He had not visited his grandfather for weeks. That was due to sheer carelessness and laziness. He liked the old man with the dull eyes. The bright common room of the old people's home was furnished with simple furniture. The old man sat motionless in the natural light, which softened his contours. One hand gripped the handle of an ochre-colored coffee cup. His remaining thin gray hair was neglected and styled to one side. His pale, wrinkled skin went well with the pastel white tones of the room and the décor. Only his dark kippa interrupted, like a smear of ink on a freshly printed page. He looked thoughtfully at Yuri from his dull, almost gray eyes.

"Yuri, how are you?" he said with slight concern. "You look tired."

"I have had trouble sleeping recently, but it's not half as bad. I think I am a bit stressed about the upcoming assignment."

After a pause and a deep breath, the old man said, "It's just paper. No need to worry."

Yuri remained silent and looked towards the table surface without any particular focus.

" Yuri."

Yuri looked up from the table at the old man.

"There's something else, isn't there? You are not here. What is bothering you?"

Ignoring his inner discomfort, he said, "I remembered something. Do you remember the story of how Dad left Beit Zera?"

The old eyes seemed to grow a little sharper, and the old man moved closer.

"That's an old story," said the old man. "Why now, suddenly?"

Yuri had only tried to talk to his father about it once, but the hurt was still palpable today. The first time he had heard about the circumstances of their exile was from his grandfather.

"I saw something a couple of nights ago, and it reminded me of that."

"You saw something, or you saw them?" the old man asked with a serious expression.

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"I saw something, and it reminded me of the story," Yuri said. "What did you call it again?"

"The functionless."

Yuri only vaguely remembered "the functionless". His father had once said that the old man had lost his mind when he found God. His memory was patchy, and he was not sure if he had ever heard the whole story.

"That's what it was, the functionless," Yuri said, more to himself.

The old man looked at him piercingly with his dull eyes: " Yuri, the functionless should not be seen, it is not a good thing."

"I meant, I'm not sure what I saw. It just reminded me of the story."

They were silent for a moment.

"Can you tell me again what it was like when you saw them?"

The old man nodded. "You know your father doesn't like to talk about the whole thing. But you remember we left Beit Zera when he was about twelve," the old man seemed to concentrate with a strained expression, "I think it was 1972, ... , yes, it certainly was, a year before the war started. I am sure you remember they accused him of doing this injustice to the poor boy, Fischer's boy, not a nice thing. And when I saw them, that was just before. The boy was different, had always been slow. Just like his parents ..."

He fell silent for a moment, as if searching for the right words. "He had difficulties at the children's home and they had to find a solution for him."

"What kind of trouble?"

"The other kids, they teased him terribly. It wasn't good the way it was, but long story short, there were a lot of votes to remove him from the common dormitory and give him to his parents."

"Before it came to that, I saw them." He looked down at his coffee cup.

"The others thought I was telling a story, that I was just helping your father. But I saw them a few nights before the boy died. It was late, and it was horribly humid. I was walking alone along the outskirts after a visit from friends. There was usually always a pleasant breeze, but that day it was just warm air blowing at you, awful. And then I saw them. At first, I thought they were Bedouins, at least no one from Beit Zera. You can believe what a fright I got. But there in the moonlight were four naked people, all scrawny and pale, and the boy from Fischer. Yes, and that ..., that was more or less the end. These 'people' ran off, ran away. I have seen nothing like it, and the boy, yes, he just said they were his friends. But when we got to his parents' house, he did not want to know anything more about it. Said he was just sitting there, completely alone. The Fischer's, I am telling you, they were generally a weird bunch. I told them what I had seen, and they said I was just crazy. Then, of course, I did not broadcast it everywhere afterwards ... I wish I had." The old man now looked sadly at the coffee cup, which he brought to his mouth for a rough sip.

"And why the name, the functionless?" said Yuri.

"Yes, that," he thought for a moment and continued with sadness, "you have to see, everyone has their own light from God," he paused for a moment, "but sometimes things just don't work out like with Fischer's boy. The children had their jokes with him, his parents were difficult people, they went through a lot. A lot truly. But he didn't have a place, it just wasn't for him, whether it was the time or the place, but it was never right for the boy."

"You mean he had virtually no function?"

"Yes, that's what I thought to myself, his friends, the nocturnal visitors. Maybe they were the same type and took the boy with them. Out of empathy, so to speak."

Yuri thought of his father, who would have reprimanded his grandfather for his nonsense. He looked at the old man with the dark blue kippa, who was now looking sad.

"But Yuri, it's not a good thing." Said the old man, as if he suspected that the reason for Yuri's interest was not without reason. "God brings his children home when the time is right, not these ... People."

Yuri did not know what to say and instead rocked his chair restlessly.

The old man looked at the coffee. They sat like that for a while before Yuri accompanied the old man to his room, said goodbye and left the home. He pondered over a hasty cigarette in the cool wind.