The carriage meandered along alleys through run-down buildings before stopping in front of a house that was nothing like the manor Moskowitz had described. Rather than the large polished-stone home of Batya’s daydreams, with grand stairs and ornate columns, it was a low, decaying clapboard structure.

Grabovsky tossed the coachman a coin and prodded Batya down.

The tiny entrance had no windows, only a cutout above the door. Inside, it was dark and reeked of fried food and an open latrine. All Batya could see was a narrow, dark corridor off of which were rough wood partitions with dirty curtains that served as doors. A straw mat lay over the packed-mud floor, like in her Komarinoe home.

Batya’s eye sockets throbbed, and she pressed her hands against them to ease the pressure.

A woman with a scar across her right cheek came from one of the rooms, spraying rosewater that failed to mask the stink in the air. She grinned, and the scar twisted her mouth. Batya recoiled against Grabovsky. The woman laughed, and the scar pulled down her lower lid to reveal the eye’s reddish part.

Another woman turned away from a sink set in a nook and wiped her hands on her apron. She nudged the scarred woman away. “Welcome,” she said to Batya. “I’m Nina.”

“Are you Yitzik Moskowitz’s sister?” Batya asked. Every fiber in her body hurt.

Nina’s eyes were cold as she examined her face, and chills ran down Batya’s spine. “She’s sick,” she said to Grabovsky.

“Make her better,” he retorted.

“What is this, a hospital?” But Nina’s lips pulled up in a smile toward Batya, a smile that failed to bunch up her cheek. “Come, meydele. I’ll show you to your chamber.” She picked a long yellow fruit from the shelf by the sink and peeled off a part of its skin. “This is a banana. Eat.”

Too ill to refuse or argue, Batya simply wanted to lie down. Holding the hewn wooden planks of the corridor for support, she followed Nina while taking small bites of the fruit. Sick as she felt, she couldn’t resist savoring its sweetness and creamy texture. Like the cheesy filling of a blintze, but better, it must have come from the Garden of Eden.

Chapter Sixteen

The thin walls and the canvas curtain doors offered no privacy. Starting in the afternoon and stretching throughout the night, from the chambers on both sides, Batya heard men grunting and moaning. Feverish, she pressed her hands to her ears to block the crying of girls like her.