Fortuna turns to her with fire in her eyes. “A teacher has to be an example. And you are no example to my daughter”

Before Becca has even stepped out of the sunlight and over the dim threshold, Allegra runs up to her, and lets out a stream of words. Becca stops, kneels down to meet Allegra at eye level.

Wonder of wonders. The words have gone from black ink in a dictionary to living, breathing expressions of, in this case, worry. Where had she been? Had she been out alone? Mama was furious. Someone had come to see her, and no one had known what to say.

“There was someone to see me.” Becca reaches out and brushes the little girl’s dark hair from her eyes. “About the school, yes? A man?”

“Yes. And he sat here for a while, but then said you should go and see him in the Alliance school, tomorrow.”

Becca stands up and holds out her hand. Allegra wraps her thin fingers around it. “Well, I’m home now.”

Home. Did she really just call this home? How patently, utterly absurd.

Allegra pulls her inside. She runs to the kitchen and pours her an earthenware cup of rosewater. Becca drinks, thirstily. Even in the winter, the sun parches the throat.

She is sitting at the table in the living room, cooling down, when Fortuna appears, arms crossed.

“Where were you?” Her voice is quiet, but insistent.

Should she answer? She does not owe this woman an answer. She suddenly feels like saying something outrageous. The Ladino phrase lies deliciously on her lips: hadras i baranas, what a fuss about nothing. For four years she lived in Paris and answered to no one but the director, who trusted each of them implicitly. Why, now, should she explain her whereabouts to some illiterate housewife?

But something in her relents. “I went to commission” — forge? — “a new passport.”

“Alone.”

It is not a question.

Fortuna wrings her hands and shakes her head. “We would have done this with you. If you would have simply had the patience. It is not something that we do, a woman going out alone. And it is not a good example for the children.”

Is there something shameful about a woman going out alone? Negotiating, showing that she is capable. That it is not only a man who can manage in the world. Becca feels her cheeks start to burn.

She claps twice. “The sooner it was taken care of, the sooner I can move on to the reason why I came — to teach.”

She catches Allegra’s eye and with a flick of her finger summons the little girl. “Would you like to go to school? To learn how to read and write?”

Fortuna’s lips are tight, her fingers are clenched. “What do you mean?”

“My little school. I look forward to having Allegra as one of my first students.”

“Your students? In your school?”

“Of course. We will have an excellent time together.”

Fortuna turns to her with fire in her eyes. “A teacher has to be an example. And you are no example to my daughter.”