I will never know everything that went on behind his face.

But at one point his eyes found mine across the dividing and the tapping and the small good-natured arguing, and he gave me a nod.

Just a nod.

Not an apology, not an admission, not a word.

But a nod that said, in the only language he had, that he had seen what the old way had cost and that he was not going to pretend any longer that it had cost nothing.

I nodded back.