The Third Daughter

by Talia Carner

  Minutes later, she watched from her window as, surrounded by giggling sisters sharing umbrellas, Moskowitz stepped outside, wearing his hat. Freda carried his leather briefcase and handed it to him once he was settled in the carriage.

  Batya knew what she had in her possession: Zwi Migdal’s accounting book. But she wouldn’t give it to Sergio until he liberated her and her family from their respective hells.

  Or unless Ulmann forced her hand—whatever happened first.

  The evening after Moskowitz’s departure to Rio de Janeiro seemed interminable. Batya danced and serviced long into the dawn hours, but when she finally curled up in bed alone, every joint in her body aching, fear kept her awake. The ledger was tucked between her dresser and the wall. If Moskowitz discovered the theft early enough, he would take the train back to search the house. His men would wreak havoc in every room, turn every piece of furniture upside down, empty the contents of every drawer until they found it.

  Batya struggled with dread another full day, until it occurred to her the following night that one place Moskowitz wouldn’t turn upside down was his office. She secured the ledger to her waist with a belt and crept downstairs; if she bumped into anyone, she’d say she was heading to the kitchen to warm a glass of milk against the chill.

  The skeleton key to Moskowitz’s office—similar to the one Ulmann had given her—was hanging where she’d seen it.

  Careful not to make any noise, Batya unlocked the door, slipped into the dark room, and felt her way to the bookcase. She stretched to the highest shelf she could reach and, in the predawn light streaming from the window, tucked the ledger among a row of books.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  From what Batya gathered later, when Moskowitz thundered out the story to Freda, he blamed the theft of the ledger on the train’s conductor or one of his cabin mates. The thief had also relieved him of a bundle of cash, he told Freda—one hundred thousand pesos—and Batya figured that Moskowitz had added this lie to prove to the members of Zwi Migdal his own personal loss in this debacle.

  “They will see who Yitzik is,” he ranted. “Not only did I lose the election, but they’ve fired me from my position as treasurer! No one was ever as good at this job!” He cursed Pedro and the rest of the members. “Imagine they dared call me Yitzik the Pitzik? After all I’ve accomplished—and after all I’ve done for them and for our community? But wait and see. I have big plans. They will all see who Yitzik is. They’ll come crawling back to me, begging me to take over the presidency.”

  When Batya entered his office the day after his return, eager to collect the newspapers and read about Señor Dreyfus, she dared not raise her eyes to the shelf where the ledger was placed. Would Moskowitz notice it up there? Its brown spine was as unadorned as the other volumes, yet, without looking, she knew that it was lighter and thinner than the bindings of the books on either side. If Moskowitz found it in this unlikely spot—and Freda would deny ever placing it there—the search for the true culprit would be focused on the sisters. Batya didn’t want to think what methods Moskowitz’s thugs might use to extract a confession from each of them.

  For now, all she could do was pick up the newspapers and rush back to her chamber to catch up on the news. An article told of someone by the name of Emile Zola who had written an essay in a French newspaper that was causing a great stir in France. Titled “I Accuse,” it denounced the French government for its anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus. Zola’s letter wasn’t included in the newspaper Batya held in her hands, but the article hailed the author for his courage. Batya tore out the article and put it away next to Dreyfus’s picture and caricature.

  Moskowitz’s return from Rio de Janeiro marked a change in the house. He was upgrading his operation, he announced to the sisters. Only the most beautiful and alluring, most creative and productive prostitutes would be entitled to work in his new deluxe brothel, so the girls who were slacking had better shape up.

  He proceeded to acquire the building adjacent to the house, a former mansion that had long been converted into a rooming house with families crowding every floor. In three days all the tenants who had cooked on open fires in the verandas and had strung laundry lines between them were gone—either after accepting cash payments or, if they demanded too much, forcibly evicted by Moskowitz’s thugs. On the fourth day, construction crews arrived to demolish the beehive of temporary interior partitions, remove piles of accumulated debris, and scrape the outside walls of layers of mold and crude paint until the building’s fine original carvings were exposed.

  Over Freda’s objections, Moskowitz engaged Rochel to help him in his plans. Rochel, who had been forlorn and remote for months, seemed revived. She spent hours in Moskowitz’s office, poring with him over blueprints an architect brought over.

  A week later, Rochel approached Batya in the kitchen yard, where Batya was washing her underthings. The winter day was dry and warm, and Batya liked the feel of the sun on her back.

  “Moskowitz is elevating my status,” Rochel whispered.

  Batya turned to look at her. “Elevating it to what?”

  “For the past two years, I’ve been urging him to design a fancy, specialized brothel in which each bedroom would have a motif and the girl working that room would playact a scene based upon it.”

  That was why Moskowitz took Rochel to the theater so often, Batya realized. Rochel had never admitted it. She had kept secrets, just as Batya had.

  Rochel went on. “I convinced him that simply acquiring more girls, when the many he had were already hard for Freda to manage, wasn’t as profitable as converting one of his brothels into a more high-class enterprise.” Rochel smiled, and the twin dimples that Batya hadn’t seen for months returned. “Buenos Aires is hungry for entertainment, not only for sex.” Facing the crisis with his colleagues, she went on to explain, Moskowitz finally saw the value of a unique approach to his business.

  Rochel giggled. “The walls of the African room will be painted with elephants and giraffes. Stuffed monkeys will swivel from tree branches that will create a canopy over the bed. Maybe we’ll even have a real trained monkey observe the action in the room. What do you think?” Without waiting for Batya’s response, she continued to gush. “The girl working there will have a fake gun and will hunt the client, tie him in a net, and gag him until he does as she orders him to.” Rochel’s voice was as animated as in the mornings when she had recounted the plays she had attended. “The Chinese room will have red lanterns, and its walls will depict bubbling springs, with paintings of delicate virgins crouching by the pond, cherry blossoms in their hair. Weeping willow branches will create a canopy over the bed, where a girl wearing a kimono will serve tea—”

  “That’s a Japanese girl,” Batya interrupted, showing off what she, too, had learned from her clients. “Just the first part is Chinese, I think.”

  “They both drink tea from tiny cups and wear kimonos, right?”

  Batya scrubbed the laundry, which was already clean. “The men won’t know the difference.”

  “But it’s a good idea to have a Japanese room, too. I’ll ask the architect to bring books with pictures of Japan so I can see the difference.”

  Batya tried to digest what she was hearing. Would Rochel work in any of the rooms, or would she become the matron running the place? Batya pushed away her apprehensions. “How about an Indian room?” She thought of her necklace with the filigree work and the description she’d heard from a sea captain about that mysterious country. “They wear saris made of long swaths of silk shot through with gold and silver threads.” She turned away from the sink, wiped her hands on a towel, and demonstrated in languid dance movements the allure of peeling such fabric away from her body. “You could also drape silk of all colors of the rainbow all over the room to turn it into a giant tent.”

  Rochel nodded enthusiastically. “That’s why I’m telling you this secret plan. You can work with me, especially now that you’ll be dancing professio
nally. We’ll decorate a room for you based on One Thousand and One Nights.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I heard about it from a storyteller in the market. It will be an Arab desert room, and we’ll have girls trained in belly dancing perform either alone or in a group of three. You can take a few lessons in belly dancing.” Rochel smiled at her. “It’s your chance to raise your status. The new brothel will be the best in all of Buenos Aires and will attract only the wealthiest and most influential clients.”

  Batya lowered her head to hide the horror that was seeping into her heart. For her part in building this new brothel, Rochel would surely be rewarded with becoming the matron. She would receive a share of the profits. Before long, she might be accepted as a member of Zwi Migdal, which had women, too, among its hundreds of pimps.

  Rochel went on. “You know those clients that want to be tortured? The ones Nettie used to whip?” She laughed. “There will be a torture room for them, complete with chains, handcuffs, and leather straps hanging from the wall. Also a cot made of nails.”

  Batya dipped her hands back in the water to hide their tremor. Rochel had always been practical about their circumstances, had always adjusted to make the best of it. Yet this?

  “I got a real French girl, too,” Rochel whispered. “Not even Jewish.”

  Batya turned to look at her. “How?”

  “One of the alfonsos roams churches in the French countryside. In one he saw a well-dressed girl lighting a candle, praying to Jesus and Maria and crying her eyes out. So he knew that she’d lost her virginity.”

  “How did he figure that out?”

  Rochel opened her arms as if the answer was self-evident. “For these Christian girls, it’s the end of the world.”

  “It was for me.” And I’m sure for you, too.

  “It’s not the same. They get hell and fire for eternity, or something like that. This girl must have fallen in love with a boy. She let herself go, and an hour later regretted it. My alfonso offered to help her run away from home to hide her shame.”

  The hair roots rose on Batya’s arms. Losing her virginity in the French countryside to a boy she loved shouldn’t be a girl’s direct route to prostitution in Argentina. “Where is she now?” she asked.

  “In training.” Rochel went on. “The French room will be decorated like a Parisian bordello, with red velvet-covered walls and gilt molding. The girl will speak French and act like a true high-class courtesan.”

  Batya placed her wet lingerie in the wringer so she wouldn’t have to face her friend. The poor French girl was now being beaten and raped in order to coerce her into acquiescence—and Rochel knew it. The compassionate friend Batya had known had been replaced by a cynical pimp wearing Rochel’s face.

  “Do you want to hear what else is different about our new brothel?” Rochel chattered on. “The girls will continue to live in this house but will go to the new house to work, just as if they had a job in a store. They won’t occupy these expensive rooms. We’ll train a few girls for each role. This way the clients will have a selection of girls. What do you think?”

  Batya swallowed. How lucky she was not to have revealed to Rochel her true relationship with Sergio—and her betrayal of Moskowitz.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Spring 1895

  Keyla had finally arrived in Odessa, Sergio reported, and Batya let out air that had been trapped in her lungs all these many months of worry. “Are they ready to sail then?”

  He shook his head. “They are being processed. Getting the passports and travel documents.”

  “Why do they need to wait if the Baron himself is vouching for them?”

  “The Russian authority must issue the passports for the adults and the travel permits for the children. It takes time.”

  How long would Ulmann wait? “Can’t you bribe someone?” Batya asked.

  “We can only push the Russians so far about specific individuals before they start piling on new demands.”

  At least they were all together, and safe. Keyla would have a chance to recover from the arduous journey before taking the next difficult part. She and her children would be fed.

  Batya thought of the ledger, still hiding in Moskowitz’s office. She peeked at it when coming to collect the newspaper and steal discarded documents from the wastebasket. As long as Sergio seemed to be following up on his end of the bargain, she would save her last bargaining chip. In the meantime, he was excited about the competition coming up in a few weeks, recounting past such events, and there was genuine delight in his voice when he spoke about the judges’ surprise when watching an unknown perform so well. If Batya was apprehensive about performing in front of a crowd, the upside was that the rehearsals had taken her out of the house and away from the string of men.

  Ulmann was planning a trip to Montevideo to take special orders and sell his excess inventory. “You could have come with me,” he said, making no attempt to hide his irritation. “Am I to understand that you prefer having many clients over being my one true companion?” His voice was uncharacteristically incensed. “Or are you waiting for a higher bidder?”

  “That’s not it. I—I—”

  He cut her off. “I’m sure that you’ve received offers such as mine before and you’ll receive more in the future, what with all these men around you.” He dropped his face into his hands, and his tone softened. “Am I a fool to hope that you’ll give up all your admirers?”

  Batya was touched that he believed his offer wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime chance for her. “I want to live with you,” she responded, “but also I am very close to my family. I promised to bring them out of Russia. My mother, may her soul rest in peace, is watching me while I let my sisters and their families down—”

  “Your sisters have families? How many people are you talking about?”

  “Nine. But five are children; they don’t eat much—”

  “Nine? And where would you put up nine people? You want that our little apartment should be a home to nine more people?”

  “They can all live in one room.” They did in the shtetl, and many families were similarly crowded in many sections of Buenos Aires.

  “This is Barrio Norte, not the slums of San Telmo or Once.” Ulmann’s tone was indignant. “Who will feed these nine people? Me? And don’t these children need schooling, and clothes and doctors—as if I don’t have three of my own to worry about?” He shook his head in exasperation.

  “They could go live in one of the new colonies,” Batya said.

  “With five children? How many strong men are among your four adults?”

  One strong and one feeble. She looked at her fingers and said nothing. Her heart ached at the thought of having to forgo mothering Vida—or give up Ulmann.

  Despite his annoyance, Ulmann let her calm him down, soothe his ego yet again, and nurture his soul with her murmurs and touches. An hour later, acting as though their conversation hadn’t taken a turn, he showed her new drawings of jewelry and asked her opinion. When he left, he didn’t ask for his key back.

  In the morning, when she was spreading bread crumbs for the pigeons, Batya imagined herself doing so in the Barrio Norte apartment. She would fill the veranda with planters and grow flowers, herbs, and even a few tomato plants. Every day she would dust the furniture, scrub the toilet, and wash the tile floors; she would never assign the tasks to a maid. Everything in that small apartment—she now knew that it had only one bedroom and a separate sitting room—would be hers to take care of alone, symbols of her freedom. In her own kitchen, she would learn to cook for Ulmann, so when he arrived at night after tucking his boys into bed, she would show him her gratitude.

  The dream was hers to pluck like a ripe fruit from a tree. It was so close she could taste it.

  Her time for making a decision was running out.

  Approaching the venue for her first competition, Batya treaded with caution on the unfinished sidewalk, trepidation and excitement fighting inside her. She had
n’t expected to still be in Buenos Aires when spring was pushing winter away, and if she and Sergio won tonight, there would be a second round of competition, then another. When and how was he planning to hide her if he was making her famous?

  From nearby came melodious waltz music, and she hurried toward the ice-skating rink that had opened recently to serve the city’s insatiable hunger for amusement. Glikel, who had been invited to a private party of city officials, had reported about this miraculous arena. The officials had closed the venue one afternoon for their exclusive use and requested that Moskowitz send them polacas. Having no experience with ice, the men assumed that these prostitutes who came from snowy countries would know how to glide on it. Glikel told the sisters later that someone had attached blades to her shoes and pushed her onto the ice, where she kept sliding and falling. She showed the sisters the blue and purple bruises on her ample hips and thighs, which had cushioned her bones and protected them from cracking. Unfortunately, they hadn’t protected her from the disappointment of the clients, who sneered at her failure and sent her back without the gift of cash she had expected.

  Batya peeked through the open side of the warehouse-like structure. Several well-dressed people glided inside a fenced area. The swooshing scrape of their blades on the ice accompanied the music. She bent down and snaked her hand through the railing to touch the ice. The skin of her fingers stuck to it; after years of being away from it, she had forgotten that it could burn.

  She straightened and rushed on to her appointment. Rather than pick her up, Sergio had secured Moskowitz’s permission for Batya to go by herself to the costume store. It would take two hours to get her dressed and ready.

  Batya walked into a shop filled with gowns made of layers of flowing chiffon and dotted with glittering sequins.

  The shop matron’s eyes raked over Batya. “So you are Señor Rosenberg’s new metziah?” she sneered, and then, as if Batya weren’t around, said to her helper, “Where else would he find a dancer but in a brothel? Take her to the storage room so our good clients don’t see her trying on our dresses, or we won’t be able to sell them.”