”Malcolm?” Her voice quavered only a little.
”Yes?” His voice was still icy.
”This isn’t an ordinary slum, is it? Spitalfields, I mean. It isn’t like Whitechapel or St. Giles.”
He glanced back. Some of the chill in his eyes thawed into surprise. “Why do you ask?”
She bit her lower lip, then nodded toward women who spoke in a language that wasn’t English, toward men who dressed in dark coats, wore their beards long, and looked at the world through eyes which had seen too much hardship. “These people look and sound like refugees. Who are they?”
Malcolm actually halted. Absently he blew against his fingers to warm them while giving Margo an appraising stare.
”Well, I’ll be suckered ….” he said softly.
She waited, wondering if she’d get a reprieve.
”Who do you think they are?” He’d given her a challenge.
She studied the older women, who wore shawls over their hair, watched the younger girls with shining black tresses and shy smiles, the old men with wide-brimmed black hats and hand-woven, fringed vests. The younger people looked hopeful, busy. The older ones seemed uncertain and afraid, suspicious of her and of Malcolm., The language sounded like German, sort of. Then the whole picture clicked.
Yiddish.
”They’re Jewish refugees,” she said slowly. “But from what? Hitler…has he even been born yet?”
”Hitler was not the first madman to order pogroms against the Jewish communities of Europe. Just the most sweepingly brutal. Stalin was almost as bad, of course. The bloody pogroms going on all across Europe started about eight years ago, in 1880. Jews are being murdered, driven out of their homes, out of their own countries.”