Assignment # 9

Matt(hew) Richardson
#9 Marketplace

I go to the Trastevere market to buy figs, the pale green ones the size of grapes. It’s always early when I go to this market. It’s still a bit cold and there aren’t many people on the streets so the pouring fountain echoes in the piazza, spilling over the bucket set there. I weave through the vendors and their tables, all six of them, to find the one who arranges his fruit with the figs most prominent. He is smoking, as always, through his big mustache and old stubble, the ash falling onto his produce. He looks at me standing in front of his stall but doesn’t stop moving his hands. “Buongiorno.”
“Vorrei fichi, un mezzo chilo.”
“Uno mezzo chilo. Bene.”
I wait. My eyes hurt, my scalp itches. I have the up-too-late feeling and the water fountain seems somehow nauseating. His hand picks the figs from the pile so fast it seems like he sweeps them into his hand. I give him two euros as he holds out the bag. “Dolce!” He presses his fingers to his mouth and kisses them theatrically out. I feel my eyes burn a little bit, like the tiny veins are throbbing, and I’m thirsty but the water still seems sickly. I never operate well on too little sleep and everyone who cares notices. He looks at me for a moment and speaks in unintelligible Italian. I shrug. He pulls the cigarette packet from his shirt pocket and offers to me. I shake my head and smile. He smiles back. We ciao and I walk away, the paper bag heavy in my hand.
The satisfaction in being shown niceness by local who knows you’re a foreigner is much better than the satisfaction I usually settle for, namely trying to be taken as Italian, an ultimately unfulfilling task to say the least. I wash the figs in the fountain; they are sweet like candy.

I don’t know who to trust on the Campo de’ Fiori. Vendors who yell about their food are fine, unintimidating, but people who yell at you to buy their things are unacceptable. They spit it in aggressive, accented English Come in! Fruit here! The best, here’s the best! I don’t know why they disconcert me, but they do. For reasons unknown to me I have the best associations with the grey-haired lady who sets up shop halfway down the east side of the Campo. She’s so calm, cutting vegetables with her paring knife, neither smiling nor frowning when I stop in front of her stand.
The atmosphere now at midday, however, is less encouraging than the grey-haired woman. There are people mulling about and pushing and bumping into you, like cattle, like ants. I don’t mind the contact, but I don’t relish the need to keep constant tabs on my bag, which I hold with one hand. The crowd hurts, because it makes the stand owners impatient, they rush you, the resent you touching their produce. Even the grey-haired woman won’t wait at peak morning hours, when I do most of my shopping.
Worse, they don’t take directions in terms of picking out fruit. This isn’t generally an issue with me, but because I’m clearly not Italian, the vendors think of me as a paying disposal for spoiled fruit. I’ll allow as many as one if five figs or peaches to be so bruised that it is unenjoyable, but only because I can’t seem to do any better. Would it be socially acceptable to learn to say “and look out for bruised fruit, alright?” I don’t know. I can already say “and make them ripe!” – “mature, eh?” That phrase is part of my permanent lexicon.