When she heard Papa’s voice, she could not think: He is a prisoner. I am an employee of Hurrem Sultan. She simply thought, Hide, hide, HIDE!

IT feels like one of those rainy days in Salonika. The downpour blurs faces, trees, houses; you peer through the mist but everyone inhabits a sphere of haze that is all their own.

They have climbed the prison stairs, left the building, not seeing, not hearing. The late afternoon sun splashes golden puddles across the grass, but Bilhah can neither stop her trembling, nor can she exit her orb of mist.

Elvira grips her arm. The pressure hurts, but the pain does not touch her. There is only sunshine, no rain at all, but they are divided into separate compartments of the world.

“Come, let us return to the work tent,” Elvira says. “You must try to clear your mind. Turn your thoughts to the correspondence and the reports, and it will calm you.”

She looks up at Elvira and blinks.

“Come along now,” Elvira says.

She must respond.

She opens her mouth, tries, tries to unlock her throat. “I… I will come soon. First, let me walk.”

Elivra nods and Bilhah walks away.

Where else is there to go but to walk around the wall? The remnant, the fallen boulders, the piles of new rock brought up from the quarry. The sight calms her. The noise of metal ringing on stone drowns the words and thoughts that are a wind through her mind.

She stops to rest, tipping her face to the sun. The day is getting cooler. Each morning she wakes to the sound of the selichot prayers wafting into her open window. The chant of Ashamnu, bagadnu.

The year is almost at its close. Time flows like a river.

She shakes her head to herself. Time flows, but some things feel like they are happening now. They are not dulled by the passing of the months, or even years. When she heard Papa’s voice, she could not think: He is a prisoner. I am an employee of Hurrem Sultan. She simply thought, Hide, hide, HIDE!