Raphael remains behind, pensive. He hopes his revelation hasn’t messed things up too much for Gedalya

In an apartment building in Dresden’s Old Town, a man sits scratching his forehead.

“What is it?” Inge asks, about to leave for the Postplatz station.

“I made a mistake,” he says.

“Only one?” she asks. Nur einer?

Raphael closes his laptop. “Well, today’s mistake was telling Dudi Silver that I’d been learning with his brother Gedalya. And that I still learn with him once a week on the phone.”

“Ah, the Talmud?” That big, cumbersome, dark red book that sits in their bookcase, spoiling its neatness with its shabby binding and all the text going backward.

“Ja. Dudi had wanted to study with me, but his family was against it,” he explains. “They were afraid I’d expose him to my way of life. They’re ultra-Orthodox Jews.”

She looks confused.

“And this brother, Gedali-ja, he is not ultra-Orthodox? His family is not afraid?”

Raphael stifles a smirk at her pronunciation. “He’s more Orthodox than Dudi, actually.”

Inge tries to fit the data into rows and columns. “His brother is more Orthodox, and he studies with you. Dudi is less Orthodox, and he cannot study with you?”

She despairs of ever understanding the social rules of his people. Why is his mother willing to eat with them at a restaurant, but not to invite them to her home? Why do his siblings meet with him separately, but not together?

“That’s right.”

“It makes no sense to me at all.” And with a “Guten tag,” she’s out the door.

Raphael remains behind, pensive. He hopes his revelation hasn’t messed things up too much for Gedalya.