“In light of the discovery, it’s not safe for you to stay in Argentina. I’m taking you to Montevideo. There, you’ll embark on a ship to Marseille, and from there, as soon as our agent finds a ship to Jaffa, you’ll sail there.”

She stared at him. “In the Holy Land?”

He smiled. “Is there another Jaffa?”

Jaffa, where Jonah had tried in biblical times to escape God’s mission. Batya’s brain worked slowly as she processed this new development. “What’s in Jaffa?”

“Your father.”

She sat up. “My father? My sisters, too?”

Sergio nodded. “He can’t make the long ocean crossing to get here, but he can make the trip to the Holy Land. It is his wish, too.”

“Is he well enough to travel?”

“The boat trip from Odessa to Jaffa takes several days, not weeks. They will all arrive there long before you do.”

Batya smiled, a long-forgotten exhilaration rising in her. She would be reunited with her family! She would breathe her father’s beard, meet Surale’s husband, cry in Keyla’s arms, meet all the children—and kiss Vida for the first time. Her mother’s presence would envelop them all in its protective wings.

“What will we do in the Holy Land?”

“The same thing you’d planned to do in Argentina. The Baron has been supporting agricultural villages there.”

She looked out the window. The Argentine landscape rolled by. She’d never ventured outside the city boundaries and now saw for the first time green fields stretching into the distance, their furrows like sheared corduroy. Soon, they were replaced by a farm with bales of hay stacked in an open barn. A few laborers, unshaven and wearing striped ponchos, sat around a fire. One of them poured from a kettle what must be yerba maté tea. Another turned a chunk of meat on a spit. It sizzled and smoked.

The train sped on, and Batya saw a farmer on a large cart, its bed piled high with green produce she couldn’t identify. The cart was pulled by a pair of healthy bulls harnessed under a carved wooden yoke. The man wore a large straw hat, and his blue kerchief was tied low, over the center of his chest. From the upward tilt of his throat, she could tell he must be singing.

Next, Batya observed two women sitting on stools outside a stone farmhouse. Their legs were apart, their aprons sagging with the weight of the vegetables they were peeling. Moments later, a lake reflected the blue sky, and two fishermen cast their poles at its edge.