The other end of the corridor connected to the pavilion just past Moskowitz’s office. Batya walked in to gather his discarded newspapers, a daily task Freda had assigned her a couple of years before, to cut them up for use in the latrine. The scent of Moskowitz’s French cologne permeated the air. As he had instructed her, Batya picked up only the newspapers on the floor, never those on his chair. She rooted in his wastebasket and found a discarded pencil stub no bigger than her pinky, and she tucked it into her pocket so she could copy words in the margins of the newspapers. She hadn’t dared buy a notebook for fear of discovery—if not by Freda, then by a snooping sister.

Batya wasn’t supposed to linger in the office, only to take the papers to her room to cut, which gave her the privacy needed to improve her Yiddish reading.

Upon leaving the office she was startled when from behind her came the cry of Glikel, a brown-eyed beauty with unruly curly hair. “I was coming to get the newspapers!”

Batya swiveled on her heel. Glikel never volunteered her help, and only performed her assigned household tasks under threats. “How come?” Batya asked.

“Freda said I could cut them up this week,” Glikel replied in a defiant tone.

“Well, it will keep me busy.” Batya started toward the stairs.

“You were never his wife, so you shouldn’t have any privileges,” Glikel said to Batya’s back.

“You’re talking nonsense,” Batya said to Glikel. “What’s eating you?”

Without waiting for a reply, she continued to walk. No one thought cutting newspapers for the latrine was a privilege, nor did anyone in the house claim a superior status for having been “married” to Moskowitz in one of those make-believe shtile chuppahs like Nettie’s. Many of the sisters, though, delighted when he visited them in their chambers, as if singled out for a special honor.

In spite of all Batya had learned about Moskowitz, she had still been surprised to discover that at the time he kidnapped her, he had a legitimate wife and three children. Now the oldest was soon to be bar mitzvahed. Batya had overheard Moskowitz boasting to Freda that when his son turned fourteen the following year, he planned to send him to a boarding school in Switzerland. “He should receive the education of a gentleman in a school where European nobility send their children,” he had said. “Yitzik’s son will carry no traces of the shtetl in his French and English pronunciations.”

Batya’s foot was on the first step when she heard Glikel’s demanding voice: “Give me the newspapers.”

With the girls’ tragic histories, it was a wonder there weren’t more meshugenahs in the house. Batya turned and pushed the newspapers into Glikel’s middle. “Here you are.”