It had been Mrs Rimon who had asked
him for that private meeting. She had briefly approached him as they were
leaving the temple and had quickly whispered that she would like him to meet
her son. This had somewhat surprised Rabbi Bonfiglioli. He seemed to remember that
her son was still young and certainly not old enough for his Bar Mitzvà. What’s
more, the Rimons were a family like many others; they were good
people but, when it came to observing the Jewish practices, they were lax, to say
the least. All they did was turn up at the obligatory feasts of Rosh Hashanà
and Kippur surrounded by their various relatives.
The mother could be seen from time to
time at the synagogue but she gave the impression of being an educated observer
rather than a woman of faith. What the Rabbi had noticed was the prayer book
that she clutched in her hands. It looked
like an antique edition and had
a big floral - patterned cloth cover.
He would have given anything to get a look inside it, but he didn’t know Mrs
Rimon well enough to ask her such a
thing. He wondered if she would bring it with her but it was one of those
frivolous thoughts he surrendered to given the joy of the Sabbath. The boy was
more or less as he remembered him; he looked smart and was by no means intimated by the cumbersome furniture that
crowded the room while he himself sometimes needed to get out of that room if
only to escape out into the corridor. Without wating to be told, the little boy
had sat down on a chair next to his mother. He seemed to already be aware that there
would always be a place for him anywhere in the world.
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