The book opens from the perspective of Miryem, who comes from a family of moneylenders. Her maternal grandfather is a rich moneylender in the larger town of Vysnia, whereas she and her parents live on the edge of a nameless town and scrape by due to her father’s inability to collect on the money owed to them. Miryem’s mother Rakhel regularly takes her to visit her grandparents in Vysnia, but they always return home out of love for her kind but incompetent father Josef. As the years pass, the winters get harder and longer, and Miryem’s family suffers, cold and hungry, while the townsfolk use her mother’s dowry to hold extravagant feasts, resenting them all the while.

When Miryem’s mother falls ill during a harsh winter, she reviews her father’s accounts and goes to collect the debts. Despite threats from the townsfolk, Miryem holds fast and collects what is owed, properly and with interest: “I stayed in their doorways and I didn’t move. My numbers were true, and they knew it and I knew it, and when they’d shouted themselves out, I said, ‘do you have the money?’” (10). Though their debtors rail against her, Miryem’s practices are fair and consistent.