At 7:10 p.m. (which I have learned to think of as 19h10), I went to the greengrocers around the corner for some scallions and tomatoes. E has moved into our chambre de service till she finds a place to stay closer to her job. I wanted to introduce her to all the neighborhood commerçants so they would be nice to her.
The greengrocers' used to be run some very nasty French people who, even after I'd been going there a while, always tried to slip something rotten that they were trying to get rid of into the little brown paper cone of vegetables or fruits. I'd get home and find a half-black tomato at the bottom, or liquid raspberries, or a pepper with mold. I was so happy when they retired. Now the people there are nice Tunisians who love to chat and smile all the time. They pick through their stock to give me the best that is left.
But there was no one there when we walked in. In a moment I heard the boss coming up the stairs from the basement, where it sounded as if a party were going on. As he rang up my vegetables, I asked if he were alone in the shop. "Les autres sont au déjeuner!" he answered. I was puzzled. Lunch, at dinnertime? Then I remembered it was Ramadan. Déjeuner literally means Break-fast. The men had been fasting all day.
It was still light out. "When are you allowed to eat?"I asked. "Is it at sundown?"
"Seven o'clock," he said. "At seven o'clock we can eat."
"Are you doing the fast too?"
He looked at me quizzically. "Every Muslim does the fast. The ones who aren't Muslims, they don't."
They never speak to the Tunisian guy who runs the store across the street, the one with a French girlfriend who came in smelling of smoke when I brought my stuff to the register.
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