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apartment, which she and her sister saw as a significant step up the social ladder, that Leon, the bleeding heart, had spoken after a six-month relationship, telling her that he was shocked by its paucity when he visited it for the first time. Leon, together with his mother and sister, had immigrated to Israel straight from an opulent house in Istanbul, which they had left after their father abandoned his family and ran off with his young secretary; sensitive Leon persuaded his mother to move to Israel, in the belief that a change of location could well herald a change in fortune.
    This time the sisters, not taking any chances, decided to hold the family seder with their distinguished guest at Aunt Aurika’s in Bat-Yam.
    Her parents took up residence at the home of Aurika, Bianca’s sister, about a week before the seder in order to dust away every crumb of unwanted chametz , and Yosefa sewed them both new dresses. She didn’t like the look of her own dress, and even though she didn’t want to offend her sister, she went to a stall on Dizengoff Street where the prices were similar to those in the Carmel Market and bought herself a gray-green dress the same color as her eyes that flattered her figure, despite its below-the-knee length. Her sister was wise enough not to take offense, and they managed to persuade their mother to have a new dress made and to go to the hairdresser.
    â€œBut my hair is so sparse,” Bianca said, trying to convince them that a professional haircut, which would last for three days at the most with her fine hair, was a waste of money, but they insisted, waiting at the entrance to the hairdressing salon in Bat Yam until she emerged with her hair stiff with spray. The whole family, including her uncles, invested an entire month’s salary in making a good impression on the tall man from Barcelona and waited, squeaky-clean and dressed to the nines, beside the table that had been laid to the very best of their ability. At seven thirty, instead of the doorbell, the telephone rang, and he said that he was terribly embarrassed, but his sister was furious that he wasn’t staying at her place for the seder, especially since she had been slaving the whole day so that they could all sit together around her table in Jerusalem.
    â€œDidn’t you tell them you’d be spending the seder with me?” She tried hard to understand.
    â€œI didn’t expect my sister to be so incensed about it,” he admitted truthfully.
    She told him that it didn’t matter and glanced at her mother’s elaborate coiffeur. Her sister’s husband smiled and said that in Spain people apparently obey their parents, and that he’d grow out of it, but she was terribly upset because she had worked so hard for this holy day to be perfect, to make a good impression on him.
    â€œYou could tell your sister that my parents have made a special journey from Haifa in order to meet you,” she said, still trying to persuade him, peeved at the dozens of phone calls he had made, insisting on meeting her parents. Over the phone, she could hear him talking to his sister in French, and her angry response in the same language.
    â€œShe says that my parents made a special journey from Barcelona for us all to be together,” he told her in English, and she was obliged to explain to her parents in Romanian why the “intended” had canceled his participation in their seder.
    â€œI can come over for coffee later on,” he said, but she refused; she thought to herself that there was no point in everyone sitting around nervously until eleven o’clock at night in the hope that he might turn up. “We can meet tomorrow,” she said, repressing the disappointment he had caused her family.
    He arrived at her sister’s home the next day with a huge bunch of flowers, and they set off for a tour of the countryin the tiny car that belonged to her sister and brother-in-law.