Figs i did not ask for

The figs were already in the bag. I had counted coins into the woman’s palm and stepped back.

This was the Saturday market in Vila Nova de Milfontes, the one that sets up near the river car park. I had walked down from my room, still cool at that hour, with the leather notebook in my bag because I never leave without it.

The stall was a plank table under a faded green awning. Figs in shallow baskets, plums in the next one, a few late apricots going soft at the stem. The woman wore her hair tied back and had soil under one thumbnail. She had already given me nine figs for what I paid. I was about to walk.

She put a tenth fig in. Then an eleventh. She looked at me as if she was checking something. Then a twelfth. I stood there. I had read about this kind of thing somewhere, or heard about it, but I had not expected it to feel so ordinary. She was not smiling. She was working. I think she had decided the bag was not full enough.

I said obrigado. I knew it was wrong the moment it left my mouth. She stopped. She looked at me and said obrigada, twice, the second time slower. I had written about the harbour wall at dusk a few weeks earlier and got the tide wrong then too, I remembered. I tried again. Obrigada. She nodded once and went back to the figs. She put one more in and tied the bag shut with a twist of the top.

I walked back with the bag heavy against my hip. Twelve figs and a plum she had added at the end. I ate one on the stairs and it was warm from the sun on the table. I still do not know why she kept going. I do not know if she did it for everyone or only for people who looked like they needed the extra figs. I got the word wrong and she corrected me and then she stopped. Maybe that was the whole of it.

If you’re thinking about it

• Saturday market sets up early near the river car park; arrive before ten to avoid the heat and the crowds.
• Bring exact coins in small amounts; most stalls do not take cards.
• A cloth bag is useful; the paper ones tear under the weight of figs and plums.
• If you are staying west of the river, the walk is flat and under fifteen minutes.
• Skip the tourist-oriented stalls near the entrance; the fruit sellers are further in, under the awnings.

I’ll be here a while longer.