The Gift

Two young adults, Ari and Etan, arrive at their grandfather’s to celebrate his birthday. They bring a present, a brown Kangol flat cap. While the lads and granddad’s wife go to the kitchen, he goes down to the basement: the cap has reminded him of his life in Europe before the Holocaust. He looks at a couple of photographs and his memory takes him back to arrest, imprisonment, escape, and immigration. He gathers a few things, takes them up to the kitchen, and puts them in a pot of soup simmering on the stove. He tells his grandsons to bring everything up from the basement. They do, adding one item at a time to the pot. Then, they sit down to eat.