Batya grabbed her hand. “I must get out of here,” she whispered. She motioned with her head toward the wall. “I’m not—I’m not that kind of a girl.”

Rochel shook her head. “You’re sick, and Nina doesn’t want you dying on her. But as soon as you are better, they expect you to work—”

“Never!”

Rochel’s tone was soft. “This is America. Their customs are very different from ours.” She dabbed Batya’s face with a rose-scented handkerchief. “You think this is bad? It can be worse. Come. Let me show you.”

She helped Batya up and led her to the front door, where she pointed down the street to tin huts. “Do you see those crates closest to the river?” She moved a dirty tendril of hair from Batya’s face. “Instead of holding cargo, they are brothels. God help the girls working there. Those units—you can’t call them houses—are as hot as Gehenom, and the clients are the poorest men, paying only two pesos, using those girls like a toilet, without even letting them wash between clients. There’re not even partitions inside, only curtains; everyone’s crowded together. On weekends, these girls must take as many as seventy men a day.” She paused to let her words sink in. “It’s called La Boca. The mouth. It is the mouth of hell.”

Batya pressed a closed fist into her mouth and began crying. She was already in hell.

Rochel led her back to her chamber. “Look, prostitution is legal here. Everyone is either a prostitute, a pimp, or a client. And the government gets its cut.”

Batya’s sobs turned into hiccups. Rochel retrieved a mug of water from the kitchen nook. She brought it close to Batya’s mouth. “Shhhhhhh,” she whispered over and over. “You want to run away. I know. But you’ll never get far. You don’t have a passport, right? You probably entered as someone’s wife.”

Batya nodded. “Grabovsky’s.”

“It gets easier. Really. I promise. This is the training house. They purposely bring the worst of men here—sailors with overgrown, crooked nails; street cleaners stinking of garbage; poor construction laborers with calloused hands. But if you behave, they’ll move you to a better home. You’ll have the good men, the ones that smell nice, get manicures, and pay well. Then you can save some money, too.” She waved her hand somewhere outside. “Many of us have regulars—judges, journalists, politicians.”

Us? Batya’s mind couldn’t reconcile this clean-smelling and caring Rochel with accepting being a prostitute. “How can such things get easier?” she cried out.

“I learned to play by their rules. Believe me, it’s better.” Rochel swatted two flies circling her head. Her gaze traveled around the chamber, and Batya felt her pity at the dim and hot surroundings.