They married the following Sunday in the village church and then crossed the ocean by ship. Though from the moment they climbed on board, Klara wanted to stand on the deck and watch the world change, she couldn't wait to get to their tiny cabin where she could be alone with Drago for the first time. The tension and heat that had begun to build during Drago's bath had mounted in the ensuing days, so when they'd finally stowed their luggage and retreated into privacy, Klara felt brave enough to peel off her clothes and stand naked in front of him. She didn't know what she expected, but what followed was even better. Drago smiled, tucked a loose curl behind her ear, and kissed her. They climbed into the berth and let the waves buoy them up and down for many days.

After the long journey at sea, they landed and traveled the new continent by horse and wagon driven by a man with one arm. When their journey was nearly over, they paused under a canopy of maple trees just a few miles from Thirsty. Here they unloaded from the hired man's wagon, rented a mule and hitch, piled their belongings high in the bed, and continued on. As soon as they were alone, Klara bowed her head and began to cry. She had expected to settle in a lovely place, like home, where gardens and green meadows and flowering orchards stretched as far as she could see. A place where small villages were cast across the land like beans from a turned bowl. The letters that she'd read from travelers had described many lands just like that, but a mill town was something she hadn't foreseen in her dreams of a magnificent world.

The colors themselves were strange and unfamiliar--blacks, grays, and putrid yellow smeared like rancid butter across the sky. It was as if the entire town were in mourning. The tall stacks of the mills spit smoke so thick she couldn't see to the other side of the river. Along the muddy road, buggies, wagons, horses, cows, children, garbage, and chickens littered the path. As Drago prodded the mule forward, they passed boardinghouses and tenements, saloons and butcher shops. Drunks leaned against posts and slept against shop stoops; a man at the corner played a tambourine and sang while a small boy danced; a few beggars followed the wagon calling for coins; and women Klara knew to be prostitutes leaned their fat breasts on banisters and hollered out to passers-by. As she looked around, Klara thought about her brothers who had warned her against traveling so far from home. Then she remembered something her mother had said many times throughout her life. "We all die many deaths."

Though Drago looked as startled and out of place as Klara, he was determined to go on. "Wipe your tears," he said, then flicked the reins to move the mule. His voice was thick again, and Klara heard the same tension she'd sensed when he'd told her the story of Josip. A small bubble of fear burst in her.

"??elim i??ci ku??ci," she said.

"You are home, lady. This is your home now. There is no going back."

Klara closed her eyes. She tried to block out the scene and pretend that the one-armed man had delivered them to an exotic land where women were draped in silk and the trees hung heavy with fruit. But even before she could pull up the flavor of the fruit in her mouth, Drago slapped her hard on the knee with his knuckles. Her eyes flew open, and she pressed her hand against the sting.

"Why did you do that?" she asked. "It hurt."

"Lady, stop your whining and open your eyes," he said and gripped her wrist hard. The more she struggled, the tighter he gripped, until it felt as if her bone would snap.

He stopped the mule and stared at her. When she finally quieted, he loosened his grip, knuckle-slapped her again, and said, "Like I said, you are home. No use hiding from it now."

In the silence that followed, Klara stared into the folds of her skirt, feeling the bruise on her knee blossom into a deep purple peony. Though she'd often watched her father strike her mother and had even nursed her own wounds from his ready hand, she'd intended to leave all that behind. When she realized that she hadn't, anger swelled in her belly. But when it threatened to surge up and out of her, she swallowed it hard. Instead she listened to the sounds of the mill--rhythmic pounding, screeching, hollering, all of it echoing up and off the hills like thunder.

They climbed the road that wound its way up the steep hills to Thirsty, and when they reached the top, Klara breathed a small sigh of relief. Though it certainly didn't look anything like home, corn rose on the left and sunflowers stood tall on the right. Yes, all the greens and yellows had been dusted to a dull gray with soot from the mill, but it was something.

Thankfully, too, there was Katherine. Katherine Zupanovic. When Klara and Drago pulled up to their new home--one that Drago's brother had rented for them--she was sitting on her front porch, right next door, no more than spitting distance away. It was hot, and Katherine was wearing a knee-length cotton slip, with scallops of lace trimming the swollen top-curve of her breasts. Her legs were propped on the railing; she held a cigar in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. After taking a look at Klara, who was layered in petticoats and ankle-length skirts, she let out a long, low whistle.

"Honey-girl," she said, "you best get on over here and let my Jake help your husband finish that work. You'll drop dead in this heat shrouded up like that, looking like a nun hiding from a priest in the abbey." Then she tossed back her head and laughed louder than Klara had ever heard a woman laugh. The sound of it reminded Klara of a sick horse her father had had years back. The old nag had snorted just like that for days, then died in the barn, legs poking straight up toward heaven.

From that moment on, Drago despised Katherine, and Klara loved her desperately.