“You’re pretty—and blond,” Rochel said, stroking Batya’s hair as if it weren’t knotted with filth. “Just do as they tell you, and everything will be all right.”

Batya shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“What would you do if you saved some money?”

“I’d send for my parents. That’s why I came here.” Batya thought of Moskowitz. If she could only find him, perhaps he would allow her to work as a maid in his big fancy house. Such a life was still a hundred times better than the poverty of the shtetl, and thousands of times better than the future of which Rochel was speaking.

Rochel hugged Batya. “Think of me as your big sister. You are not alone.” She stepped out, and through the canvas door curtain Batya heard her speak to Nina. “Don’t waste the investment. What could you get for her here, two to three pesos each, like for a black or creole girl?”

“A blonde brings more.”

“That’s what I mean. You’d do much better if you moved her to our house.”

“She’s beyond saving,” Nina said. “Did you smell her?”

“She’s sick. It will be on both our heads if she dies.”

Batya clapped her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t hear any more. God, is that Your world order? she asked. Is this what You’ve ordained for me?

Then she remembered her mother saying that it made no sense to complain to God about Himself.

Chapter Seventeen

This Buenos Aires was Sodom and Gomorrah, the biblical cities of sin, which God had decreed must be destroyed by the flood. How could Moskowitz have allowed his young fiancée to venture here alone, to travel to a city where such immorality and brutality existed? There must be another Buenos Aires, his beautiful city with tree-lined boulevards, bubbling fountains, and stately mansions. The cunning Grabovsky must have taken her to another city.

Batya closed her eyes. Her only hope was that Moskowitz would find her and take pity on her even though she had been sullied. She must hold on to that hope or she’d go mad.

In spite of the constant pain that had spread throughout her abdomen, Batya forced herself to leave the bed in the morning. She retrieved her food from the kitchen nook. As she hobbled back with her plate, she caught sight of a girl in the chamber adjacent to hers seated on her bed and balancing a plate on her knees. They made eye contact, and the girl gave a minute wave. Batya entered, and the girl slid down her bed to make room for Batya.

The girl turned to show Batya two deep gashes on her back. “Look what he did with his belt buckle. If you lick them, it will make them better.”