”Then …what went on during World War II was a …a sort of continuation of this? Only much worse? I never realized that.” Margo looked up and down the street, where kosher slaughterhouses and butcher shops fought for space with tailors’ establishments and bakeshops. In that moment, echoing down empty places in her mind she hadn’t even known existed, Margo saw connections, running forward into the future from this moment and backward from it. In an instant, her narrow Minnesota universe expanded with dizzying explosiveness into an infinitely larger place with more intricately bound pieces of the human puzzle to try and understand than she had ever thought possible.
She understood, in a flash, why Malcolm Moore was willing to endure grueling poverty and the humiliation of a freelance guide’s life, just to step through one more gate.
He wanted to understand.
Margo gazed down those infinite corridors in her mind, filled with endless blank gaps, and knew that she had to fill them in-or at least as many of them as she could before she died trying.
When she came up for air, Malcolm was staring at her in the oddest fashion, as though she’d just suffered a stroke and hadn’t yet found the wit to fall down. The only thing she could think to say was, “They must have been …I can’t even imagine what they must have thought when Hitler started bombing London.”
Something far back in his eyes changed, in response to what must have been visible in her own. For a moment, Margo knew he understood exactly what was shining inside her. Sudden, unexpected tears filled his eyes. He turned aside and blew out his breath and cleared his throat. A steaming vapor cloud dissipated in the freezing February air.