Once a week, a very sweet young Arab man comes to wash the stairs in my apartment building. He has blue eyes, a small beard and a shy, snaggly-toothed smile. He never laughs when I speak to him in my little Arabic, even though he speaks fluent Hebrew and a Lebanese friend in New York once told me that I had the worst accent he'd ever heard.

He rides to work on a clattering old bicycle, with all his cleaning tools strapped to a basket on the rear wheel. No matter what the weather - and it has been raining for four days straight now - he always works barefoot, with his trousers folded up to his knees. He fills buckets with water from the tap outside, carries them to the top floor and pours the water down the stairs. Then he uses a long-handled squidgy to push the water down, working methodically until he finally sweeps the water outside.

When I saw him yesterday he was standing outside my building, facing the water tap. "Sabah al khayr!" (good morning in Arabic) I called out cheerfully.

No response.

I stopped and looked at him, and saw that he was standing still, barefoot as usual despite the cold concrete flagstones. His hands were folded over his lower belly, his eyes were shut tight with concentration and his lips moved. I'd interrupted him in the middle of his prayers.

I couldn't understand why he'd stop to pray right near the building's entrance, rather than looking for a little privacy in the courtyard in back, under the orange tree. I wondered why he didn't have a little prayer rug. And I felt uncomfortable about unwittingly interrupting him at prayer.

There's no point to this story. It's just a sort of written snapshot.