Mary’s hair is white and thinning by the time the foreign doctor comes to visit; her joints are sore and stiff. He speaks halting Aramaic with a heavy accent; she wishes she’d been educated, so she could talk to him in his native Greek tongue. People have been talking about her son for decades, but no one has asked her so many questions before, or listened so carefully to her answers. He has some trouble understanding the rural accent she’s never lost, so she has to repeat some things several times before he seems able to follow. He says—if she understands him correctly—that he wants to know exactly what happened. He says he’s heard more than one version of every story and he wants to get it right. So she tries to tell him everything, but it takes so long, and there’s so much to talk about, she soon settles for smiling widely and nodding as soon as he seems to understand the heart of what she’s said.
Book Five: Devarim (Words)
Book Five: Devarim (Words)
Book Five: Devarim (Words)
Mary’s hair is white and thinning by the time the foreign doctor comes to visit; her joints are sore and stiff. He speaks halting Aramaic with a heavy accent; she wishes she’d been educated, so she could talk to him in his native Greek tongue. People have been talking about her son for decades, but no one has asked her so many questions before, or listened so carefully to her answers. He has some trouble understanding the rural accent she’s never lost, so she has to repeat some things several times before he seems able to follow. He says—if she understands him correctly—that he wants to know exactly what happened. He says he’s heard more than one version of every story and he wants to get it right. So she tries to tell him everything, but it takes so long, and there’s so much to talk about, she soon settles for smiling widely and nodding as soon as he seems to understand the heart of what she’s said.