The Market

Abstract

Though the Market was a good distance from our usual haunts, we went often and usually in large groups, perhaps in order to ward off the loneliness, the sense of foreignness precipitated by the solitary foray. It was a warm and welcoming place nonetheless, familiar and intimate. At the beginning of the school year, the market would be transformed into a busy hive of activity, with crowds of parents and their children buying and selling schoolbooks. This short-lived seasonal trade lasted for about ten days. Cramped wooden shelves were set up on the narrow pavements in the old perfume market and we went there to buy our books and notebooks—not all at once, but slowly, deliberately, over the length of the season. These visits took place at all hours, and we would spend a good deal of time walking up and down the Market’s main thoroughfare. The fortuitous, paradoxical crowds delighted us.