The first dress Batya tried on reached the floor and was made of baby-blue taffeta with a cinched waist and petticoats that bloomed out the bottom like an upside-down kiddush cup. Batya was afraid to move as the taffeta made a rustling noise. The other dresses were blessedly silent, made of fine cotton. One was white, trimmed with a lovely lace, but had a low scooped neckline. Trying it on, Batya’s face burned when she saw in the mirror her upper torso exposed.

“In Buenos Aires, you’ll cut off the long sleeves,” Moskowitz told her. “This dress will be the only thing you’d want to wear in the heat of summer.”

Perhaps rich matrons in America wore dresses that left so much skin exposed. Afraid to raise Moskowitz’s ire, Batya said nothing.

The third dress was bright red and hugged the waistline closely. If such immodest dresses were what American women wore, she must get used to that, too, just as she was learning to allow Moskowitz to do those awful things to her body. On their two nights in the train, he’d climbed onto her berth, and he repeated the visits in the mornings, because of, he said when apologizing, his lack of control in the face of her beauty. Forever this would be the price she must pay in exchange for the life he was promising for her and her family. Batya did not speak as the shop owner bent to pin the hem and seams.

At sunset, in her hotel room, Batya untied the package of dresses that a steward had delivered, all refitted to her size. She gazed at each, hardly believing that she owned so many, delighting in them, yet apprehensive about looking beautiful. Of all her new dresses, the only one she felt comfortable wearing was the gray pinafore she had had on since the maid at the inn had handed it to her the first morning.

To her relief, Moskowitz didn’t dine with her that evening. The maid who brought her food used a key to enter and, upon leaving, locked the room behind her. To keep her safe, Batya now understood. She couldn’t miss noticing the strangers eyeing her in the hotel’s foyer and dining hall.

Alone, with nothing to occupy her, Batya stripped a bed pillow of its case and, with the rope that had tied the package, created a new doll. The one Surale had given her must have been burned along with her lice-infested clothes. She should be above such girlish make-believe, yet hugging this improvised doll to her chest made the pogrom, Miriam, and her own agony melt away.

“No one will hurt you,” she whispered. “I’ll be your good mama.”