CHAPTER FOURTEEN
This pair clambered on the tram with difficulty. They stood out among the other passengers by reason of their deliberate estrangement from everybody else – it was as if they had been forced to take out a piece of enclosed space from their meagre home and carry it along like a secret little cradle through the street and tram crowds, protecting it from collisions. This way one carries an expensive rustling bunch of flowers or a fractured arm in packed public transport – this is how the pair must have chosen to carry themselves. But in fact, they were bristling and sticking out and bumping into everything and everybody.
The two, a little boy and an old woman, squeezed through the crowd to a free seat. He sat down at once and she stood next to him. The boy was about six or s
