Flour

When I opened the door, I saw my wife frowning at two marbleized pound cakes on the counter. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You know the Turkish neighbors downstairs?” I nodded. There were four of them – two older parents in their sixties, and their two college-educated kids. “Well, we ran out of flour, so I went down there to borrow some and the father opened the door. He didn’t understand what I wanted.” She paused and pursed her lips. “He told me to come back in an hour so his daughter could interpret for him.”

“So where’d you get the flour?”

“I went down one floor and asked the Polish woman there for some. Her German’s much better.”

We recently ran into the daughter and told her the story. The woman, who had just passed the German bar exam, was flabbergasted. “I don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head. “He goes shopping. He knows what flour is.” She furrowed her brow. “I’ll have a word with him.” My wife objected. I didn’t. The man had lived in Germany for thirty years. Surely he had seen flour before.

The next day, a knock at the door. I open it to see the burly figure of the father. “Wife in?” he asks. I shake my head, slowly. “Then I tell you. You wife come down. Ask for --.” He put his palms out as if holding a soccer ball.

“Yeah, the flour,” I say.

He nods. “Flour. I no understand. Too fast! Next time, slow. If slow, I understand. Daughter tell me I make big mistake. She tell me, Papa, you make big mistake.”

I laugh. I can’t help it; it’s just a bag of flour, after all. “No, no, no,” I say. “It’s fine.”

“Next time,” he continues, hardly noticing my rudeness, “Ask slow. We have all. Flour, eggs, cheese. We buy big,” he adds, curving his arms out as though hugging a barrel. “Any time. You, you wife, come down. We give you. Any time.”

I thank him, watch him go down the stairs. We say goodbye several times.

They’re our favorite neighbors.