Every day Nettie covered Batya’s hair with lemon pulp to lighten it, and had her sit in the sun for an hour before rinsing it off. While Batya was outside, Nettie made sure that the rest of her body was covered so that the sun wouldn’t darken her porcelain-pale skin. Nevertheless, Batya’s cheeks, now filled from good food, acquired a warm glow.

Nettie’s cheerfulness seemed unbounded. She was always whistling or chattering. “You can break your back in Russia working in the field from dawn to dusk or, if you’re lucky, be shackled to a sewing machine in a dark sweatshop, choking on lint, not even allowed to talk.” She paused. “I knew a girl who lost her arm in a factory. Is that what you want?” She brushed Batya’s hair in long strokes to make the blond streaks shine. “Or you can have fun in Buenos Aires and dance every day. You can have your own room, get your siesta, and chat and laugh. You can eat mangos and bananas and sing along with the birds.” Her voice turned to a whisper. “Not only do you make money, but you get gifts. When in our old lives did we imagine such wealth?”

Still standing behind Batya, Nettie hugged her from behind, and the ache of Batya’s loneliness on the ship felt as if it had taken place eons before.

One afternoon, Freda summoned Batya and walked her past some girls lining up in front of an office off the corridor on the ground floor. Batya noticed the excitement as the girls chattered, but she had no time to ask questions as Freda led her inside.

A long-limbed man with a shock of gray hair, whose spectacles rested on his hooked nose, sat at the desk. In front of him rested an inkwell and a plume like the one the scribe in the shtetl had used.

“The Professor will write a letter for you to your family,” Freda said. “Give him their address so we can also send them money.”

Send them money! The words were sweet to Batya’s ears. “Will you give them my address so they can write me back?” She hoped her family hadn’t moved again, or she’d never find them.

“I’ll take care of it,” the Professor replied.

Doubt hit her. “What will you tell them?”

“Only good things,” Freda said, and escorted Batya out.

“Next time you’ll be allowed to dictate the letter to your family,” Rochel told her. “He’ll embellish it beautifully.”

She had no good news, Batya thought. Whatever was happening to her needed more than embellishment.