Francis Winston read the report with his usual mix of jealousy and pride. The truth was that he missed his daughter terribly. He wanted to bring her home, to hear firsthand her tales of Cappadocian fairy-chimneys and Palmyrene temples—but there were other considerations. In Sophia’s absence, the mood of their household had improved considerably. Julia had, at long last, allowed him back into her bed. And there were several delicate matters of business approaching; he must go to Washington, and court the good opinions of dull and odious men. Sophia’s return, he decided, would have to wait for a more opportune moment. In the meantime, if the Williamses were to find a reputable native guide for her, then Francis would declare himself satisfied.
Julia, however, was horrified, both at the thought of Sophia traveling unchaperoned—a native guide hardly counted!—and at her daughter’s transfiguration into a Wild West showgirl. On the other hand, there was no good way to enforce the contract if the Williamses wished to be elsewhere. She might convince Francis to cut off Sophia’s funds and order her home for good—but then what would she do with the girl? Jail her in her room, and resume their battle of wills? The thought alone made her inexpressibly weary.
And so Julia, too, agreed to the severing of the contract—but with one condition. If Sophia wished to make a spectacle of herself among heathens and savages, then she must do so under her assumed identity, and leave her family’s reputation untouched. The Winston name—and all the duties and expectations that it encompassed—would wait for her at America’s shore.
* * *
This must be a sin, Kreindel Altschul thought.
It was the summer of 1906, and Kreindel lay stretched upon the bare stone floor of the women’s balcony at the Forsyth Street Synagogue, watching the dust motes that floated past in the light from the high windows. She’d had no trouble at all sneaking into the synagogue; the women’s door was in the alley off Hester, far from the main entrance, and from there it was a quick walk down a dim hallway to the balcony staircase. A small notebook and a sharpened pencil waited in her skirt pockets. Now she only had to stay out of sight, and wait for the boys to arrive.
Which sin in particular was it? she wondered. Could it really be called trespassing if she belonged to the synagogue, and her father was the rabbi? Then again, her father thought she was in their apartment, tending to her chores. If he were to ask at supper what she’d done during the day, she’d have to lie—and that would be a sin. Except he never asked her questions at supper anymore, only said the blessings and ate as quickly as possible, then shut himself in the bedroom, the key scraping as it turned in the lock. Left to herself, Kreindel would wash the dishes and put them away, then lie down on her pallet and watch the glow from beneath his door. Sometimes she could hear muttering in what sounded like Hebrew, but was nothing she recognized from the prayers she knew. She’d watch and listen, waiting for him to blow out the lamp, but she always drifted off to sleep before it happened.
On Saturday mornings she walked with him to the synagogue and chose a seat in the front of the women’s balcony, the better to hear him. His sermons had taken on a new ferocity, of late. Angrily he’d denounce the Tsar for his wickedness, the Reform movement for its faithlessness, the Bundists for their atheism, the Zionists for attempting to usurp the role of the Almighty. It is up to Him alone to send us the Messiah and restore Jerusalem, and gather all the exiles of Israel into the Holy Land, he’d thunder—and she’d listen, entranced by the voice he’d hidden from her all week, and the certainty in his words.
Then, back across the street to their apartment for the Sabbath afternoon—but now Kreindel could read the Tsene-rene on her own, and so they spent the hours apart, in silent study. At last the sun would set, and they’d light the braided Havdalah candle and extinguish it in the wine—and then he was gone again, into the bedroom. He always managed to open and close the door when her back was turned so that she never caught sight of the room itself.
What are you doing in there, another child might have asked, or even, Why don’t you talk to me anymore? But Kreindel was trained in her own ways, and she knew that one couldn’t solve a mystery by merely asking questions. Nor could she simply pick or break the bedroom lock, for that would be a betrayal. And besides, she didn’t merely want to see what her father kept beyond the door. She wanted to understand it. And so she had come to the women’s balcony, heart pounding, waiting to learn.
At last, from the sanctuary below there came the shuffle of unwilling footsteps as a dozen young boys took their places in the front pews. And then, her father’s voice, brisk and businesslike: Open your primers, please, to lesson four.
The boys hated their Hebrew lessons, each and every one. It felt
