“When I came to America from Israel, I was lucky because I came with a skill.” Large, thin fingers wrapped around a paper cup. “Otherwise I end up taking parking tickets at the booths at LAX.”

I nodded.

He sipped black coffee, then said, “You see, many of the ticket takers at the airport are Ethiopian.”

“Oh.”

“So I was making a joke.” A pause with a raise of an eyebrow. “Not so good one.”

I felt myself smiling and quashed it by drinking my coffee. It was very acrid. “So how long have you lived here … in the U.S.?”

“Eight years. First I moved from Ethiopia to Israel in 1983 before Operation Moses. I was eleven. Things were very bad for my people after Haile Selassie was deposed. Ethiopia became Marxist country and not friendly to Beta Yisrael. They outlaw our practices. Sometimes they torture our elders. Then came the drought. My mother died shortly after childbirth with my sister. Then we begin our trek through the Sudan. By then, we were all sick with starvation. I lost another younger sister, but four of us siblings survived—my two older brothers, Yaphet and Yoseph, my younger sister, Naomi, and me. In Ethiopia, my father was very respected qes—a priest. He knew Orit, of course, which is our Torah, but that is in Geez or Amharic. But my father also knew Hebrew Chu-mash, and this is very, very unusual. He only knew because his grandfather was Yemenite Jew who came to Ethiopia in 1900 and brought with him Hebrew books including Chumash. So I have a little Mizrachi in my blood. My father tells me it is from my great-grandfather where I get my light eyes.”

“I noticed.” Under the fluorescent bulbs, they were sauterne. “They’re lovely.”

“Thanks.” His smile was shy. “I trade you my eyes for your gorgeous red hair.”

I smiled back. “Thank you. Just be careful what you ask for.”

“Indeed.” He took another sip from his cup. “Bitter tonight. Must be dregs. Anyway, my great-grandfather’s last name was Yekutieli. It became Kutiel.”

“So you have family in Yemen?”

“No. They all move to Israel in 1950s in Magic Carpet when Israel takes Yemenite Jews. My brothers and I actually know some Hebrew when we go to the Holy Land. Most Beta Yisrael have to learn. As sons of a qes, we were started on Orit at two, because in our culture it is the qes who reads Orit. I pick up languages very quick. By bar mitzvah—which was new custom to us, by the way— I had most of Orit and Chumash memorized, although I forget much of what I learned. My brothers too.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “What about your sister?”

“The girls learn nothing. They obey their husbands, keep house, and have babies. Maybe make a little pottery to sell in the marketplace. But, of course, they give the money to their husbands.”

“Now you’re baiting me,” I told him.

His smile was playful. “It all changed when we settle in Israel. My little sister embraced liberation very well. Still, she must thank my father. Now there are about seventy thousand of us in Israel.”