As I came home from grocery shopping and stepped out of my car, I noticed an old woman in the driveway. She was speaking to me, although I couldn't quite hear her at first. I took a step closer, and then realized that I could hear her just fine, but I didn't understand because she was speaking Russian.

"You help me," she said. Not a question. I said "okay?", my arms full of bags. "You help me," she said again. I said, "let me put these things down, one moment," and I ran and dumped the bags in my house.

When I returned, she had drifted vaguely back toward the open door of the house belonging to Alexei, my Russian neighbor. A relative, I guess. "How can I help?" I asked.

"I don't speak english," she said, which was in retrospect the one thing that required no explanation. She then started speaking to me, slowly and clearly, in Russian.

When she had finished, I politely said, "I don't understand?" She nodded, cleared her throat, and then said the same words again, more slowly, and also slightly louder. After an awkward pause, she pointed at her head, and then at the ceiling, and then said something different.

Then she rang the doorbell.

I stared at the doorbell, hoping for some clue as to what she was getting at, and then shook my head. Realizing my confusion, she rang the doorbell again, a bit more firmly this time, explaining again what she wanted, in Russian.

I took out my cell phone, pointed at it, and said, "Maybe you should call Alexei?" She shook her head in negative. "Alexie," she began. Then: "My son, Alexie," she clarified. "Yes?" I said.

"My son," she continued, and then a relatively long stream of Russian words, during which she pointed hesitantly off to her left.

"I'm so sorry, I just don't understand what you're saying," I said, and then started to back away slowly. She nodded and said "thank you", ringing the doorbell a final time.

"No problem," I replied.