“Yes.” She ignored the flash of anger on Sergio’s face. “You asked me to trust your promise. Now I ask that you trust mine.”

For a while he said nothing while she rocked the bed. “Don’t think that we are not grateful for what you’ve done,” he said. “It took courage. You took risks for the Jews that you dislike—”

“Jews that despise me and the likes of me,” she corrected, then paused. “I have an idea for when you bring Zwi Migdal down. About all the sisters you will release from bondage.”

“What is that?”

“A women’s village. No men. Just women working in agriculture. While your Baron is liberating Jews from across the ocean, how about the thousands of us who could be liberated here? We’ll learn new skills and start a new life.”

A twinkle of a smile flitted in Sergio’s coal-dark eyes. “Not a bad idea, but quite impractical,” he said. “Who will teach women the agricultural skills if we don’t allow men in the village? We need the help of the gauchos and other experts, and sadly, none of them are women.”

“For one thing, I will have a head start. I could be learning some of these skills very soon.”

He laughed. “It takes years to become an expert at irrigation, land management, and husbandry.”

“We are a tough bunch. We’ve been through a lot. Try us.” Her hand swept the outside of the room. “What hasn’t killed us has made us stronger.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

She was finally leaving. Rescued. How Batya wished she could say goodbye to her friends. The sisters had become her family; even the bellicose Glikel was a part of her emotional landscape. How could she just walk away forever, never to see the sisters again?

Not forever, she reminded herself. When the Honorable Joaquin Ramos proceeded with his prosecution, the enslaved prostitutes in this city and beyond would be set free. She imagined herself on the train back to Buenos Aires, arriving just as Kolkowski had done, to pick up the first group to settle in their own women’s village.

Unlike the bewildered Jews whom Kolkowski had led to the train, the sisters would laugh and sing all the way to Moïseville, and from there to her village. Esperanzaville. To her village of hope. Batya giggled at the play on her name. In their gardens, the sisters would plant vegetables. They would grow their own cucumbers, beets, carrots, peppers—and those other odd vegetables Batya had learned to like in Argentina: squash, tomatoes, and eggplants.