JEWELS

MILK RAN DOWN HER BLOUSE AS HENRIETTE CRIED AND cried, having rejected Eva’s breast again and again, yet still obviously twisting with hunger. Eva walked as quickly as possible from inside the walls of the convent, trembling. When she’d fled her home with Abraham still inside it, she had looked back only once. There was the house, the home she had so desperately wanted, and suddenly it had looked like a toy house, built for no more than children’s play, a gift which would ultimately be packed away if it wasn’t first violently destroyed. As she walked away from the convent now, where she had spent the past hour visiting the charity girls, acting as if she had nothing else in mind besides introducing her baby and doing a bit of good, she turned around again and again, but all she saw were ordinary homes, dogs lying belly-up in the sunlight, and—as she came closer to the plaza—wagons of goods heading out on the trail, out toward neighboring pueblos.

Here was business. Despite life’s wild exterior here—its remoteness, its lawlessness—here was a sturdy and hard-won routine; how had she ever believed that Abraham could remain a part of it? He was a gambler and he would keep on gambling with both of their lives until there was nothing left of either of them besides their rumored beginnings. A wagon blocked the Shein Brothers’ store and she clutched Henriette as she wove her way forward through the flies and burros and oxen, terrified of seeing those two wretched men, moving too quickly to be afraid of anything but stopping, and there in the doorway, calling out in stilted Spanish, supervising the crates being loaded onto wagons, was not Meyer, as she had expected, but Levi Ehrenberg.

She stopped suddenly and realized that because of where she was standing, if she didn’t take another step, he wouldn’t be able to see her. She allowed herself the sight of him and was silenced by the way he moved; she had never really seen him move before. And she found that not only was she silenced but that Henriette was as well. They breathed together, Eva and her daughter, taking in the scent of animals and men at work, taking in the view. He of course still had a limp, and he seemed to compensate by gesturing wildly with his hands. He was a hard worker, she knew, but it was still somehow surprising. She found herself moving forward without having made the decision to do so, but still he didn’t see her. He didn’t see her until she was right there in front of him and Henriette let out a cry.

They stood in the shade between the sweating animals and the overheated store, between the workers hurrying back and forth, shouting in German and Spanish. She wondered how her daughter, not three months old, could weigh so heavily on her arms.

“Mrs. Shein,” he said, and if she didn’t notice his ears turn red, she wouldn’t have known he was surprised. “I see you’ve had a healthy baby. You must be very happy.”

“Happy,” she said. “Oh yes.”

“Is it a girl, then?”

She nodded excessively. “I am impressed that you can tell. When they’re this young it’s almost impossible.”

“I must confess that I’d heard.”

“Did you?” The idea that anyone knew she was still here in town, let alone about her baby girl—it struck her as somehow amazing. She had felt so invisible, as if she’d been buried alive after all.

“And what do you call her?”

Nine o’clock in the morning, and the heat of the day was already creeping up her aching spine and onto her baby’s fair skin. Nine o’clock, and her husband had returned as a hunted, angry animal, the most dangerous kind, and still, Eva Shein found herself unable to convey a true sense of panic. She wondered if it was in fact this perverse calm that, despite everything, had thus far enabled her to survive.

She pictured stepping off a steamship in Bremen and falling into her parents’ arms. She could feel Mother’s pliant skin, Father’s worsted wool; she could see their measured strides as they guided her toward the carriage. They would tuck her into an unchanged feather bed. Days of familiar meals and new conversation would ease the past, the pain.

That is not how it would go.

There was nothing for her there besides a small, sharp gravestone, her own craven silence between broken smiles. Years of waking and knowing that nothing about her sister’s life and death could ever be forgotten.

“I was about to do a foolish thing,” she heard herself say aloud.

“Is that right?”

“Do you know what I was just about to do?”

He shook his head—ignoring, for a moment, the workers’ slowed pace.

“I was about to take myself to the post and send word to my family that I would like to come home. I was thinking of asking them to help me. Isn’t that foolish?”

He said only, “But this is your home.”

She shook her head and it was as if, with that single movement, a lock had turned inside of her. “It can’t be.” Tears fell quietly, landing on Henriette’s wispy hair.

“I see,” he said, and then he gasped, as if he’d nearly forgotten something. It seemed such a foreign sound for him, so skittish and alarmed. “I have something,” he said. “A crate arrived for you.”

“A crate? But—when?”

“I apologize—it seemed too important to send with someone to the house, and I just—I couldn’t bring it myself yet, you see I—”

“Please,” she said almost sternly, “I understand why you haven’t come yourself.”

“It’s from home,” he said, “the postmark,” as if admitting a quiet truth: that home would never be here after all. He waved her closer to the store, but she would not go inside. “Wait here,” he said, and she stood under the awning, in a square of shade. “I’ll be quick.”

She hadn’t stopped looking out for those two men, but even if she didn’t see those particular men, it seemed that every face on the street was a veiled threat. She hummed to Henriette until Levi returned with a small crate in addition to a letter bearing Alfred’s familiar and careful penmanship. She tucked the letter into the waistband as he pushed the crate up against the adobe bricks of the building. They both looked at it for a moment as if they were waiting for it to speak.

“Thank you,” she said.

He blurted: “You aren’t going to open it? But how can you resist opening the letter at the very least? I would tear open anything I received from abroad.”

“You would do no such thing,” she said, trying not to sound as terrified as she felt, because she suspected what was wrapped so carefully, what had traversed the mighty sea and land and had finally arrived for her. She knew that if she so much as opened the letter, she might sink into the ground and never leave this square of shade. And more than anything, even more than wanting to pry open the crate, to pull the wooden planks aside—what she wanted, what she needed, was to move. “There isn’t time,” she said.

“Are you actually leaving?”

For a moment she thought he might draw her close, and she nodded as if to give him permission.

“Well,” he said, “I don’t think you should.”

She knew at once that he did not mean it and that—though he did look pained and she could feel him leaning into her, just a shade away from touch—something had significantly changed.

“Please,” she said, “please. We’re not in a sickroom anymore.”

“No,” he said, “we’re not. You’re right.”

“We must say only what we mean.”

“That,” he said, “I’m afraid I cannot do.”

A cloud shifted and the sun was suddenly in her eyes; she shaded her face and retreated from it and further toward him, until she could breathe in the very sweat from his neck, the early morning coffee on his breath. “Who is your betrothed?” she whispered.

Like the moment when she’d given him the berries, she saw he was genuinely surprised. “Who told you?” he asked.

“Nobody told me anything.” And she was happy this was the truth. She realized she would not have wanted to know. “I can tell,” she admitted. “I can see you’ve changed. You see,” she began, and—even though they were close enough to touch—she had to look away, “I don’t think you know how well I understand you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

He bit his lip and she wanted to reach out and place her shaking fingers on either side of his face. “Please just tell me.”

“Sarah,” he said. “Her name is Sarah.”

“Not Julie?”

Levi looked at her as if remembering, for one brief moment, exactly how far he had come. And then he shook his head with a look she had never seen on his remarkable face, an expression between bashfulness and pride. “She is coming from Las Cruces and, before that, Frankfurt.”

“You are engaged?”

He nodded, and she swallowed, tasting the dust in the air. Do you love her? she asked, but only with her eyes. She knew he couldn’t answer even if he’d heard. It was an impossible question if only because, in all likelihood, this was an arranged marriage and he probably didn’t know. Come with me, she wanted to say. I want you to.

She let herself stare openly, both because she could not look away and because she was, frankly, desperate. She inched closer to her crate, touched it, just barely, with the tip of her boot. He returned her look but just barely. He cleared his throat before glancing around, determined that no one should see them standing so close together. She gave Henriette a tiny squeeze. “So,” she said softly, “you have found a German bride.” She knew that he was a man of his word and he’d given that word to a girl named Sarah. He wouldn’t be coming with her, and it was only then, when she understood that this engagement was absolute, that she could admit to herself just how much she wished he would. And, much in the way that she knew that he was yet another person she would never see again, she realized that if she looked at him long enough, he would somehow understand the urgency of her situation.

A full minute seemed to pass before he finally asked, “Have you spoken to Meyer?” She saw then that he had heard all the rumors about Abraham and now he knew they were true.

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “As I stand here, as I’m talking to you, I realize that I can’t.”

“Your husband left here not an hour ago. They had words. Meyer hasn’t come out of his office since then; the last thing he needed was any further disturbance. He has just returned from a doctor in Las Cruces.”

“You speak as if he is ill.”

Levi Ehrenberg shook his head for a moment, as a hostile smile played on his lips. “Didn’t you know? They beat him. The men your husband owes.” When he registered Eva’s obvious confusion, he looked around before placing his hand on her back, ushering her quickly inside. “Where does he think you are now?” he asked. “Your husband?”

“I don’t know,” Eva said, suddenly flustered, her eyes on her crate just outside the door. “I don’t know.”

“Where does he think you are?” he repeated, and her heart beat brutally. She was actually going to do this. She was doing it.

“I’m afraid I need your help,” she said. And then she told him everything.

He didn’t ask if she thought she might reconsider. He didn’t question her at all. He went outside for a good long while and when he came back he looked regretful. “Come,” he said. “Let’s be quick.”

He picked up her crate and carefully loaded it onto a freight wagon, without asking her a single question. He pointed to a broad-faced Mexican who was sitting still in the driver’s seat, loosely holding the reins. “Feliz will get you as far as Mesilla. You’ll join a coach west from there.” He reached into his coat and produced a piece of torn paper scribbled with a name and address. “This family,” he said, pointing to the paper. “I’ve heard they are generous, that they employ fellow countrymen. They own a large store.” She realized that he had been waiting for this moment, for a time when she might come to him asking for his help; he had, in fact, prepared. “They say San Francisco is beautiful,” he said. And then he placed the paper in her palm; he did not let go of her hand. “You’ll live in a city by the sea.” He looked apologetic for a moment, shaking his head, as if he knew better than to ignore the harsher realities with someone as astute as she. “That is,” he admitted, “if you can bear the journey that long.” He let her hand go and asked if she had money, as if he was afraid to find out.

She looked around, and, out of necessity, handed Levi Ehrenberg her daughter. He took her in his arms with extreme caution; it was clear he had never held a baby. And between the wagon and the storeroom, which, for the moment, was empty of workers, she lifted up her heavy skirt, which she had not taken off for weeks because she’d feared needing to do what she was doing right now—escaping with nothing but the clothes on her body. She had hoped Abraham would return a new and better man, but she had also stitched the dark fabric carefully with jewels, her jewels, her only chance at freedom.

“Eva,” he said, and she heard him say her name for the very first time. It was difficult to guess which he found more shocking—the fact of the jewels or the fact that she was lifting her skirts for him in the open air, that nothing stood between him and her flesh besides a worn-thin, yellow petticoat.

“I need to make a sale,” she said, letting the fabric fall.

“No,” he said heatedly. “No.” He took Eva’s shoulders in his hands; he even let his hands travel down the length of her arms, as if she was cold and he was warming her. But then he looked down at Henriette, lodged between them, a keen reminder of where Eva Shein ended and Levi Ehrenberg began. “Don’t give them up so easily.”

“I would hardly call this easy.”

He handed her an envelope thick with cash.

“I can’t,” she said, but she didn’t mean it. She reached out for the money and his hand and for one precise moment she had both.