The wrong words at the spice stall

Written in Essaouira, March 2020. Typed up today.

Cumin in a heap, and beside it a darker mound, almost black. The stall smelled of something sweet I couldn’t name.

The medina in Essaouira carried salt and wood underneath everything. The spice sellers sat low behind their sacks, close to the ground.

A boy near the ramparts had taught me two words that morning. He was selling oranges from a crate. When I paid he said shukran, slow, like he wanted me to hear it properly. Then salam, touching his chest. I repeated both back and he laughed, not unkindly.

I wrote them in my notebook that evening, the way they sounded to me. Shoo-kran, sah-lam. I had already written about a rooftop and a bin-bag kite, and I thought I was past the worst of the fumbling.

The woman at the spice stall sat with her legs folded under her. Her fingers were stained yellow up to the first knuckle, turmeric maybe, or something I didn’t recognise. The sacks behind her were taller than she was, sitting. Each one tied at the top with rough string.

I crouched to point at the cumin and said salam. She looked up. Bonjour, she said. My eyes watered from the dust.

I said shukran when she scooped the powder into a paper cone. Merci. And then something longer in French I didn’t catch. Something about the weight, or maybe the price. I tried once more on the way out. Shukran, louder, as if volume might help. She said au revoir without lifting her head.

The boy was still at his crate when I passed again later. He waved. I waved back. I didn’t try any words.

That’s all I wrote down.