It was about six months after the heavy rains of l950, a hot summer's day. The knock on the door was timid. I knew it was no tourist from America, no telegraph boy, no schoolmates.
In the doorway stood a thin little woman with Zecharia.
"This is my mother," he said in his difficult Hebrew, "she wants to thank you."
She took my hand, kissed it and mumbled some words -- in Arabic.
"Come, sit down for lunch," I said hastily, embarrassed, not understanding a word and knowing that I was not understood either.
She looked at Zecharia. She looked at me. Her eyes were not sad, nor humble, nor could I say, grateful, but alive, appreciative and curious, more than anything, curious. They jumped from object to object. So this was where Zecharia was during the rainy months, so these are the children with whom Zecharia played, the table where he sat to do his homework and the couch and the lamp and the picture on the wall.
"Zecharia, did your mother enjoy the dress I sent her last winter?
It was a two piece wool, warm and modest.
"Well," Zecharia hesitated. . .
"She never wore it," he finally whispered.
"Never wore it?"
"No," blushing, "She doesn't want to look like an Ashkenazi!"
I looked at her again. I had the feeling she understood and the half aggressive smile on her face spoke of something very deep. Somethin fell into place in the mechanism of my mind.
"Why should she?" I thought. "Why should she want to look like an Ashkenazi? And my smile answered hers.
The conversation was complete.