Hours later, when the storm subsided, a door opened in the distance, and in the wan light filtering through the slats of Batya’s crate she saw a slim figure holding a lantern.

“I was sent to bring you water,” she heard a boy say in Yiddish. “How many of you are here?”

“Two,” Shayna replied.

He approached and kneeled by Batya’s cage. He rested the lantern on the floor and ladled water from a pail, then handed her the filled tin cup.

Batya took it with shaking hands and gulped quickly, then licked her lips to collect the droplets. “More, please.” Her voice sounded like a croak to her own ears.

He refilled the cup, and she drank thirstily, then handed it back to him. He lifted his lantern, and she heard him move toward Shayna.

“What about food?” Shayna asked him.

“We are very hungry,” Batya added. As poor as her family was, she had never gone a day without at least a potato or some root stew, and they always had milk and cheese.

The boy hesitated. “I’ll try.”

After he left there was nothing but dread of the dark, of the confinement, of the rats. Batya drifted in and out of consciousness. Hunger mixed with the pain in her rib cage with the ache in her limbs. When she peed, a needle of pain pierced her. The stench of her excrement stung her nostrils—but it also seemed to keep the rats at a distance. She breathed through her mouth and the pillowcase that covered her upper body.

The boy reappeared what seemed like a day later, this time with two apples and a hardtack, a dry flour cracker. “I’ve saved you my rations,” he whispered, “and stolen the apples from the storage.”

“Thank you.” Batya gobbled down the cracker. “May God shower you with blessings for helping us.”

“Why do you take the risk?” Shayna asked him.

“My sister sailed last year with her new husband but disappeared. So I got a job as a deck hand and have traveled to Buenos Aires twice to look for her. I can only stay as long as the ship docks. This is my third voyage. Maybe I’ll have more luck this time. The rumors are growing.”

“What rumors?” Batya asked.

“Men bring girls to Argentina by the dozens, then sell them.” He picked up his lantern, and as it threw light near Batya’s cage, she saw cockroaches scattering away. “I must return to my shift.”

“What did he mean by ‘sell them’?” Batya asked Shayna after he’d left.

“That I’ll be sent to a brothel.” Shayna broke into a sob.

“What’s that?”

But Shayna went on crying.