by Talia Carner
“Every two weeks, my brother comes with a horse to take me back to our mother.” Rafael pointed to the end of the cart, where two long shafts were propped by wood blocks.
She smiled. “I like you. Can we be friends?”
God was on her side, showing her the way. This was how she would get her letter mailed.
Chapter Thirty-One
In the pavilion, Batya sat in rapt attention as Rochel, who had been to the Yiddish theater the night before, regaled the sisters with the details of her adventure. Of all the sisters chosen by Moskowitz to accompany him to the theater, Rochel was the best raconteur. She could reenact the jokes, the singing, even entire scenes.
Batya had never been to the theater, and these reenactments fired her imagination and lit a spark of envy. She was grateful when Moskowitz took her to cafés, but he spread theater outings among his other prostitutes. Even Rochel, who had been invited often, said she didn’t know why he favored her.
Rochel’s story this morning was about a maid who had been accused of stealing her mistress’s jewelry. It turned out that the mistress had sold them in order to give the money to her elusive lover. Unbeknownst to her, that man was in love with her maid, with whom he had conspired to elope.
“Batya, stand up,” Rochel ordered. “You’re the lover, a dashing Spaniard. Repeat the sentences I tell you, then when I quote mine, you say yours. It’s called a dialogue. Farshteyst?”
Batya, whose mind was also on the promise in the Baron’s project, stumbled on her lines, which seemed unrelated to one another. The sisters laughed, but when Rochel interjected her sentences between Batya’s, the sequence made sense. Encouraged, Batya refocused and repeated her lines with pathos. The scene of misunderstandings and double-talk sounded hilarious.
When she and Rochel finished, the sisters clapped and cheered. Batya loved the applause. It gave her the same joy that fueled her muscles when she performed tango in front of a crowd of sisters and clients.
“Now for the thief’s song,” Rochel announced. “It’s a Yiddish tango, so the rhythm is one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.”
I am Salve, the thief,
Four brothers are we;
One is hungry, the other well fed,
But thieves all four are we.
One is a pickpocket,
The second a pimp, a handsome fellow;
One is a hijacker on the lookout for packages,
And I am a house thief.
The sisters joined in, repeating the lines. Some rose to dance, entangling and disentangling their legs in the tango steps.
Freda interrupted the merriment. “Every moment that you sit or stand is a moment lost,” she snapped. “Rochel, you to your window. Batya, you to the kitchen. Glikel, go help the washwoman hang the sheets. She’s too short to reach the lines.”
Batya retreated to the kitchen, humming the new song. Facing the sink, she yelped when she felt Moskowitz’s warm breath on her neck.
“It’s only me.” He cupped her breast.
Her mouth was dry. She forced her lips to smile. “I missed you.”
“No, you didn’t, but you’re quite convincing.” He snaked his other hand over her other breast and gyrated his hips against her buttocks. “How about the theater tonight?”
Theater? Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She nodded, then found her voice. “Thank you.”
He laughed. “Forever the polite little girl, aren’t you?” He released her and walked out.
The blood pulsed in Batya’s ears with a mixture of hatred and excitement. She arranged a breakfast tray—making sure the coffee was only lukewarm—and took it upstairs to Dora. She knocked on the door before using her key, knowing that nothing lessened the girl’s dread about who was entering. Freda’s patience with Batya’s failure had reached a breaking point, and she had announced that it was time to sell this bad investment.
Dora sat curled on the floor in the corner. She didn’t raise her head.
“Good morning. Are you hungry?” Batya trilled, hoping yet again for a response that she doubted would be forthcoming.
When the girl made no sign that she even saw her, Batya sat down on the floor facing her and crossed her legs. “Look at this food, at this room. You can have a good life. What difference does it make where you work?” She took Dora’s hand. “Dora, if you do housecleaning, you will work just as hard, but it will take you ten years to make what you can make here in a month.”
Dora let out a guttural sound, more like an angry animal’s than a human’s.
Batya pulled the tray closer. “Only rich matrons are blessed with a good life. Most women are dirt-poor, and they hate the drudgery of their lives as much as you do prostitution. But it can get a lot worse for you if you continue to resist. I’d like to help you.”
When Dora still refused to acknowledge her, Batya left the room and locked it. There was no use. If Dora committed suicide, the cost of it would fall on Batya, yet in her heart Batya admitted that ending her life might be the better option for Dora.
Back in the kitchen, as she finished her chores, the excitement of the upcoming evening’s adventure returned. Batya renewed her singing and was wiping dishes and stacking them when three sisters entered the kitchen for their cooking duties.
“Why are you singing?” Glikel asked Batya, her eyes glazed. Glikel’s affinity for opium had increased; Freda and Moskowitz didn’t begrudge sisters who spent their earnings on it, since it motivated them to better serve clients.
“I’m going to the theater tonight!” Batya grabbed a broom as her partner and danced while humming the thief’s Yiddish tango.
Glikel interrupted. “It’s my turn to go to the theater, but you stole it from me with that new dress of yours.”
Batya stopped, tossed a glance at the girl, and put the broom away. She hated the bickering, the jealousy, the competition among some girls. Glikel was beautiful and had more generous regulars than most. Even before the opium, she had no reason to be spiteful.
“It’s Batya’s turn,” replied Juliet, a delicate, flat-chested girl with cropped hair who catered to men who wouldn’t admit to preferring boys. “She hasn’t been to the theater yet. You went twice this year. After Batya, it’s my turn.”
“Go present Yitzik Moskowitz with a list of whose turn it is and see what he says,” said Clara, so named for her very clear skin, eyes, and hair, as though God had painted her with a one-color brush before sending her out into the world.
Annoyed, Batya walked out to the kitchen yard to hang a sponge to dry and collect her underthings from the line. She ran a finger over her chin to feel the pimples, hoping that by the evening the yeast she’d applied would dry them. It was true that Batya had overcome her frugality and replaced her outgrown dress with a new mint-green organza creation. It wasn’t the first time she had needed new clothes; the abundant food continued to fill her, and, to her surprise, she had also grown taller—taller than her parents or her older sisters had been. She no longer needed to pretend to look like a woman; she was one.
That evening, Rochel helped Batya step into her new dress. “It brings out the green in your eyes,” she gushed, fluffing the rows of ruffles that layered the sleeves and also ran above the skirt’s hem. She gathered Batya’s hair loosely on top, allowing some tendrils to escape, and tucked peach-colored rosebuds between the curls. Then she kissed Batya’s cheek and smiled. Batya loved seeing those twin dimples deepen, her friend’s sign of approval.
“You look like a French courtesan,” Rochel said. “All you need is a fluffy white dog.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Riding in the horse-drawn open carriage, Batya still couldn’t believe her good fortune. She straightened her back, imagining herself the wealthy woman she had been falsely promised she would become, and looked around as the horses trotted past magnificent buildings into the newly widened boulevard of Avenida de Mayo. She turned her finger to reflect the light off the opal ring she had acquired from Glikel and t
ouched the mother-of-pearl brooch that clasped her shawl. Made of the same mint-green fabric as the dress, the sheer organza wrap still permitted a view of her thin waist while offering some modesty. She wouldn’t wear her better jewelry, only the pieces that the sisters had seen. The rest were her secret. She hoped that Ulmann, whose drawings she was helping improve, would soon reward her with one of those more substantial creations. Beyond the weight of the gold, such a gift would strengthen the delicate tie that was forming between them—one she wished to nurture.
Next to her, Moskowitz wore a fine black suit, with tails that ran down to the back of his knees. Before sitting in the carriage, he had rearranged them the way she did her long dress. The suit’s shiny silk collar matched the band of silk running along the sides of his trousers. His pointed, lacquered shoes shone as brightly as his top hat. Diamonds sparkled in his cuff links and in each of his shirt buttons.
Signs of construction were everywhere; just ahead stretched a series of high mounds of broken brick, tin, and lumber—the remains of hundreds of huts and houses demolished to make room for the widening of the boulevard.
“Do you know why this boulevard is called ‘de Mayo’?” Moskowitz asked, and then, assuming her ignorance, answered, “To commemorate the May Revolution of 1810. That’s when Argentina became independent from Spain.”
It had taken a revolution to achieve freedom, she thought. Fishke’s ideas about a Russian revolution landed him in prison, but here another revolution had succeeded. An insane thought flashed through Batya’s head: Could the thousands of Buenos Aires’s prostitutes unite to rebel?
“So, you haven’t guessed where we’re going?” Moskowitz asked her.
She shook her head. Most of the Yiddish theaters were in Once, Spanish for “eleven,” named after the neighborhood’s Once de Septiembre train station, not in this most elegant part of town. If Moskowitz hadn’t dressed so lavishly, she would have assumed that he was about to deposit her at a private party in a casita. “Where?” she asked.
Up ahead, more horse-drawn open carriages and even two horseless automobiles carried well-dressed people, the privileged high class, all heading in the same direction.
“We’re going to Teatro Colón, of course,” Moskowitz said, and ordered the coachman to slow down. Then, as if pulled by invisible strings, his shoulders straightened and his neck stretched. He lit a cigarette and, in a slow, calculated gesture, placed it between his lips. His eyes glanced sideways without turning his head, as if to check the impression he was projecting.
Teatro Colón! Batya dared not speak and reveal her excitement.
Moskowitz went on. “The Italian patron who financed the renovations of the theater died twenty years ago. The city had no money to finish this grand project, but guess who solved the problem? The Warsaw gang. Zwi Migdal. That’s who. We make the business engine of this city run, and now, with our support, culture will make Buenos Aires the most prominent city in all of South America.”
You feed the engine with the meat of our bodies. Moskowitz probably expected her to say some words of adulation about how influential he was, but Batya couldn’t bring herself to give him the satisfaction.
The carriage stopped in front of the theater, and Batya gasped. The mass of scaffolding she had seen whenever she passed here was gone, and instead there appeared an imposing palace. The giant busts and bas-reliefs on the façade seemed poised to jump off the building.
“Wait until you see the inside,” Moskowitz said with pride. “It’s as palatial as any grand opera house in Europe.”
Batya smiled, although his comparison meant nothing to her; she’d never seen either a palace or an opera house. Nor did she know what “opera” meant. She waited till the coachman opened the side door and placed a small stool on the ground, then she climbed down, lifting her dress to keep it off the sidewalk in what she hoped was an elegant gesture.
Moskowitz walked slowly, taking his time to cover the short distance between the curb and the entrance. He tilted his head in salutation to acquaintances, each with one or two young women hanging on his arms.
Entering the theater with her arm looped into Moskowitz’s didn’t dampen Batya’s excitement or suppress her grin. They stepped into an enormous vestibule with marble columns reaching up to a huge stained-glass dome. Batya heard her own intake of breath at the sight of the immense lobby, with an endless row of massive crystal chandeliers multiplying in the mirrors on both sides.
Moskowitz’s fingers on the small of her back guided her protectively as if she were his wife, not his kurve, toward a grand marble staircase as wide as a street and flanked by commanding pillars. She raised the hem of her dress and stepped on the first stair, laying her hand on the balustrade. It felt luxuriously cool to her fingers. Marble. The word rang of opulence, as did the hued veins running through the stone, delicate serpentine streaks of color that hinted at their depth.
Moskowitz stopped at the first landing and looked around like a proprietor. Scanning the vestibule below, Batya could view the women’s dresses of lustrous silk, gossamer, or organza embroidered with pearls. Swathes of lace or Spanish shawls embroidered with sensuous flowers in red, purple, and yellow covered the women’s shoulders, and when the lights ignited their diamonds and precious stones, their collective brilliance blinded Batya with their class statement. Yet, with all their fine fashion and elaborate hairstyles, these women were devoid of makeup other than a discreet touch of cheek rouge, the well-placed black dot of a faux beauty mark, or perhaps the finest rice powder to lighten the skin. Batya wished she could wipe the bright red from her lips and erase the charcoal with which Rochel had accentuated her eyes.
After more greetings, Moskowitz guided her to the third floor, where a uniformed usher bowed. “Your box seat is ready, señor.” He pulled the brass handle of a heavy mahogany door and led them into a small enclosed area, where he drew open a double-layered curtain. Batya glimpsed eight chairs set neatly in two rows facing an upholstered railing.
She caught her breath yet again at the sight of the vast theater below and the horseshoe-shaped galleries above. She touched the plush scarlet velvet of a chair. Her eyes drank in the gilded molding that framed the balconies, columns, and entrances. Every centimeter was decorated with either red or gold.
“Sit,” Moskowitz ordered.
Batya hesitated, uncertain whether someone like her was permitted to sit on such a beautiful chair.
“Sit, I said, and close your mouth,” he repeated. “You look like a stupid polaca, gawking like this.”
She winced at the term and sat down. Leaning forward, she dared look over the railing. In the main hall, men and women seemed to be in no rush to take their seats as they crowded the aisles, the women giggling modestly behind their fans. A heavy curtain blocked what Batya assumed was the stage, framed by a huge border of decorative paintings. Outside the box balconies ringing the theater, hundreds of crystal sconces cast a dim yet rich glow.
She must memorize every detail to report to the sisters in the house. She counted six floors of spectators, and above them all, rising like the canopy of God’s sky, a grand cupola painted with beautiful scenes of crowds following musicians.
The cacophony of voices was drowned out when dozens of musicians broke into a discordant concert like an army of night insects. Is this opera? Batya wondered, then figured that like the klezmers, they were only tuning up. She pointed her finger and began counting the men.
“You can’t count over a hundred,” Moskowitz sneered. “This orchestra pit holds one hundred and twenty musicians. Like the best of the European opera houses!”
Batya dared not ask him what “opera” was. So much of the world was still beyond her grasp.
A hush fell over the theater. Here and there a throat cleared and taffeta rustled. Then the orchestra began to play. The harmonious sounds spread like buckets of pearls tumbling from the sky, yet instead of falling, they were carried by a playful wind. They picked up Batya and transported her to
a place where only dreams could live.
At first, the sisters didn’t believe her story. Horses and camels onstage? Pyramids and a whole army of soldiers and another army of servants?
“The opera is called Aida.” Batya repeated the running explanation Moskowitz had provided the night before. “It’s about a Nubian princess captured and enslaved in Egypt by Pharaoh—” Batya stopped, almost choking with the recollection of how she had identified with Aida, except that the beautiful chocolate-skinned princess had lived inside the magic of the dazzling stage rather than in Batya’s nightmare, made more real by Moskowitz’s chattering. “The Egyptian military commander falls in love with her, but Pharaoh’s daughter is in love with him. Aida’s father, the Nubian king, plans to invade Egypt to rescue his beloved daughter—”
The excitement around the breakfast table was palpable. This morning, instead of each group of sisters clearing their plates before the next took its turn, dozens of girls crowded the kitchen and the yard, interrupting Batya with so many questions that she had to repeat the details of the frescos and the women’s dresses and restart the story of Aida yet again—never reaching the most significant part of the evening: the singers’ voices, which had even shut up Moskowitz. Like the voices of angels, who had floated down from heaven only for the evening before flying back up to sit at the feet of God. How could Batya describe such sounds emanating from the throats of humans, the women’s high, like magic flutes, the men’s as sonorous as the roar of the ocean?
She was in her fourth telling when mayhem broke out. A police carriage stopped in front of the house, and two officers dragged Dora in through the door, the girl screaming and kicking.
Batya felt her stomach flip. The night before, in her excitement after the opera, she had briefly checked on Dora and verified that the girl had eaten. Then Batya fell asleep happy, the sights and sounds of the opera pulling her into a dream in which an Egyptian commander dressed in a leather tunic rode his horse across the desert toward her.
