A Good Deed

I stood in the express checkout line at the grocery store behind an elderly woman and her granddaughter. They were purchasing a single gallon of milk and were deep in conversation while the cashier waited patiently for them to pay for the milk. It cost $5.79, and the child gestured towards the register and then to her grandmother.

Watching their exchange, I assumed that perhaps one or both of them might be hearing impaired. Then the woman spoke rapidly to the child in a foreign language, and the child gestured again in the direction of the register. I recognized the language as Russian, although I didn’t understand what she said. I took two years of Russian in college, which at the time left me able to read a child’s primer if I had six weeks and a dictionary to decipher half the text. I wasn’t fluent on even a four year old’s level after two years, and that was twenty years ago. Now, about all I can remember is how to count to three and say hello, good bye, please and thank you. I also remember the word for “onion.” It doesn’t come up much, I have since discovered.

I waited and observed the two of them talking and gesticulating. Finally, the elderly woman took out a five dollar bill and handed it to the cashier. She did not have the additional seventy-nine cents. The cashier stood there, unsure what to do. The little girl kept pointing to the register, which made the grandmother answer her in guttural tones. I noticed they were buying a gallon of organic milk and wondered if it was a deliberate or accidental choice. Had she bought regular milk, she would have had enough money, but no one would have been able to communicate that to her. She was aware, however, that she did not have enough to buy the milk.

I took out my wallet and dug through my change purse until I produced three quarters and four pennies, which I handed to the cashier. “Here,” I said. “Let them have the milk.”

The cashier took my change and finished their sale, handing the receipt to the lady. The old woman realized I had helped pay for the milk, and she turned to me and said, “Thank you” in heavily accented English. She sounded like the Russian bear from the Bugs Bunny cartoon I had watched earlier in the day with my daughter.

I answered her in Russian, “Pahzhalostah,”  which means you’re welcome.

Her eyes lit up, a big smile on her face. “Ah, pah-Ruski!” she exclaimed, which means something like “in Russian,” and she launched into a long sentence of foreign gibberish. I had no idea what she said to me, but her eyes smiled her gratitude.

I glanced at her, then looked down. I was taught in my college class that Russian people don’t like direct eye contact. Of course, that was back when it was the Soviet Union. Now, they might enjoy a little more directness.The child grabbed the jug of milk with one hand and put her other hand in her grandmother’s. Together, they walked out of the grocery store.

The cashier scanned my one item and asked me,” What were they speaking?” “Russian,” I said. “Are you Russian?”he asked me.

“No, I took a couple years of it in college, forever ago,” I told him. “I never expected to use it at Publix though.”

On my drive home, I passed the old woman and the child walking in the dark through the parking lot, holding hands. They were beautiful together, so tender and loving. I was tempted to wave to them but didn’t want to intrude on their moment. I remember holding my grandmother’s hand while walking, how soft and loose the skin on her hand was, the feeling of her thick veins against my fingertips as I rolled them. I remember matching my gait to hers. My grandmother was always happy to walk with me, around the block, on the beach. She was the one person who would walk with me when I was little. My grandmother’s parents were Russian, although she never spoke a word of it in front of me. I learned my Yiddish from her, and I took Russian in college to honor her.

To be an old woman in another country with a foreign tongue, or a young child who would not be taken seriously by most adults; that is a lonely place to be. To not be able to pay for a gallon of milk or ask a question or be understood. And then, to have a familiar word and a kind gesture. That is worth the price of seventy nine cents.