Sometimes he is haunted by those eyes, the utter vicious venom that emanated from them, the sinister intent, the menacing language emitted from those lips curled in hateful contempt.  There isn't much that frightens this man, but on this occasion he felt fear.  He never steps back from a confrontational situation, it just isn't in his nature.  He has his own share of belligerence when he feels the occasion merits it.  Ever since we were teens I had mixed feelings about that.

On the one hand, even back then, it was symbolic of his masculinity.  And perhaps a certain source of masculine pride.  Yet even back then, and in the sixty-some odd years that have followed it has always been a source of concern to me.  In the sense that I felt great anxiety that he not enter a situation that would prove to be violent beyond his control.  This one could have been like that, but aside from the snarling warning that he was in dangerous company, because there was too much ambient activity, he was saved from what might have turned out to be a dreadful experience.

He had been walking back to work in late summer one afternoon after lunch time, heading to the Foreign Affairs building on Sussex Drive.  This was a month before his retirement.  It was his habit to get out of the building, to stroll down to the Byward Market and other nearby areas to stretch his legs, look about and sometimes come back home in the evening with a shopping bagful of fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese.

On this occasion he was crossing the street when suddenly a taxicab shot out at such a speed that his reflexes served him well, as he jumped back out of harm's way, and similarly reflexively, raised his right hand and finger in an internationally recognized salute of scorn.  The taxi screeched to a halt, the driver exited and leaped toward my husband, calling him an "old Jew", and excoriating him in language that exceeded even my husband's extensive vocabulary of nasty words.

He watched, appalled, as the man, whose features marked him as Middle Eastern in origin, looked around, obviously to determine how many potential witnesses there might be to an assault, then appraising the rush of traffic all about, and the occasional pedestrian, decided against anything physical, resumed his tirade, spewing filthy invective and racial epithets, leaped back into his vehicle and took himself away.