He stroked her hair patiently with his thick fingers, once again straightening it out. He bought her Turkish delight with almonds and reminded her that he used to bring her such sweets every Friday. She silently nibbled on a piece. Then they passed through the stalls and Lilian handed some of her candy to a beggar they stumbled across. They walked out from the other side of the market, stepped onto the faded crosswalk, and slipped into the Nachlaot neighborhood, leaving the noise behind them. The narrow streets felt spacious compared to the market’s crowded alleyways. Sammy looked at the small houses. When he was young, he had felt they were perfectly suited to his size. He grabbed Lilian’s hand and guided her gently past a manhole and a gas tank, safeguarding her the way children protect their first pet. After a brief stroll, they stopped by their old synagogue. Four young Haredi men passed them by and entered the building. How he wished that someone would erect a monument in places like this. He would have even settled for a small wooden sign that said: “Here Lilian and Sammy passed notes during the Maariv service.”

Lilian was tired. She bent her knees demonstratively, and Sammy quickly led her to the bench opposite the nearby playing field. Four large trees surrounded the field, serving as goalposts for a few boys and girls playing on the paved surface, padded with sand. Sammy sat Lilian on the bench; she gazed at the children and smiled, clapped her hands at them until they waved back. Removing an orange in a green plastic bag from his satchel, he sat down beside her, took the orange out of the bag, and peeled it with the kitchen knife he had brought. He then removed Lilian’s coat and scarf to keep them from getting dirty, and served her small orange segments one by one. Juice dripped from his fingers. “Thank you,” she said after receiving each piece. Perhaps with every bite she experienced the fruit’s taste for the first time, he thought, and almost found comfort in it.

The football struck Lilian just as she was about to bite into the last piece. It collided with her face and knocked the orange segment to the ground. Lilian shrieked, closed her eyes, and rushed to shield her head with her frail hands. Sammy wrapped her in the coat, as if it possessed the power to protect her from all evils of the world. One of the girls, in a jean skirt and blue school shirt, approached them hesitantly, while the rest of the children formed a crooked line behind her. “Sorry, can I have the ball back?” she asked, and Sammy didn’t know if the “sorry” was an apology or the only word she could think to address him with.