The Third Daughter

by Talia Carner

  Do not focus on human inadequacies or on the injustices God unleashed upon the world for reasons He saw fit, Batya told herself. What mattered at this stolen hour was that she was in a house of purity, of sanctity, of holiness. From here, her prayers could be heard by Him, He who had forgotten her existence.

  She was flipping through the book to find the right page when it was yanked out of her hand.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” The words were hissed at her in Yiddish by a woman whose burgundy-colored kerchief twisted tight around her head.

  Batya’s face flushed.

  “You’re impure.” The woman’s blue eyes darkened in anger. “How dare you bring your filth to a house of worship?”

  “He’s my God, too.” The heat of humiliation deepened in Batya’s cheeks. Who was she next to a truly pious woman, one who must have shaved her head for modesty under that kerchief? Batya’s voice took on a begging tone: “I must talk to Him.”

  “Tme’ah,” the woman yelled in a loud whisper. “Impure!”

  At the sound of her voice, the other women turned around and stared.

  “You want to contaminate our holy books with your muck?” The woman swung her hands to encompass the whole building. “To corrupt the virgin brides before their weddings?”

  The other women rose to their feet, shock and disgust on their faces.

  “Leave!” one spat.

  “Get out before you pollute the air in the synagogue!” called another, not attempting to keep her voice down.

  “Shame on you,” the mother huddling with her daughter yelled. “The chutzpah of the likes of you to come here!”

  Not since her family had been chased from Komarinoe had Batya felt such naked hatred. Her taunters this time, though, were Jews. Her head bowed, she slunk toward the exit and almost tripped onto the circular staircase, since she could barely see through the tears misting her eyes.

  At her back, she heard, “And don’t you ever dare come back!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Two evenings later, Batya sat on the lap of a card player at the pavilion, a man whose pile of money was growing. Later, after she’d brought him good luck and he’d shown his gratitude with a few coins, she strutted in front of a newcomer who seemed confused by the large selection of women. Ever since the incident in the synagogue she’d made an extra effort to lure one man after another. Anything to please Moskowitz in case he’d heard about what she’d done.

  Thankfully, no reaction came from him. Until several months ago, he had spent hours prowling the streets for male passersby, soliciting them to try his wide offering of pleasures. Lately, though, he’d hired two hustlers to fill this role and had shut himself off from women’s squabbles to work on his abacus. When Batya walked past his office, she heard the sounds of his counting tool as he swiped the wooden beads over the metal rods, and through the open door she glimpsed him filling the pages of a ledger. The month before, three men had brought in an iron vault and a three-drawer filing cabinet. When Batya retrieved the newspapers from the floor, she had noticed the letterhead of Zwi Migdal among the stacks of papers on his desk.

  Now fanning herself, she caught sight of Ulmann approaching, his shoulders stooped from long hours over his jewelry creations. “I’ve missed you,” she purred, and meant it. His visits had become an oasis of tranquility in her hectic evenings.

  He looked down at her with tender eyes. “Mayn sheyn meydele,” he said, my pretty girl.

  She led him upstairs, where he removed his jacket and sat on her bed. While he took off his shoes, she stroked his head, neck, and back. Her hand moved down the length of his arm. “How was your day?” she asked. “Your week?”

  He sighed and lay down, still clothed. She unbuttoned his shirt while he spoke. “The clients, the suppliers, they are all one big pain in the tuches.” He smiled at her. “Just the thought that I’d see you tonight made me happy.”

  She kissed his cheek, then buried her face in his neck. His arm wrapped around her and brought her closer.

  “You have no idea how lonely I am.”

  She nodded into his shoulder. “Your wife?” she ventured, knowing the story of his poor wife who was sick in both body and soul, but whom Ulmann could never divorce because she was his second cousin. Such shirking of responsibilities would make him a pariah in his family. His three sons needed a father who was a role model, a man who wouldn’t desert a wife in her time of greatest need.

  “Loyalty to family,” he repeated now. “It’s the foundation of being Jewish. It means sacrificing one’s happiness for the sake of the others to whom one is related.” He sighed, and his free hand covered his face. “But I’m so miserable.”

  “You’re here, now, with me,” she whispered, her hand moving downward. “I’m your friend.”

  At the end of the hour, Freda knocked on the door to indicate that Ulmann’s time was up. Batya rose slowly so not to rouse him as he rested under the light cover. He opened his eyes to a slit, smiled at Batya, and motioned toward his jacket on the chair. “Another hour, although God knows I should watch my spending.”

  Batya took money out of the pocket, opened the door a crack, and exchanged it for a second token. When she returned to the bed, Ulmann bent toward his pants on the floor and fished out a booklet so thin it was folded in half.

  “I want to read you a poem that tells how I feel about my life,” he said, leafing through the pages.

  She snuggled up to him so she could read the printed Yiddish words without revealing her secret.

  “It’s by a poetess named Pessi Hirschfeld-Pomerantz.”

  His voice became melodious:

  Sun, O sun!

  I’d like to wander

  in the open fields

  and drink up the light

  all day, so my eyes

  would radiate

  your light, your warmth.

  Between narrow walls

  my eyes look dull.

  Between narrow walls

  I speak angrily to people—

  the path they walk

  seems too confining for me.

  “It’s beautiful.” She planted a kiss on his chest. He kissed her head in return, then raised her face so their lips met.

  “As beautiful as you are.” He rose toward his jacket. “I’d like to ask your advice about something.” He took out a small notebook with drawings. “Some pieces I’m designing. As a woman of the world you must know what other women want.”

  Doubting her ability to judge what jewelry virtuous women wanted, Batya bent toward his notebook as he turned the pages. The drawings, some with splashes of color marking a precious stone or the brightness of a diamond, were exquisite. “You are truly an artist,” she said, and brought his hand to her lips. “I didn’t know these fingers were as skilled with a pencil as without it.” Then she pointed to some images. “The leaf on this ring might snag on clothes, and for this choker, maybe you could add a couple more rubies on each side of the medallion?”

  “Thank you. Great ideas.” He let out a laugh, the anguish that had accompanied his arrival clearly gone. It pleased her to have made him happy.

  After he left, Batya washed up and thought how many sisters would have exploited the chance to root through a client’s pocket to palm some coins for themselves. Ulmann always rewarded her with a little cash and, on holidays, a piece of jewelry, albeit light in its gold content—a hatpin, or the tiniest pair of delicately shaped earrings.

  Most important, she enjoyed the warmth of his visits. As inconceivable as it was for a polaca to hope for a patron, she let herself daydream. Maybe one day Ulmann would take her out of here.

  Monday morning, Batya queued with the other girls in the kitchen to receive her share of the money she had earned for the house. Her eyes searched for Nettie, but there was no sign of her friend.

  “Have you seen Nettie?” Batya asked the girl in front of her.

  “Not since last night.”

  Batya rushed to N
ettie’s room. There was no answer to her knock. She opened the door.

  Nettie was slumped over the side of her bed, head down, vomit pooling on the floor, her hair streaming into it.

  “Help!” Batya shouted. She lifted the listless body back onto the bed. It was distressingly light. She touched her friend’s wrist to feel the pulse. It was there, albeit faint. She ran to the door. “Help! Help!”

  Thirty minutes later, two men loaded Nettie on a wagon to take her to the hospital. “You can visit her later,” Freda told Batya and Rochel. “We’ve wasted too much time. I must finish the accounting.”

  “What do you think is the matter with Nettie?” Batya asked Rochel after Freda waddled her heft down the stairs. “The doctor told her she was fine.”

  “She’s sick with sorrow.” Rochel’s voice sounded resigned.

  Sorrow gnawed at all of them, Batya thought. She recalled the vivaciousness with which Nettie had once faced her situation, whistling songs through the gap between her teeth. Batya didn’t wonder what had made Nettie’s exuberance ebb. Grief underpinned their lives.

  “What will happen with her regulars?” Batya whispered to Rochel. One of them was the man with the appetite for cockroaches. Another relished tying Nettie to the bedpost and flogging her. Batya never understood how Nettie withstood these cruelties.

  Rochel shrugged. “It’s in God’s hands.”

  Batya lowered her head in reverence for God and His will, while her heart sank. It wasn’t like Rochel to be so accepting of a sister’s illness; she had fought so hard for Batya’s life. Weariness must be settling inside Rochel, too. Like the rest of them, Rochel hadn’t escaped pogroms; she had just survived untold losses, then gathered the threads of her strength to forge on. Only once she told Batya of the two little brothers she had raised alone in Krakow after their parents had been killed, until one day, when she came back from foraging for food to the coal cellar where they lived, the boys weren’t there—and never returned. Rochel acted as if the past could truly be buried, as if her heart didn’t agonize with worry every day, tortured by questions about the boys’ fates. When Batya and Rochel again took their spots at the payment queue, Batya held her friend’s hand, concerned that like Nettie Rochel might break down.

  And how long could she herself go on? Many of the girls in Freda’s house were in their teens. Nettie and Rochel, in their early twenties, were considered “mature.” In this city full of prostitutes, few lived to old age. If they didn’t die of disease or kill themselves in their youth, they were forced out of the brothels once their bodies outlived their usefulness. On their own, with no other means of employment—and denied charity by the formal Jewish benevolent organizations—they often died of starvation.

  Through the open door, Batya heard Glikel arguing with Freda about her deducted pesos. “I had stomach problems. I ate no chicken all week, only rice.” The third time Glikel raised her voice, Freda slapped her face. “Take it, or go elsewhere. Many girls will be grateful to take your room in this house.”

  When it was Batya’s turn, she spread her tokens on the table and waited while Freda compared their accuracy against the records in her notebook. At last Freda raised her head, and her finger punched the page. “You’ve been keeping the light on in your room. You’re wasting kerosene.” Her pale blue eyes were sharp. “And now that you dance so much, it’s only fair that you pay more for the musicians.”

  “I can’t afford that,” Batya blurted out. With such deductions, she would end up owing the house money.

  “Who should pay that?” Freda retorted. “And you had two pieces of cake at the café last week—”

  “Your brother took me there!”

  “Did he eat the cakes, or did you? And here’s the doctor’s bill for this month.”

  Batya swallowed. The doctor had renewed the certificate testifying that she was free of disease. For an added barrier to the clients’ use of rubber, he had fitted her with a small protective cup even though her scarred uterus could no longer produce “work accidents” in the form of pregnancies. Every day, inserting it was a ritual that separated Batya from Esperanza.

  Batya took the pesos Freda pushed in her direction and rose to leave.

  “You didn’t say thank you,” Freda called from the door to Batya’s back. “Ungrateful bitch.”

  “Thank you,” Batya tossed over her shoulder, and in her head added, A farshlepte plog, a chronic plague.

  She skipped mealtime and rushed to the bank where she safeguarded her money before its doors closed for siesta. Most sisters had no concept of a future and spent all their earnings on new clothes, hats, and toiletries. No doubt Moskowitz was aware that a few of his kurves saved money in the local banks. His tacit silence on the matter, Batya suspected, was because these savings might buy a kurve who had outlived her usefulness her freedom from him, or if she died, he’d inherit it, as was the pimps’ union rule.

  The British bank was one of the foreign banks that had sprouted in the growing city of Buenos Aires, an institution that Batya hoped was immune to Zwi Migdal’s influence. The bank clerk she favored, a fumbling and pedantic aging bachelor with fingers stained with ink, had issued Batya a small savings book in which he recorded each of her deposits. Should it ever get lost, he explained, blushing when he raised his eyes to her, her deposits were also logged in his ledger. Today again, he made sure to show Batya his meticulous entries, and the respect with which he treated her touched her anew.

  Leaving the bank, she hugged the savings book to her chest, then tucked it in her skirt pocket. She dashed over to the hospital to visit Nettie.

  The sentry at the door stopped her. “We have enough diseases here without someone like you bringing in more,” he said.

  “Please check on my friend,” Batya said. “Nettie Blum. She was brought in earlier.”

  But the sentry waved her away.

  Batya stepped back. The only places she wasn’t shunned were the ones to which she brought her money—the market, the seamstress, and the bank. She’d have to wait until Freda found time to come here to inquire. The matron would, if only to check on her property. At least Nettie’s free medical treatment in the public hospital wasn’t costing the house.

  Back in her chamber, Batya slid under the bed and pushed aside a small trunk in which she kept mementos and what might be perceived by snooping eyes as her most important treasures: a cloth napkin with the name of the café embroidered in gold, a peacock feather, a wooden dreidel engraved with the four magic letters of Chanukah, two beaded necklaces, a beautiful lace ribbon she sometimes tied around her forehead, a red flower made of silk, and her brass Shabbat candlesticks.

  The trunk served to deflect suspicion that she had another hiding place. Batya removed the loose brick in the stone wall facing the street. Her hand snaked through the opening and felt the interior hole she had carved by removing mortar. She pulled out a cloth pouch and tucked the bankbook in the hole, then retreated to unwrap her collection of jewelry. She bathed her eyes in Glikel’s opal ring, felt the coolness of a pearl pendant on a gold chain, and stroked the ivory silhouette of a gentlewoman on a cameo made of onyx. The silver necklace a sea captain had brought her from a place called India had its own leather bag. She put it on, rose to look at it in the mirror, and admired its fine filigree curlicues dotted with coral and aqua stones.

  Some sisters who saved their money invested in pelts they stored under their beds. Hides were available, albeit expensive. The impracticality of storing such bulk in a small room that soon reeked of it—especially in hot weather—made no sense to Batya, and, as it turned out, neither to Freda, who ordered the pelts removed. Unlike pelts, jewelry and precious stones were small and never aged. One day, she would bring her family over and leave Buenos Aires. She would cash in her treasures to open a store far away from Moskowitz’s reach. She would also take her father on a trip to Pittsburgh to search for his brother.

  Batya tucked her jewelry back into the pouch and returned it to the hi
ding place. She still wanted to obtain the book of tkhines—more so now that she must pray for Nettie’s recovery. She should buy one. Since Freda hadn’t mentioned the incident at the synagogue, it was safe enough for Batya to try again, if she could figure out where. The Judaica store must carry the book, but she wouldn’t dare bring sin to a place filled with sacred texts. Surely the bookseller and his clerks would chase her away, humiliate her as the women in the synagogue had done.

  Her musings were interrupted when she heard her name called from down the corridor. She opened the door to see Glikel smirking. “Moskowitz wants to see you.”

  Dread climbed Batya’s throat. News of Nettie? Or was Moskowitz about to punish her after all? Bracing herself, Batya descended the steps, forcing her feet to move faster than they wanted to. If there was no thug in Moskowitz’s office to beat her, he wouldn’t do that dirty work himself. Maybe he would slap her a bit, pull her hair. Unlike some obtuse pimps who damaged their goods, he had boasted that his kurves never exhibited marks that hurt their ability to work.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Batya entered Moskowitz’s office to find him and Freda flanking a girl hunched on a chair, her face in her hands. Batya could see only the girl’s unwashed hair falling forward and black and blue marks on her exposed neck and upper back. The small bumps of the girl’s upper spine and her shoulder bones jutted through the bruised, emaciated skin.

  “Take care of her,” Moskowitz told Batya. “You know what to do.”

  “If she commits suicide, you’ll reimburse us the price we paid at the auction,” Freda added.

  Auctioned naked, paraded and probed. The hair roots on Batya’s arms pricked with hatred. She looked at the girl, and a pang of her own memories hit her. She crouched and touched the girl’s arm. It was so thin, it felt like the limb of a bird.