36It was a hazy gray Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn. The ground was crusted with ice, but the air had warmed, so it was melting into a thin layer of slush. Zoitsa was sitting with Anne on the stone wall that surrounded the park. Anne had been explaining to Zoitsa the meaning of the word h*******t. Zoitsa was reminded of the Chaimaki brothers. She remembered that they always had a piece of candy in their pocket for her. She hadn’t seen them since she was about six or seven. The village was occupied by the Germans then and everyone was terrified of them. One day, when she was in the village with her aunt, she noticed their store had been shuttered. It opened again sometime later, but the owner now was a Vlach, the son of a shepherd. After her story, the two continued sitting silently on the
