by Talia Carner
The insult felt stale, like chewing on old bread. “Maybe I should go elsewhere to rent a dress,” Batya said, pretending to start for the door.
The matron grabbed Batya’s hand. “But I have the perfect one for you.” Her bluff called out, the woman’s tone changed to pleading. “Just take a look.” She removed a magnificent pink dress from a rack and nudged Batya to a dressing room whose walls were upholstered in cream velvet.
“Pin and sew the hem,” Batya ordered when she put on the dress. “I don’t want to catch it with my heels.”
After selecting a pair of shoes with medium-height heels, Batya sat down and gave herself over to the ministering of the assistant.
The young woman parted Batya’s hair in a straight line two centimeters off the middle and pulled it tight into a severe chignon, then smoothed down with coconut oil any stray strands. Using a soft black pencil, she lined Batya’s eyes, elongating them almost to her temples, and then darkened the light-brown eyebrows into black arches. To finish the look, she wet the tip of the pencil with her tongue and dotted a beauty mark on Batya’s cheekbone. “Don’t look yet,” she told Batya, and secured a pink hibiscus flower in her hair.
The proprietor returned with Batya’s hemmed dress and helped her into it. Batya turned to look at herself in the mirror. The woman who stared back at her had little resemblance to the woman she’d known as herself—or even as Esperanza. That’s better, she thought. Like in prostitution, hiding behind a mask helped her fight her trepidation about performing for a large audience and being judged.
The assistant held the hem of Batya’s dress off the dust as she led her through an alley to the back entrance of the dance hall.
Upon seeing her, Sergio’s eyes lit up with a sparkle of approval. “We’re going to win,” he said, a rare smile on his face. He looked dashing in his matador costume. The epaulettes of the short black jacket were embroidered in elaborate gold stitching that swirled into leaves on the rest of the jacket. His tight black pants emphasized the manhood he never let her glimpse.
All around them, backstage, couples were marking dance moves; women were checking themselves in the mirror and silently evaluating one another’s sparkling dresses. Under their heavy makeup, Batya couldn’t tell who they were—prostitutes or daughters of rich families. They all looked beautiful, and they had to be fabulous dancers. Why was Sergio so confident that the two of them would win? He could be equally wrong in assessing the outcome of the investigation.
Batya touched his arm. “Win or lose, there will be no more. I want out of Buenos Aires.”
He looked at her silently, then said, “Let’s not talk about it now.”
“There’s nothing more to say about it,” she replied.
Half an hour later, waiting on one side of the stage while Sergio was on the other, Batya took in the audience. Men chatted and women rearranged their dresses in the seats. Sergio hadn’t warned her about the stage lights, which nearly blinded her when they burst on. Shielding her eyes, she could see that the large crowd wasn’t distracted by drinking or card playing, as they were in the pavilion. Everyone was looking at her! Nothing in her rehearsals had prepared her for this.
Then she remembered her mask. No one saw her, Batya-Esperanza—except Moskowitz. She felt him somewhere in the hall, his gaze slithering in her veins. This competition, she reminded herself, was a sham—a cover-up of her treachery meant to bring him down.
The band broke into the first song. Batya thrust one hip forward as she stepped to meet Sergio halfway, and he arched his arm high and took hold of her opposite hand. Resting her head on his shoulder, she heard a murmur ripple through the crowd. Swirling in her magnificent dress, she fought the attraction and romance of the caballero Sergio portrayed, while she danced her lament for a love she would never have. Together, she and Sergio finished the first round in a double turn.
Triumph coursed through her with the applause and the shouts of “Bravo! Brava!” She curtsied, feeling more feminine and desired than she’d ever felt when naked.
At the conclusion of the first round, some competing couples were eliminated. The excitement in the audience was palpable as they cheered and clapped upon the entrance of each of the remaining couples for the second round. When Batya and Sergio remained in the competition for the final round with two other couples, Batya hoped that she’d stumble and fall and they’d lose. Within moments, though, as the music flooded her, and with Sergio’s arm on her back guiding her in long, fluid steps across the dance floor, her feet became light, and she double-stepped and swerved, loving showing off that she wasn’t merely a prostitute, the metziah that the store matron had dismissed.
The judges took a short break to cast their votes. Batya was catching her breath in the back, drinking water, when the three couples were summoned again to the stage.
To her disbelief, the chief judge declared that Sergio and his rising star partner, Esperanza, had won.
During the dreamlike party that followed, with food and champagne and words of adulation, Batya cast away all that troubled her. She had caught sight of Ulmann after her performance, when she was swept off the stage by the other competing couples, who offered their congratulations—the men more genuinely than the women. When she met Ulmann’s eyes, he winked at her, then, not one to enjoy a festivity, turned to leave. She liked that he’d watched her dance. My man, she thought, surprising herself with the words. If only accepting him didn’t mean rejecting her family.
Moskowitz worked the room, eyeing the men who eyed her, dropping hints and open invitations. Before the party was over, he signaled to Batya that it was time to return to the house.
Sergio took her palms in his. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry that you must leave. I’ll come see you in two days.”
The shop owner’s assistant waited in the wings to accompany the dress and Batya back to the shop. With a pang of sorrow, Batya changed into her own clothes. The flower in her hair had wilted, but the theatrical makeup stayed on.
It was only ten o’clock when she returned to the pavilion. Clients were awaiting the new star, and Moskowitz raised the fees paid for her services.
Chapter Forty-Five
The pressure from Ulmann’s dilemma was dwarfed by the weight of the stolen ledger. Moskowitz was bound to discover Batya’s ticket to freedom hiding in plain sight. The more her dream of escaping felt within her reach, the more desperate she became about her slavery. Some days, she vomited after yet another physical contact with a stranger. Securing the ledger somewhere safe would ease one worry.
The only place outside the house she could access was Rafael’s sweets cart. She retrieved the ledger in the morning when collecting the newspapers and tucked it back in her chamber between the dresser and the wall. The many hours the ledger was in her possession stretched on. Batya jumped at the sudden noise of a copper pot dropped on the tiled floor, at the odd note from a musician adjusting his violin strings, and at the screech of a bird.
She was relieved when the house quieted before dawn. She tore off a page and hid it in the wall, then slipped out of the house, the ledger secured under her skirt with a belt. Its edges pinched her skin with every step.
The streets were quiet at this hour, when the music in the cafés and milongas had stopped, drunkards lay asleep on the curbs, and more respectable customers were home in their comfortable beds. Stray dogs slept, the milkmen hadn’t yet begun their rounds, and laborers were still inside their makeshift huts erected at construction sites. Batya was exhausted, but the chilled night air was fresh and fragrant with the scent of flowers and herb gardens. The moon at the edge of the canopied sky hung above as if it were her private protector.
She stopped a distance from Rafael’s corner to verify that he had stretched out his nightly canvas to create a tent. Approaching, she listened through the canvas to Rafael’s uneven breathing.
The shafts of the cart were raised onto wood blocks to keep the cart bed level. Batya crouched and reached under t
he canvas to feel the cross beams, like the ones that had reinforced her father’s cart. They were narrower than she had anticipated. The ledger couldn’t be secured there. She straightened and stood still for a minute, her hand resting against the cart’s leather-upholstered bench.
A rooster crowed, and its cock-a-doodle-do reverberated over the houses, reminding Batya that the night was lifting. In an empty lot nearby, someone lit a small fire and began boiling coffee. Its aroma wafted toward her, teasing her. Soon, the municipal street sweepers with their two-wheeled carts would come out to collect debris. Batya contemplated her options. Her fingers searched the leather covering the seat—and detected a spot in the back where it had come undone. She raised the loosened section, careful not to pop out more nails, and explored the cavity. The bench had been constructed as crudely as the rest of the cart, and Batya’s fingers found a large enough gap between the planks forming the seat’s frame.
Without waking Rafael, she tucked the ledger into it and snuck away.
Ulmann produced a small gift box. Inside was a gold ring. Batya’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of the two intertwined Hebrew letters; at the center of each a tiny diamond chip indicated that the letters were bet and not vet. The identical initials of both their names.
“Please tell me you want me to speak with Moskowitz,” he said, and slipped it on her middle finger. “I’m so lonely without you.”
Her heart was too full to answer. She’d never been loved. She hugged him. “Thank you. It’s beautiful!”
“I saw you with your dance partner. I want you to be like that with me.”
She rested her head on his shoulder as she did in a dance and, checking that he could watch her in the mirror, closed her eyes as if in a romantic trance. “It’s just a game. Pretend.” She raised her hand, the ring turned toward him. “This is real.”
“I want you all for myself.” His fingers combed through the mass of her hair as though he were admiring spun gold. “Be my Batya.”
“You know what I must do first,” she said, making her voice as gentle as she could. “As soon as I finalize arrangements for my family—”
“No more waiting,” he said.
She could no longer put him off. Nor lose him. If only she could earn money while living with him, she might still save to pay for her family’s passages. Even in the poverty of San Telmo they would be living no worse than they did now in Russia. “Will you let me work in your store?” she asked. “I’m good with numbers. I can draw the salary you’re now paying your saleslady.”
He scratched his head. “Isabella, she worked for my father. She knows all the customers.” He paused. “But she’s not young and said something about wanting to live with her son in Córdoba. I’ll speak with her.”
“Thank you,” Batya whispered. Their lips met, and when they parted, she looked into his kind eyes, her heart light with possibilities and heavy with the unresolved issues.
“I’ll talk to Moskowitz in the morning,” he said, grinning as he left.
Batya had just hidden the new ring—she couldn’t risk answering questions before Ulmann had negotiated with Moskowitz—when there was a knock on her door.
When she opened it, she was astonished to see Sergio. For months she’d seen him only during the day. Now he came late at night as a client in her chamber.
Batya closed the door behind them, and he glanced at it as if to ensure that it was secure, then pulled out of his jacket pocket a wad of gray-colored money—hundred-peso bills. “I had to pay Moskowitz a third of my winnings,” he said, “so it’s only fair that you get half of what’s left.”
She gulped at the thickness of the wad. It would have taken her two years to accumulate this much after all of Freda’s deductions. “I’m grateful,” she whispered, her voice brimming with emotion. This money would set up her father in his own store in the new colony.
Sergio dropped into the chair, and she settled on a sheepskin rug. “I have something else for you.” He withdrew an envelope from his inside pocket and held it up. The stamp was from Russia.
Batya’s heart sang, even as she recognized that the handwriting wasn’t her father’s. Surale must have paid a scribe. With trembling fingers, Batya took the letter. The seal was already broken. She unfolded the single piece of paper. It was written on both sides of the page, so the ink seeped through and stained some words.
My very dear sister, the most beloved Batya,
I hope that this letter finds you in good health, that your troubles as an impoverished widow are over, and that your local council has ruled in favor of you to receive your just share of your late husband’s estate, including your mansion.
The good news, thank Hashem, is that Keyla is with us. Her son was very sick the year before, which delayed her departure, and his constitution is still poor. Please mention his name in your prayers: Shlomo, son of Keyla. The not good news is that our papa has taken ill. His cough became worse since our arrival in Odessa. The doctor says that his blood is thin. Luckily, the Jewish Colonization Association has been extremely generous. We had been terrified that, with our head of household sick, they would send all of us back, but where would that be? Where was home? Bless Hashem, the JCA has arranged for Papa to be admitted to the hospital! A real hospital, a big building with beds with white sheets and real nurses, although if you ask Papa, most of them are shiksas who would just as soon poison a Jew as cure him. We praise Hashem for having delivered Papa from the crisis, although he is weak and still coughs. He contends that his deliverance was due to the fact that his soul couldn’t die until he reunited with you. I tell him that he was saved because God sent us a doctor who had been trained in Paris.
A wave of love for her family washed over Batya. How could she have entertained merely an hour ago the idea of selfishly compromising her efforts to save them—not knowing if she could work in Ulmann’s store, and how much she could earn? Yet she had. As if to apologize to Surale, Batya kissed the letter, then went on reading.
Nevertheless, we must delay our departure. First, because no ship captain will take Papa for fear of infecting other passengers, even though the doctor says that Papa’s consumption is not of a contagious nature. Second, because the good doctor plans to send Papa to a convalescence clinic that our revered liaison from the JCA has graciously arranged. Imagine Papa, like a rich landowner from Bobruevo, being served all his meals while he lounges all day in the sun! We only hope that there will be other people to speak to, because Papa is regaining his chattering spirit—
Batya raised her gaze to Sergio. “Your organization is taking good care of my father, I see,” she said. “Thank you so very much.”
He smiled. “Didn’t I promise to repay your great help?”
Her heart expanded. A real doctor, rather than a traveling folk healer selling elixir. A hospital. A convalescence clinic. Who would have ever thought that these were possible for her father, who hadn’t known a day of rest in his life? “But they can’t leave.” She wiped a tear with the back of her hand, then read on.
Since our stay at the hotel was never meant to be long, we have obtained the right to a room in an apartment shared by two other families. My dear Duvid has found a job as an apprentice carpenter, a profession that will serve him well wherever we go next. He’s learning fast. In the meanwhile, he brings home a few kopeks each day that he works, and we eat our meals in a soup kitchen run by good Jewish souls, may they be blessed with long and healthy lives. The only worms that gnaw our hearts are missing you, Keyla’s recuperating boy, and the worry over Papa’s health.
I will write to you when we are ready to take the long journey to meet you, may it be before winter, God willing. In the meanwhile, I hope that you will keep your good health and prepare your mansion for our arrival.
Your very loving sister,
Surale (and Keyla, who is home now, joins me with her blessings)
Batya was crying openly as she folded the letter. She imagined Surale and her husband an
d two children, with Keyla and her two orphans, as well as the toddler Vida, all in one room. Yet Surale, with her good nature, was happy with the few kopeks her husband earned and the soup kitchen that provided them with more food than they must have had in years. But Surale’s refusal to accept Batya’s story that she no longer lived a life of comfort was exasperating. Rather than facing the harsh realities of agricultural labor awaiting them in Moïseville, Surale still imagined that they would be delivered into a life of luxury that had never existed. She was probably feeding Keyla the same illusions.
Sergio led Batya to the bed, and she appreciated that he took charge as he stretched out and rocked, while she covered her face and let the tears flow. Why was she trying so hard to bring them if, upon arrival, they would be sorely disappointed? She was offering them in this new land merely another version of their poverty and strife, and they would be furious about her years of deception. And if they lived in San Telmo, sooner or later someone would reveal to them that Batya was no more than a lowly kurve.
“What if my father doesn’t get better?” Batya asked Sergio at last. “Will your organization still bring the rest of them, with only one healthy man, and settle them in a colony?”
Sergio patted her arm, careful not to touch her breasts, while he kicked the bedpost rhythmically. “We’ve promised to take care of them, and we’re doing it.”
“I’m grateful.” Batya sat up. “But I can’t stay here. I can’t keep doing what I have to do!”
He sat up, too. “Let’s wait until we hear about your father’s progress.”
She looked at him, and a rush of suspicion that he needed her here to spy—his prime concern, not her well-being—filled her head. He didn’t care that she had to prostitute. She had known all along not to trust promises. “I told you, no more,” she finally said, heat of anger rising in her. “I have another offer and I’m taking it.”
