The simile of Anshel
Anshel is the protagonist's uncle, and their resemblance is matched because they look the same. The author writes, "Momik was one thousand percent sure that this old man was Anshel, Grandma Henry’s little brother, Mama’s uncle, the one everybody said Momik look like, especially around the chin, and forehead and nose, the one who wrote children's stories for magazines in Europe…."
The simile of the oldest man inside the ambulance
When Momik runs into the back of the ambulance and wipes the window from the rain, and inside the ambulance, Mumik sees an older man who he compares to a fish in an aquarium. The author writes, "And Momik who is usually well-mannered didn’t hang around for more but ran outside to the ambulance and climbed on the back step, wiped the rain from the little round window, and peered inside where the oldest man in the world was swimming like a fish in an aquarium. He wore blue-striped pajamas and was all wrinkled like Grandma before she died. His skin was yellowish-brown, like a turtle's, sagging down around his skinny neck and arms…."
The simile of a drought year
As Bella runs to call her people to be interviewed, the man started reading the newspaper that is left behind, and he starts imagining that it looks like a drought year despite the rains. The author writes, "The man shrugged his shoulders and started reading the newspaper Bella left there, and he said to the air, Even with this rain we are having, seems like it is going to be a drought year, the year that all we need."
The simile of Bella
Bella is scared because she does not know what kind of relative is inside the ambulance in the street. The fat man questioning her seems arrogant, and she has to adapt to the situation. The author writes, "Bella suddenly turned as white as this wall, and everybody knows she isn't scared of anything, but she wouldn't go anywhere near the ambulance, she only edged closer to Momik, who was doing Bible homework; at one of the little tables."
The simile of the grandfather
For the first time, the arrival and physical appearance of the narrator's grandfather is compared to his darkness. The author writes, “Grandfather arrived in a blue Mogen David ambulance that pulled up in front of Bella Marcus’s café-grocery store in the middle of a rainstorm, and this big fat man, dark but like us, not a shvartzer, stepped out and asked Bella if she knew anyone around here called Neuman, and Bella got scared and wiped her hands on her apron and said, Yes.”
