The presence of a friend, she realized, made her feel less alone. A friend. My friend is here
In the wheelchair, her face brittle under her white netela, Mazal stared at nothing. Karen, in knee-length denim, drove a walker at seven inches per minute. Eventually, their gazes met.
Karen pushed the walker to one side and moved toward a chair. Mazal saw the slow-motion lowering, the white-knuckled grip on the walker arm, the furrows between Karen’s tent-shaped eyes.
“Slippery bathroom tiles.” Karen gestured to her hip, which now housed steel bolts.
“Leg infection,” Mazal replied. Her English had always been excellent, her consonants almost British. Now she had this new word in modern Hebrew, too. “I stepped on metal in Sudan. On my way to Israel. It was hidden under a bush.”
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