The man, and the woman, who was now standing before her door, both
chattered at once, but neither made any attempt to stop me. They waved
vaguely explanatory, deprecating hands towards the blackness of the
stairway. We went up.
On the second floor landing we saw just the old man we had been
following.
He stared at us when I spoke to him.
“Son-in-law,” he said, “son-in-law.”
He called and a door opened. An oldish woman answered him in apparently
the same jargon. Behind was a young woman holding a baby.
“What is it?” she asked with a great deal of accent but intelligibly.
Three or four children held on by her skirts.
Behind her I saw a little girl in a blue-check dress.
Helen screamed.