KING Hussein of Jordan, a son and a daughter walking just behind him, came slowly into the living room of the Malka family in Beit Shemesh. He accepted a piece of bread, and dipped it in salt before eating it - symbolically joining the family in mourning.
Then he walked over to the side of the room where, at floor level, with blankets to keep them warm, Shimon and Alia Malka sat with their other children and their grief.
Both parents are deaf-mutes. Adi (12) was one of their main links to the world. But Adi, with six of her classmates from Fuerst School in Beit Shemesh, was killed last Thursday, gunned down by a Jordanian soldier at the "Island of
Peace" - the picturesque Naharayim enclave just across the Israeli border inside Jordan, where they were enjoying their annual school day out.
The Malkas had not been enthusiastic when they learned that the king wanted to pay a condolence call on them and the other bereaved families. But they welcomed him respectfully, and Shimon nodded his acceptance as the king, squatting low in front of him spoke of his sorrow over the shooting.
"No words can ever express how I personally feel, how my family feels, how my people feel," the king said, his words translated into sign language by an aide. "I feel that I have lost a child," he added, in that quiet, clipped, gentlemanly tone of his. "I hope you will consider me a brother. Thank you so much for receiving me."
Midway through his words, Alia Malka closed her eyes. Her head slumped against the shoulder of one of her other daughters.
"She's fainted," somebody whispered. Water was hurriedly brought, and Mrs Malka revived. "It's very difficult for me," she signed, as she struggled to recover, a mother overwhelmed by her loss. "I want my daughter back."
From house to house, in a frenzy of security and media shoving, the king continued his rounds. In all the homes, his unprecedented gesture of compassion was appreciated. When before had an Arab lender visited ordinary Israelis in their grief? When, for that matter, had an Israeli leader paid personal condolence to a bereaved Arab family? The answer to both questions was the same. Never.
The king knelt with the parents of Sivan Fatihi, both of whom have visited Jordan, to receive their thanks, their plea for peace, their entreaty that he and the Israelis would now work side-by-side to prevent more such deaths. And he didn't flinch when one mother asked him why it had taken so long for the wounded girls to receive medical attention. This and all the other questions, he promised gently, would be answered by the investigation he had ordered.
After the last visit was done, the entourage drove toward Jerusalem - the king's first visit to the city since November 1995, when he attended Yitzhak Rabin's funeral. At Hadassah Hospital in the city, he called in on President Ezer Weizman, who broke an arm and a hip in a fall after visiting one of the girls left wounded by the shooting. "It was very brave of you to come here," said the president. "A great thing."
Brave, indeed. And maybe desperate. A week ago, King Hussein wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, warning him that his hardline policies toward the Palestinians, and especially the "further construction of settlements," seemed "bent on destroying all I believe in". Yesterday, Mr Netanyahu accompanied the king on his condolence visits. Apart from his sorrow to the families, perhaps the message the king was most intent on conveying was to Mr Netanyahu - the message that there may soon be many more such calls for the lenders of this region; to make, if genuine peace efforts are not quickly resumed.