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As promised, Anyu kept away from the workshop, even though her rising curiosity made her wonder how Isaac had crafted the jewelry.

The Mandelburgs were Jewish, Anyu was told, which was something new to her; she had never heard of Judaism, only Buddhism.

They didn’t burn incense sticks like the Buddhists did, nor set up an altar in their kitchen for the Goddess of Compassion or the God of Fortune with an overflowing, enviable potbelly.

In fact, they gave her the impression that they were discreet about their religion.

The men rarely wore their yarmulkes in the showroom when there were customers, and they only conversed in Chinese and, occasionally, poor English.

They worked every day during the week. On Fridays before sundown, they closed the shop, and the aunts set up a table with two candles, a glass of wine, and a loaf of bread.

One of them lit the candles, covered her eyes with her hand, and recited by heart a blessing in a language Anyu couldn’t understand.

Then they all drank the wine and ate while Aunt Hannah, who always complained about something, grumbled that there was no place to attend services in the city and that finding kosher food was as hard as hunting for unicorns.

Two weeks passed. None of the customers Anyu talked to purchased anything.

Selling jewelry was harder than she had thought.

Conversing was a chore, and willing strangers to spend money was as challenging as sledding uphill in the dead of winter in Harbin.

She learned to follow the customers as they browsed, pay compliments, and even smile, as Esther had demonstrated, but she felt like a sycophant and was bored to her bones.

But she would sell something; she still had plenty of time.

In the evening, after the shop was closed, when she was free, Anyu strolled down the street in front of the shop.

She passed a handbag shop, an apothecary, and an emporium selling wooden puzzles, biscuits in tin containers, and cloth tiger toys.

At a stall selling newspapers, she scanned for news about Harbin but found nothing.

She remained in good spirits, enthralled by the vibrant street scenes.

This was what she had been longing for, a different world from the train station.

Her ears full of the squeaks of rickshaws and the honks of cars, she peeked at long-robed vendors selling pungent incense sticks, artists demonstrating paper-cutting skills, and men hawking mouth-watering steamy buns filled with minced meat.

In front of a towering building, through a glass window, she saw some foreigners sitting at a café, sipping a brownish sludge that resembled sewer water—she wondered who would be so foolish to drink something like that.

A delicious smell wafted toward her, enticing her.

Following it, she found stalls selling bowls of wontons and noodles and stands displaying skewers of barbecued squid sizzling with grease.

She had never tasted squid before, and she would have liked to take a bite.

But she had only nine dollars; she decided to pass to conserve money.

Then, looking at the fashionable women in long fitted dresses in rickshaws, Anyu felt a wave of sadness.

Mother’s joyous face appeared in her mind.

She saw her waving the basket of quail eggs, shouting, Dinner!

And her poised look while interpreting at the night market.

And her warm body snuggling next to her on the kang , her rapturous voice spinning tales of animals while the snowstorm whipped the frozen land outside their room. Oh, Mother.

Anyu missed her—her face, her voice, her hands, her touches, her smiles, and her sighs.

She missed the way Mother had held her face and asked, Does it hurt?

She missed watching her cut her nails with the kitchen cleaver and wash her hair.

She missed seeing her munch on juicy garlic cloves and slurp rich bone soups with radishes.

Mother was the only person in the world who loved her, cared for her, tolerated her, and worried about her; she was her sky, her earth, her home.

And now she was gone. Anyu felt like crying.

Isaac’s shop was not a home; she didn’t feel she belonged there.

Isaac was warm to her, but the others found a way to build an invisible wall of alienation between them.

Esther hardly spoke to her; the twin aunts, Aunt Hannah and Aunt Katya, held a united front to make her feel unwelcome at mealtime, chatting in a blast of Yiddish, giving no indication of their awareness of her existence; the uncle often growled at the sight of her; and Samuel hardly acknowledged her after she had refused to lend him money.

“How’s your day?” Isaac asked her while she was at the counter.

Isaac usually stayed in his workshop, rarely entering the showroom during business hours.

When he did visit, he kept a low profile, subdued and quiet.

Today, he had come to meet the customers whose ring he had repaired, and in his patient voice, he had answered their questions and described to them the types of diamond cuts, the rose cut, calibre cut, pear-shaped cut, and marquise cut.

At the end of the meeting, the customers placed an order for a necklace and matching earrings.

“I still haven’t sold anything,” she said.

“Don’t worry. You’ll make a sale.” Isaac left.

Anyu stared at his back until he disappeared, and her mood lifted.

Isaac was a kind man, and he cared about her.

She wished he would stay, and she wanted to talk to him and listen to his voice.

She scanned the jewelry in the glass cases, all the beauties he had crafted: Edwardian earrings with intricate filigree inlaid with sapphires and rubies, Art Deco rope necklaces strung with simple circles and triangles, flapper rings with asymmetrical designs, popular charms with Egyptian motifs such as enamel scarabs, pyramids, and sphinxes. An idea struck her.

In the attic, Anyu took out her pencil and sheets of paper she had brought from Harbin and began to draw bejeweled animals from her imagination: a ruby-eyed Siberian tiger set on an Edwardian pin, a platinum forest fox mounted with studs of diamonds, a necklace with a red-crowned crane encapsulated within a triangle, and a cornucopia brooch encrusted with a constellation of emeralds and sapphires.

She drew fervently, fantasizing that one of them would turn into real jewelry someday.

She thought of Isaac’s Fabergé egg again, its delicate image and its ethereal beauty. She was not supposed to mention it or ask, but now more than ever, she wished she could see it.

One month passed, and hard as she tried, Anyu failed to make a sale.