It left the northeast corner of the garment district a few blocks from Stein Square at five-fifteen precisely. Judit had boarded without going home to change, and so she waited in her duffle coat and trousers amongst the black-hats milling at that corner. They stared past her with a hostility so clean and direct that she almost turned back. When she did not, they stubbed out their cigarettes and boarded the bus. The motor was running. What did the Yiddish on the side of that bus signify? There was a lot of it, in Hebrew characters, a regular list of blessings, curses, and restrictions, like their pashkevils. Judit had read plenty of Yiddish documents in graduate school, but black-hat Yiddish always eluded her. It was deliberately elusive. What if the bus were going to one of their neighborhoods in another district, or the village near Zeitz they’d named after one of their rabbis? The center door opened. One of their women—stone-faced, hair covered in a turban—got on board. So did Judit.
