Sunday, December 27th, 2020

We’re celebrating one of the bosses’ birthdays. They’ve both come to work early but they head out again to get their vaccinations. We have to wait a longer time for appointments. I’ll be getting mine a week from Wednesday. The bosses have a way of getting things to happen on demand. I don’t yet know the magic phrases that the locals yell at each other. They seem to work. Lunch arrives soon after the bosses get back. To celebrate the birthday, they’ve ordered in sushi and a kind of Chinese noodles with vegetables. Both are delicious. That we’re having Chinese food on the first working day after Christmas is completely coincidental. As with other celebrations this year, we don’t crowd into the conference room to eat. A worker puts the meals together and hands them to us as we stand in the hall. After lunch and the afternoon prayers, they unveil a cake. We stand outside the conference room, almost appropriately distanced. Blowing out candles on cakes is no longer allowed. Someone hands the boss two leftover Chanukah candles and lights them. She turns away from us, blows them out, turns back, and bows. We all sing “Today is your birthday! Today is your birthday!” She hollers “No! No! It was yesterday!” We switch to “Yesterday was your birthday!” without skipping a beat. The cake is wonderful, with a layer of caramel and what tastes like cannoli filling. People chatter in the hallway in Hebrew. Someone asks me how much I understand. Ten percent? Fifteen? In this conversation, I understand about forty percent. Another worker says that when he was my age, he understood Hebrew perfectly. Right. He’s two years younger than I am. And he’s been here for over thirty years. People sing that the boss should live to one hundred and twenty. If I live that long, I may catch on.