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Torah.
    “Daydreaming again,” Mama said, giving Becky a nudge. “Go get the bread I made, and the cheese and fruit. Bena, go drink some milk. You won’t have fresh milk again until you get to America, and by then you’ll be so skinny and ugly that no man will want you, unless you fatten up now.”
    Becky giggled. Bena was the sleek, plump, pretty one, and it was unlikely that the voyage would make much difference. All the boys in their village were after Bena. It was she, Rebecca, who was a scrawny little vons, twenty years old and looking sixteen, nothing to speak of on top and not much more below, and such tiny little bones that Papa could put his hands around her waist and his fingers would meet. Their Mama traveled around the countryside in her wagon, selling calico and woolen materials to the peasant women, and she had saved the best of all for Bena’s hamper.
    “You’re a lucky girl,” Mama said to Bena. “Most girls go to America with hardly more than the dress on their backs, but you have everything you’ll need for years and years. A young man will be happy to marry a girl who’s not only pretty but won’t cost him a penny for clothes. And who has her wedding sheets so beautifully embroidered.”
    For they were there, at the very bottom of the hamper: the beautiful wedding sheets, the finest linen, a fortune they cost. There were pillowcases too, everything made over the years by Mama and Bena.
    How lucky Bena was, and she didn’t even seem to care. She had always had everything she wanted. It was Becky who had climbed trees when they were children, to pick the sweetest fruit, and Bena who was content to wait until they dropped on the ground. It was Becky who ran down the road when she saw their Mama’s wagon in the distance, excited to find out what stories she had to tell of the far-off places, even if they were only farms that were not so far away at all. It was Bena who helped Mama count the money, and Becky who begged for stories. Bena had a pet cat, a white one, while Becky indiscriminately loved every cat in the neighborhood; but Bena was leaving her pet cat behind and didn’t even seem to care. It was Becky who had dreamed all her life of going to America, and Bena who was going. No one had ever bothered to make beautiful clothes for Becky’s wedding because Becky was still growing, Mama said. But she was twenty years old! They all still thought she was a child because she was so small.
    Bena finished the last stitch on her new wool dress and Mama heated the heavy iron in the fireplace to press out the wrinkles. Papa and Isaac came in and washed their hands, and then they all sat down to eat their last meal together as a family.
    When they finished the meal the men went out in front of the house where it was cool to rest and talk, and Bena took a bath. “Your last bath until you reach America,” Mama said. “Soap yourself twice.”
    Then she put on her new dress and the fine, new leather shoes Mama had bought to go with it. Becky watched Bena brushing her long, shiny hair, and wondered what she was thinking. She was so quiet. Well, it was a moment both happy and sad.
    During the long trip in Mama’s wagon Mama treated Bena like a piece of glass. Don’t touch this, don’t touch that, don’t get yourself dirty. She wouldn’t even let Bena peel a piece of fruit; Becky had to do it for her. Bena sat stiffly in the back of the wagon, her hat on her head, the hamper strapped in beside her, looking straight ahead as if she were dead. Why, I would be singing, Becky thought.
    None of them had ever seen anything so enormous as that ship—except Mama, of course, who had seen such a ship take away all her children but these two and Adam, who had been the first, the one who ran away. Imagine, Becky thought, he ran away and had no idea what he was going to find! She hardly remembered him because he had started running away when he was nine years old, first to another town, then to relatives, then