Two old people, a man and a woman, who had spent the performance sitting on a stone bench to the side, stood up and tottered toward her. They gripped each other tightly, and the man leaned on the woman. They were small and wrapped up in clothing that was too heavy for such a hot day. The woman smiled shyly at Tamar, her smile almost completely toothless, and asked, “May I?” Tamar didn’t know what she wanted, and said yes. She was moved by the way they stood there, clinging to each other.

“The way you sing. Oy! Oy!” The woman put her hands on her cheeks. “Like in the opera, like a cantor,” she said, and her chest rose and swelled. She touched Tamar’s arm and patted it excitedly. Tamar didn’t usually like strangers to touch her, but she felt all her soul being drawn to the soft hand.

“And he –“The old lady nodded toward her husband with her eyes. “My husband, Yosef, he has almost no more eyes to see and hardly can hear with his ears, and I am his eyes and ears, but he heard you. Isn’t it true you heard her, Yosef?” And she nudged him with her shoulder a little. “Isn’t it true you heard her singing?”

The man looked at Tamar and smiled vacantly, and his yellow mustache split in two. 

“Excuse me for asking,” the woman said sweetly, and her soft, chubby face suddenly moved very close to Tamar’s face, “but your parents, do they know you are like this, alone in the street?”