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She panicked. She would not be able to leave through the front door.

Turning around, she raced back to the bedroom, saw the balcony with a low, curved wall, and dashed toward it.

Leaning over the wall, she looked down. The distance from the balcony to the ground was daunting.

She had already lost her pinkie; did she wish to lose an arm or a leg?

Mr. Du’s and Miss Liao’s voices grew louder. They were coming up the stairs.

Holding her bag, Anyu climbed over the wall, took a deep breath, and jumped.

She landed on her feet. There was a crack as though her bones had snapped and pain shot through her legs like arrows, straight to her pelvis, up her spine, and to her neck. Flat on the ground, she panted, stifling a groan. Mustering her strength, she dug out the matchbox and took another pill.

When she felt the blissful ease coursing through her body, she picked up the bowler hat from the ground and got up on her shaking feet. Her good hand gripping the bag with the necklace, blood drenching her glove, she limped past a stand of cricket cages and an insect vendor who gaped at her.

It took her one hour of limping and lumbering down the lanes before she finally arrived at the Mandelburgs’ shop.

Daylight was slipping away. The shop was closed for the day, but inside she could see four Sikh guards with pistols and Isaac speaking to Mr. Walters.

Not wanting to attract attention, Anyu went to the back door; it was locked.

She knocked, but no one answered. Her head woozy from the debilitating walk, she leaned against the wall to rest and then went to the building’s front door.

Mr. Walters and his men had already left.

So she knocked again; Esther answered, holding a cleaning rag.

“Why are you wearing my father’s hat?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you later. Here’s your necklace.” Anyu unbuckled the leather bag and took out the gold necklace. Her right arm was stiff; she nearly dropped the bag.

“You got it!” Esther’s face, infused with joy, was so satisfying to see.

“I told you so. Now you have it, from my hand to yours.”

“How did you do that?” Esther held the necklace, streaks of golden light reflecting on her face.

“I’ll tell you someday. Where’s your father?”

“In the workshop. Are you all right? You’re so pale. You look like you’re about to die.”

“I’m tired, that’s all. I’d rather go to our room.” She took a step but stumbled. Esther reached out to steady her, inadvertently bumping into her hand. Anyu cried out. Trembling, she took off the glove; the bandage was soaked with blood.

Esther gasped. “You’re bleeding.”

“I have pills. I’ll be fine. Can we go to the attic?”

“Yes. Come, take my arm. I’ll help you up.”

Esther looked different. Anyu had never seen her like this—it was almost as if she were trying to take care of her. Anyu took her arm.

“Let me take your bag and your hat. You’re shaking. You must have lost much blood. You might want to watch your steps. Here. Take it easy, but my goodness! I still can’t believe it!” Esther said, opening the door to the hallway.

The moment Anyu stepped inside, she could hear the angry voices of Isaac and the uncle and Samuel coming from the workshop, speaking Yiddish.

Anyu looked at Esther.

“Father says he needs a successor, and he can’t be a gambler,” Esther translated.

Before Anyu could speak, the workshop’s door flung open, and Isaac came out, wiping his hands on his apron; his face, even in the gloomy hallway, looked dark with fury.

“What are you two up to?” he asked.

“We’re going to our room, Father,” Esther said, steering Anyu away.

“Stop right there. Why are you holding my hat and bag?”

“I’ll put them back.”

“I said stop right there. What’s wrong with your hand, Anyu?”

Anyu flinched, unsettled by Isaac’s anger. “I lost my pinkie.”

“What did you say?”

Esther hurried to explain—Mr. Du’s visit, the missing snowflake necklace that was worth seven hundred dollars, and Anyu’s decision to retrieve it.

“Am I hearing it correctly that you got shot and you lost a pinkie for a necklace?” Isaac exclaimed.

“I can still be a jeweler.”

Isaac threw up his hands. “What is going on? Samuel, Esther, and now you. Am I the last person in this family to know what happens? What else is being kept from me? You, Anyu, you have this fine, remarkable spirit. It’s admirable.

Why don’t you put that to good use? I’ve explained it to you. I can’t train you.”

And then, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her, he broke away and went to the kitchen, where the aunts were emptying the ash from the coal stove.

“Let’s go.” Esther held her, helping her to the stairs.

Anyu felt dizzy. Leaning on Esther, she took one stair at a time and found her way to the attic. The short climb exhausted her, and she felt feverish. Dropping on her mattress, she fumbled for the matchbox, but it slipped from her grasp. Esther caught it, opened it, and handed her a pill.

“I think your father is angry with me,” Anyu said.

“He’s angry with all of us.” Esther sat near her.

“He’s heartbroken.” A master jeweler without a successor. She could feel Isaac’s sadness, and she wished there was something she could do for him.

“You might want to get some rest. It’s going to take you at least six months to recover.”

“One month.”

“You have all the time you need.”

“You’ll let me stay? Without making a sale?”

“I’m not a charitable person, Anyu. I still believe you’ll be better off staying with others. We’re stateless Jews! But I think it’s good for us if you stay. We need you. Get some rest, Anyu.” Esther rose.

Anyu smiled. “No, don’t go. Talk to me. Tell me about you and your family. Did your father have a jewelry shop in Russia?”

“It was more than a shop. It was an entire building near the Neva River. He was the lead designer of my family’s brand.”

“I’ve always wanted to know: Where’s your mother?”

“She died when I was ten. Poisoned.” Esther sat down.

She remembered vividly the poisoning—the arsenic had been surreptitiously added to a spicy soup that was her father’s favorite, she said.

But that evening he was late from work and missed dinner, so the rest of the family ate the soup instead.

Esther’s grandmother and mother had ingested too much arsenic and took their last breath in the house.

Esther and Samuel were very sick, too, but recovered.

The culprit was never discovered, Esther said, but she believed it was one of her father’s adversaries who had lost a commission to him.

Despite that, Esther had been happy in St. Petersburg.

At fifteen, she had fallen in love with her neighbor Sal, but he was killed by a mob in the square and shrapnel had pierced her leg, leaving her wounded for life.

During the revolution, her grandfather and the uncle on her father’s side were killed.

She lost touch with her cousins and her extended family.

Then her father had to flee the country, and she followed him with her brother, stumbling from one city to another, living in the shadows, wasting away her youth in the wildland and backwoods.

All the endless drudgery, selling jewelry, looking after her brother, putting food on the table.

“I have no future in Shanghai as a single, stateless woman,” Esther said.

“I want to get married. I’m twenty-three, but I feel ancient.

” Ideally, she’d marry a British man or an American so she could have a valuable passport, ending her stateless status, but her leg had turned her future bleak, and her long hours at the shop limited her social opportunities.

“British. Oh, that’s why you always read D. H. Lawrence’s novel at bedtime.”

“I don’t really understand it. My English is poor.”

“I can teach you.”

“You speak English, too? Anyway, I just want to find a husband, and it doesn’t matter how old he is. I can’t be too choosy. The pool of Jews is limited in Shanghai.”

She had had only one suitor so far, a young British officer who had invited her to a party but never called again.

Anyu loved talking to Esther, loved hearing her thoughts, loved the feeling that there was no rancor between them.

“Do you want to get married, too, Anyu?” Esther asked.

She shook her head. That was what Mother had wanted. “I just want to be a jeweler.”

“You are not going to change your mind, are you?”

No. Neither could she forget the beautiful egg that she wanted desperately to see but must not mention again. But Esther just reminded her of something most important—she had to do whatever it took to persuade Isaac to train her.