by Talia Carner
“From a place I’d rather forget.” Nettie spread warm wax on Batya’s legs. “Aren’t we all?”
Batya shook her head. “I miss my mother and father. And my sisters—”
Nettie cut her off. “My father sold me through a matchmaker, may her name be burned with that of Haman.”
“The matchmaker helped sell you?”
“She knew that this man was a swine.” Nettie yanked on the cooled wax, and Batya yelped. Nettie pressed her hand on the raw spot to soothe it. “Better?”
Her touch felt good. “Maybe the matchmaker lied to your father,” Batya ventured. “They always try to make their clients look better.”
“She told my father that the swine would pay him to take me as his ‘wife.’ Ha! What a joke! Everyone in the village had seen the man before. I was the third such ‘wife’ this matchmaker found for him. My father knew it when he brought two witnesses and without a rabbi gave me a worthless shtile chuppah. He took the money and was on his way to the tavern even before I left with my new ‘groom.’”
Your father couldn’t have imagined that your fate would be so bad, Batya wanted to say. Her father, too, had accepted Moskowitz’s money, but he had been awed by the worldly man who would pull her out of their persecuted life. Even her no-nonsense mother had believed Batya would have a great future in America. And Batya would have, had it not been for Grabovsky.
Nettie broke into a whistle, and Batya looked at her puckered lips. She’d heard only shaygetzs, non-Jewish scoundrels, whistling, never a maiden. Nettie grinned and pointed at her teeth. They were white and square, with a gap between the two front ones. “This is how I do it.” She kept whistling, seemingly unperturbed by her memories, and Batya thought of Shayna’s tragic orphanhood. She’d be careful not to ask Rochel about her past.
The girls turned their attention to their underarms and were soon squealing at the pain, laughing as they pulled off each other’s hair.
At their shrieks, a window opened on the second floor of the house next door, and a woman shouted in that high-pitched clucking language. Before Batya knew what was happening, the woman had emptied a bucket of dirty water on them. Batya was hit in the face, and Nettie, with her back to that house, had her hair drenched. In the altercation that ensued, Batya guessed that the woman was complaining about the prostitutes. The houses were close to each other, and from her spot above, the woman must have been able to witness the goings-on in the patio and hear the activities in the bedrooms through the windows kept open in the summer heat.
A part of Batya’s brain hung back, still numb and confused, as she rinsed and watched the girls hose themselves down. A few minutes later, their chatter and hilarity resumed. These girls were so different from the ones in Nina’s training house. No shadow of her own self-loathing seemed to hang over them; no great suffering was embedded in their eyes or in a hunching of shoulders. No one seemed to prefer death.
When one of the girls turned to a new task—waxing off the Armenian’s moustache and sideburns—Nettie produced a pair of tweezers. “Your eyebrows,” she said to Batya.
“You’re going to take off my eyebrows?” Batya asked.
“Just some areas. They are wild and unfashionable.” Nettie smiled. “Wait till you see yourself after I’m done.”
After ten minutes of plucking and yelping from Batya, Nettie presented her with a mirror. Batya stared at the young woman with thin arched eyebrows that indeed framed her eyes, making the green in them shine. As the sisters gathered to admire the results, Batya didn’t dare say that she hated looking appealing to any man. She blushed at the attention, and tears threatened to erupt yet again. Pulling down her hair, she let it fall over her face to hide it.
Before noon a doctor arrived, and two dozen girls who weren’t working lined up in front of one of the rooms. Freda led Batya to the head of the line and, once inside, instructed her to lie on the bed, legs splayed. To Batya’s relief, Rochel came in to hold her hand.
The doctor stationed himself on a low stool at the bottom of the bed, adjusted a monocle into his eye socket, and looked between Batya’s legs. A wave of humiliation swept over Batya at this new violation, and she brought her knees together. Without a word, the doctor swatted them apart and dug his fingers into her. He palpated soft spots inside, and Batya cried out at the searing pain.
“Tsk, tsk.” The doctor shook his head sadly. “What do we have here?”
“She’s leaking puss,” Rochel said.
“I thought so,” Freda said. “She stinks.”
The doctor shook his head, ignoring Batya’s cries of pain. He gave her thigh a light slap. “Stop moving.”
Freda placed a short rope between Batya’s teeth to bite on, and the doctor inserted something hard deep inside her. A moment later, fire exploded in her abdomen. Batya screamed and clutched her stomach.
Rochel grabbed her arms and raised them over her head. “Let him do his job,” she whispered.
“Abscess.” The doctor leaned back. “This requires surgery.”
“It will cost too much. I’ll just get her auctioned off,” Freda replied.
“No, please!” Rochel grasped her hands in supplication. “Please. I’ll pay.”
Freda shrugged. “If you want.” She opened the door and left.
“I need to finish seeing the others,” the doctor said to Rochel. “I’ll come back after the siesta.”
“Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?” Rochel asked.
“If you want to wait two or three months for surgery.” He wrapped a felt piece around his monocle and placed it in a small case. “The infection is already spreading through her abdomen, as her fever indicates.”
“Please come after your siesta.” Rochel’s tone turned playful. “I’ll make sure it will be worth your while.”
He pinched her cheek, stroked her buttock, and left.
The next few hours of waiting were excruciating as Batya’s fear swelled. At last, after a clock somewhere struck four, Rochel led her back into the same room where the doctor had checked her. He was laying instruments on a white cloth. Batya sat on the bed, a towel underneath her. She breathed hard through her mouth; her own stench was undeniable, but the doctor’s instruments frightened her.
“Lie down,” he ordered, and she used the last drop of her courage to obey. He raised her legs and buckled them to a metal frame with leather straps. Against her determination, she began to weep and shake.
“Can’t you give her something?” Rochel asked the doctor.
“Opium will cost you.” He filled a thimble-sized cup from a vial and handed it to her. “Have her drink this.”
The tincture smelled like the sap Batya used to collect from the bark of trees in Russia to make glue, and its taste was bitter. She scrunched up her face, coughed, and pushed Rochel’s hand away.
“I don’t have all day.” The doctor removed his monocle and glared at Batya. “You’d better drink it, or I’ll go where I’m needed.”
“Please,” Rochel said to her. “You’re lucky to have a doctor.”
Batya swallowed the medicine, then rested her head back. Sniffling, she closed her eyes, awaiting the wave of pain.
Chapter Nineteen
She wavered between consciousness and hallucination. It was daytime, then night. She heard the sounds of cicadas and the melody of haunting musical chords, maybe played by angels. Constellations of stars danced in the sky. She shivered in the Russian winter and burned in the Buenos Aires heat. Somewhere women laughed, chatted, argued, until the Siberian wind swept their voices away. She panicked in the bowels of the ship; rats and darkness attacked her, cut off her windpipe. Only the cool hand on her burning cheek comforted her. Her mother! She changed wet compresses on Batya’s forehead and stuffed her private parts with cotton. She made Batya drink that bitter opium and promised she would be healed. Then Batya was Miriam, cut open, blood seeping from every rat’s bite and pooling on soil too frozen to absorb it. Miriam, the friend she hadn’t sufficiently
mourned, laughing at Batya. “Who’s better off?” Batya had felt guilty for surviving, until life wasn’t worth surviving, and now she envied Miriam, murdered at the end of her ordeal.
Standing behind the flames of their burning home, levitating with the smoke, Hedi the ghost waved and cried out, “You must live to pull Mama and Papa out of their Russian hell. I was never given that choice.” Her voice became Freda’s. “We employ here only good prostitutes who are healthy and whole. This house has a reputation to uphold; we can’t pass diseases to our clients.”
Finally there was silence and comfort as all voices receded and Batya’s body became so light that it floated up until God emerged from a lit tunnel. In the sudden respite from pain, He laid Batya’s body on a bed of clouds, and she heard her father chat with Him. “I am Koppel, and I thank You for watching over my third daughter, my Batyale. The daughter You and I share.”
A wave of shame washed over Batya at hearing her father’s voice. She ordered him back to Russia, to never see his child in this state, in this place.
As Batya’s fever subsided, she became aware of Rochel supporting her head and feeding her spoonfuls of chicken soup with kneidlach. And when Batya managed to swallow more, Rochel cut each airy matzo ball into tiny pieces and placed them in Batya’s mouth. One day Nettie fed her cooked carrots mashed with butter, and a soft egg.
Then there was the day that Batya opened her eyes, her mind aligned to the present, and saw Rochel seated by her bed, her mouth moving in what seemed like a prayer.
“You’re awake.” Rochel squeezed her fingers. “Any pain?”
Batya shook her head. Her body was light with the absence of pain. In the periphery of her vision, a river of anguish drifted, but for the moment she couldn’t recall what it was about.
“The doctor cut off the abscess. A sac of it, you poor thing, but now you’ll have no more leaking pus,” Rochel said. “Luckily, he said, there was no chancre—that’s a sore that indicates that you’ve caught the French disease.”
“What’s that?” Batya’s voice was a whisper.
“You shouldn’t know from it. First it consumes your body with sores, then turns you meshuge.” She paused. “Girls who catch it are sent away, and when they become mad, they’re just left to die.”
“I can’t thank you for your kindness. Only God will be able to repay you.” A quiver ran in Batya’s voice. “But you should have let me die.”
Rochel stroked Batya’s hair. “It’s not a bad life here. The sisters will help you adjust. We cook together, take care of one another, we laugh, we dance.” Batya was about to drift back into her oblivion, when Rochel’s next words jolted her back. “You were also pregnant. From now on, we’ll make sure your clients use a safeguard.”
Pregnant? Of course. Her monthly flow hadn’t arrived in the bowels of the ship. Grief swept over Batya. A baby—most likely Moskowitz’s—had started growing inside her. It had been alive and was now dead. If only she could have died with it, because if Moskowitz was ever to forgive her sins and rescue her, this was one he could never overlook.
A couple of hours later, Batya woke up again, to pain. “Please, make the pain go away,” she wept to Nettie, now at her bedside. “Please ask Rochel to give me that miraculous bitter potion.”
Rochel came in and looked down at Batya, as if assessing her, then produced the tiny vial. Very little of the tincture was left. As Batya licked her lips for every drop, Rochel said, “This is the last opium I give you, or your body will get too used to it. It costs a fortune.”
Batya put her head back as the effect of the few drops spread through her.
When the doctor came to check on her a couple of days later, he palpated her insides.
Freda crossed her arms over her large belly. “Is she ready to work?”
“The entry is almost healed, but she’s not ready inside. Her young body fought the infection once. We don’t want her getting infected again, do we?” He still didn’t address Batya. “I’ll remove the stitches next week. We’ll see then.”
Batya had no time to be grateful for the small reprieve. Freda fixed an angry stare on her. “Before you waste any more time, cost us food, and bring nothing but disruption to this house, we’ll use the time to instruct you.”
At lunchtime, Rochel entered, bringing a tray of corn empanadas and a piece of meat doused with green sauce. “You must eat meat to enrich your blood. It will make you heal faster.” She pointed to the green sauce. “Eat this, too. It’s called chimichurri and it’s made of healing herbs.”
There was also a new vegetable, eggplant, whose smoky flavor Batya liked.
“Nettie and I, we’ll teach you all the tricks,” Rochel said, while Batya ate. “In time, you’ll have your regulars.”
Batya stopped chewing. She looked at her new friend. Rochel had been so kind, so caring—even paying with her own money for the surgery and the opium.
“I’m not going to do it,” she whispered. She glanced toward the door to ensure that Rochel had closed it. “I have—I had—a fiancé. He’ll come for me soon.”
“You do?” Rochel eyed her, doubt written in her raised brow. “And would he still come for you after he learns of—of everything?”
Batya shrugged, unsure of the answer. She inserted into her voice all the conviction she could muster as she said, “He’s kind. At least he’ll take me out of here and get me a decent job. But if I ‘play by the rules,’ as you call it, he will think it’s in my character.”
Rochel stroked her hair. “Until he comes to rescue you, give this house a chance. In time you’ll learn Spanish and—”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Spanish.”
“Silly. That’s the language they speak here in Argentina. You’ll learn it from the clients, from the merchants, from the neighbors. In time you’ll forget about your life in the shtetl.”
“I’ll never forget my parents!” Batya cried out wildly. “I’m supposed to bring them here, with my youngest sister.”
“If you work hard and are nice to your clients, you can save money.” Rochel stood up and extended her hand. “After you wash up, get dressed and come downstairs to meet the sisters.”
“May I have opium first?”
Rochel shook her head. “I gave it to you for pain. It’s very expensive. Now you must either earn enough to buy it yourself or force your body to forget about it. If you want my advice, it’s bad for you.”
Batya dropped her face into her hands. She craved the lightness that opium brought her, when she forgot both the clients awaiting her and her death wish because of them. But if she ever had any money, she would need it to get her parents out of Russia.
When she still claimed to be too weak to rise from her bed, Rochel said, “Let me give you a sponge bath.” Gently, she helped Batya out of her nightshirt, then, with a small touch, indicated for her to lie back.
She left the room briefly and returned with a bowl of warm soapy water. Before she began washing Batya, she passed the tips of her fingers along Batya’s arm. Then the other. “It feels nice, doesn’t it?” With the lightest touch she stroked Batya’s legs, down her thighs and shins, and ended at her toes.
She pressed a round yellow sponge to Batya’s cheek, so she could feel its softness, then dipped it in the water, squeezed out the excess, and passed it along Batya’s collarbones. She stroked down her middle, then circled her breasts, staying away from the hardened nipples.
New sensations rose in Batya’s body. Urging, confusing. She willed them to stop as Rochel’s ministering continued, never reaching any of the parts violated by the men.
The water in the bowl chilled. Rochel covered Batya’s body with a sheet, then bent toward her. “It’s enough for now,” she whispered. Her puff of breath in Batya’s ear was warm, sending a shiver of pleasure through her body. When Batya opened her eyes, Rochel extended her hand. “Ready to get up?”
Batya sat up and took Rochel’s hand. Pre
ssing it to her face, she took comfort in the touch of security and friendship.
Chapter Twenty
It was ten more days before the doctor declared Batya well. In those long days and nights, Batya was instructed in the ways of the flesh, learning from her own sensations what would please another person. “There’s so much to the body,” Rochel said, and took turns with Nettie explaining and demonstrating ways to delight men.
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.
