Beret

9 2 Y B E R E T N A T A N I A R O S E N F E L D Strange word for so simple a thing as a flat felt hat. Don’t forget your bear-ay, my mother’d say, and I thought it a protective object. Surely it wasn’t an ‘‘a√ectation’’? Father despised ‘‘a√ectation,’’ and so did Mother: She’s a√ected, they’d say of one, and that would be the end of her. Where were the lines? Was Papa wholly un-‘‘a√ected’’? Such questions were absorbing. Also, Am I bad? Why the sudden slap? And why, for a man without pretense, a Parisian dauber’s headgear? Why, for the South Philadelphian, talisman, not tallis? German, embraced and cherished, not Yiddish. Swabian, indeed, including a rustic embroidered smock for me. But a French hat, with the ‘‘t’’ unspoken. Why and why? ...