The Rabbi and His Grandchild

Dried fruit. Ripe fruit. An apple ready to fall... 

Her red cheeks; her fleshy nose; her hair smooth, richly brown and thick. Those gorgeous lips: they are a flower blossoming out to be kissed. 

A spring sun rises out of a pale winter. 


This old man. The years have withered him. Only the outlines of a personality are left. He is a type; a painterly artefact; a tree after the autumn wind. 


The living person. A stylised image. Textures of ages. 

This girl overflows with the riches of youth. Suspicious of her wealth, she watches it seep into her grandfather’s fingers; spread along his poor palm…


In a house of many rooms only one has a radiator.

And his life? Breath in a cold cave. The face frozen into caricature, his beard a bush of stalactites, here is a rabbi fixed for all eternity.

A flag blows in the wind.

Only the hand is alive. Bye! bye! it will wave to its grandchild, when she runs out to play with friends and kiss the boys.

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