Red

The market was red yesterday: red with bushels of plum tomatoes, red with strings of peppers, red with the last flats of strawberries and the first baskets of apples. J. and I split up; he with our list of vegetables and fruits while I went in search of sausages, fresh eggs, bread, olives -- both of us adrift in a sea of crimson, scarlet, vermilion.

The egg-man plucked my half-dozen jumbo brown eggs out of his flat and placed them in a grey paper carton, which he wrapped in newspaper and tied with string, and I went off with my purchases to meet J. at Motta, the Italian deli near the edge of the market, where our virtuous calorie-resistance finally melted and we bought a piece of pizza, a few slices of almond pound cake, a bag of slightly-sweet, bread-like "bracelets", and a piece of brownie-cake the color of ebony, shimmering on top with chocolate frosting.

On the way back to the car we walked through the Italian neighborhoods where trellised tomatoes, pole beans, chard, and flowers filled intensively-planted gardens, and the last of the lunch patrons lingered over coffee on the terraces of the local cafes and pizzerias. On a corner of rue Alma, an elderly Italian gentleman was saying goodbye to a friend, his "arrivederci" curling around his tongue like a burst of espresso flavored with lemon peel. A tall fence enclosed the yard of his house, and above it draped the branches of two plum trees, one laden with a heavy crop of dusty purple fruit, the other, yellow. Between the branches I saw the grey-haired head of his wife, her round face smiling and kind, as she calmly picked grapes grwoing on an elaborate horizontal trellis that extended from the porch roof.

"Arrivederci," I said softly to myself as we continued down the street, trying to match the old man's inflection. "Arrivederci."

Comments

[Rachel]

Ohh. Wow.

Thank you for sharing this window into where you are.

[Gemma Grace]

Mmmm ~ a perfect market day! Arrivederci, Arrivederci.

[gulnaz]

i love red! and this was perfect!!