Now the words she’d heard from the kind boy on the ship became clear. She had been sold! Grabovsky had kidnapped her from Moskowitz and sold her to Nina. These groaning men—like the men who’d exploited her on the ship—were all paying customers. Horrified anew, Batya curled up, trembling in fear. Only when the house quieted and no man entered her chamber did sleep finally take over.

The sun was high, and the ceiling’s corrugated tin radiated heat on her by the time she woke up. It took Batya a few moments to get her bearings. Her head hurt as it had when she had been inebriated. She pulled herself to the chamber pot, and when she peed, that needle of pain had worsened, spreading upward. She was also leaking something thick and yellow that smelled as bad as the wound that her father’s old horse had once developed on his hind leg.

The scarred woman poked her head through the curtain. “Come get your tea.”

Clutching her stomach and leaning on the rough wooden walls of the short corridor, Batya followed her to the kitchen nook. A large woman with skin so black that it had a blue sheen was doling out what looked like thin pancakes. As she placed some on Batya’s plate, Batya eyed the two girls next to her, who wore only slips, their hair disheveled and their exposed chests and shoulders showing open cuts and bruises. She poured herself tea from the kettle, not daring to speak.

“Now take it back to your chamber,” the scarred woman said.

Batya sat on the bed, balancing her mug and plate on her knees. Her stomach rumbled. She picked up a pancake and chewed slowly. Could she escape this house? Where would she go to find Moskowitz’s sister? Even if she found her, would the woman still take her in after all Batya had done?

By midday, the temperature in the airless house had risen, and with it the putrid fermentation of sewer. Baking in the heat, swatting the flies that entered through the cutout by the ceiling, Batya missed the cold of Russia. Feeling too vulnerable in only her slip, she dared not take off her dress, and she lay on her cot, her perspiration soaking it through.

A girl a few years older than Batya came in. Unlike the disheveled girls in the house, this one wore a new-looking flowery summer dress, her dark hair was brushed, and she smelled of lavender.

Batya sat up.

“I’m Rochel.” The girl smiled, and twin dimples puckered her cheeks. She touched Batya’s forehead with lovely long and cool fingers to feel her temperature, and Batya wished they’d stay there.

Rochel examined Batya’s bruises and stroked her back. “Poor thing,” she murmured. She withdrew out of her bag a vial of ointment. “Use it between your legs.”