Then he did the only special thing he ever did for me. With those things in his hands, he rose on his toes like a dancer, like a plump ballerina. This action, accompanied by his delicate smile, appeared to be a joke not shared with me so much as displayed for me, and it seemed also to have a concise meaning, a stylized meaning—to be a letter, or a whole word, in an alphabet I did not know.
People’s wishes, and their other offerings, were what I took then naturally, a bit distractedly, as if they were never anything more than my due.
“Yes,” I said, instead of thank you.