with the sudden exhilaration came the pang of never seeing Ulmann again, of the fantasy of their life together evaporating—and the ugliness of her deception. “What will happen when I don’t return? Zwi Migdal will come down on you.”

“As soon as I return I’ll report that you ran away. Got off at one of the stops.”

She stared at him. “They’ll look for me. I’ll be forever a fugitive, wanted by the police for escaping my ‘husband.’ I’m registered with the city as belonging to Freda.” Her slave.

“Because you’re still a minor, you’ll be adopted by a recent widow. You will officially become her daughter under a new name, and you’ll live in her house.”

Fear crept into Batya’s heart. For the second time in her life, she would accompany a man to some destination of which she knew almost nothing, and instead of starting a new life as a mistress of her own home, she would become someone’s child, or, more likely, her unpaid maid.

For now, she and Sergio had to re-create their make-believe sex. Batya moved on the mattress, creaking the springs beneath. “When?” she asked.

“The competition, which we’ll miss, is scheduled for Friday night. We will leave Thursday afternoon so we can arrive in Moïseville before Shabbat. The only thing I need from you to finalize the arrangements is the ledger.”

It was Monday. Only three more days of servicing men. “I don’t keep it with me here.”

“Where is it?” His tone was sharp.

“Hidden in a safe place.”

“I must have it.”

“I’ll bring it to the train with me.”

He stiffened. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust my mother in heaven and my father, may his name remain with the living.” She wasn’t sure whether she trusted God, the way He’d failed her.

Sergio swung his legs off the bed. “You’re sure it is safe, wherever it is?”