Household Gods

A modius was a lot; the image that sprang into her mind at the sound of the word was of a jar that had to hold a couple of gallons’ worth. The idea of getting that many raisins for a few brass coins was mind-boggling. Still, the dealer had hesitated the least little bit before he replied. Maybe that didn’t mean anything. Maybe it did. “And what did you charge me for them last time?” she asked in her best cross-examination voice.

It wasn’t quite Where were you on the night of the fourth? but it did the job. The raisin-seller winced. “All right, six sesterces,” he said sullenly. “That’s not any higher than Antonius is charging – you don’t need to go trotting over to him the way you did the last couple of times.”

“Oh, you think I should?” she said as if that were a brilliant idea, and shifted as if to turn away from the stall.

“Don’t you move!” the raisin-seller shrilled at her. “I just heard him sell a modius of rabbit droppings to Junia Marcella for seven and an as. What makes you think he’ll give you any better deal?”

Nicole shrugged again. The shrug was the buyer’s best weapon in these Third-World markets – except that this wasn’t the Third World, was it? It was a completely different world altogether. “I suppose I believe you, “ she said. “This time.”

He beamed. “Good!” he said. “Good!” Then he waited. She fumbled in her purse and counted out the six sesterces, but he wouldn’t take them. “Not yet, not yet! Where’s your basket? Didn’t you bring anything to put them in?”

Of course I didn’t! Nicole started to say, but stopped herself in time. Everywhere she looked, people were carrying baskets and bags, bundles and parcels. No plastic bags – that, she didn’t miss at all. But no paper, either. Nothing that resembled it.

No wonder Umma hadn’t had any books on the chest of drawers or by her bed. How did the Romans run their empire without paper? Nicole wished she knew how to make it. It would be like getting in on the ground floor of Microsoft.

Unfortunately, she didn’t. And, even if she had, she wouldn’t have had time to do it while the raisin-seller waited. She had to stand watching and feeling foolish while he borrowed a modius-sized pot from the bean-dealer next door, filled it full of raisins, then poured the raisins into a big pile on a grimy linen sheet and tied it around them with what looked like a leather bootlace. He charged her an as for the packaging, too, and sounded as if he had every right in the world to do it. She gave him the little copper coin without a murmur.

She wandered on down the line of stalls, finding in them a bewildering variety of things in no discernible order: fruit next to sandals next to bolts of cloth next to the kind of beads and bangles she’d expect to see on the street in San Francisco.

When she came to a butcher’s stall, she wondered if she’d ever eat meat again. No neat, clean packages wrapped in polyethylene film here. Some of the meat lay on platters. Some – she peered, doubting her eyes – was nailed to boards. All of it was crawling with flies. Once in a while, the butcher swiped halfheartedly at them, but they came back in buzzing swarms.

What was it some friend of Frank’s had said after spending a semester in Africa? All about picturesque markets and the African equivalent of hot-dog stands: kabob-sellers. “They’re called fly kabobs,” Frank’s friend had said. Nicole had thought he was exaggerating.

Not anymore, she didn’t.

There was blood everywhere – literally. As Nicole moved closer, drawn as much by revulsion as by curiosity, she realized the butcher was hawking it. “Pig’s blood for blood sausages! Three asses for a sextarius!” He held up a small pot, about the size of a one-cup measure in West Hills. “One more as buys you the gut to case it in.”

His eye caught Nicole’s. Before she could back away, he put down the pot and scooped up a wriggling, pink-and-gray mass that had to be pig intestines, and thrust them in her face. They stank of pig, and of the pig’s last meal. Garbage, from the smell of it, and other things even less savory.

She recoiled. Her stomach, which had forgotten its complaints, abruptly remembered them. She swallowed bile. It burned going down, and made her voice even tighter than it would have been to start with. “I don’t want pig guts,” she said through clenched teeth. “I want a leg of mutton.”

He never even blinked. “I’ve got a nice one with the hide still on,” he said. “You can get it tanned with the wool, if you want, or do the shearing and spin yourself some nice thread.” He reached under his counter and rummaged, muttering to himself. With a grunt that sounded excessively satisfied, he pulled something out from below and slammed it down in front of her. “Here you go,” he said.