The slightly reserved smile parting Abraham's beard widens as he watches the rich goy try the Krupnik, choking, as he had expected, on its heat, but willing to go back for more. He takes back the flask with the solemn seriousness of a man completing a ritual, taking another swig for himself before tucking it back within his jacket and beginning a search for his cigarettes and matches instead. That his coat is still stained with the remnants of his lunch doesn't seem to trouble him, nor does the enquiry from the other man. He picks out the word 'language' and weighs up what might naturally come next in a conversation, hoping that he's guessed correctly when he answers, slightly distracted.

"Yiddish, die mamma loshen," he explains, then shrugs. "Russkiy, Polskie."

He finds his cigarettes eventually, but doesn't offer them, instead using the battered and slightly soup-dampened box to gesture at his companion, then at his own ears, holding his hands up against them and then waving them away, describing a sort of airy scattering, an unidentifiable loss, before pointing again at the goyishe man.

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