"Soot?"
"Souk."
"Sook?"
"Yes." "I don't know what that is." I don't. "A souk?" She seems surprised that I, who had been admitted into her little world, do not know what a "souk" is. Doesn't everyone know what a souk is? "It's um, like a market. In Turkish... Arabic. In all different kinds of Arabic... I think, they have souk in the, um, different Arabic languages. It's, you know, one of those... markets." I get an image in my head of a combination of something mysterious like I imagine the Casbah to be and one of those really awful flea markets in the deep south where they sell Confederate flag beach towels and mud flap girl jewelry. This is not what the stores next door are like and I assume that mud flap girls do not exist in the Muslim world, so I decide this woman doesn't know what she was talking about. "Yeah the whole neighborhood is so... different now. Gentrified. Not like when I worked around here, three years ago. I like Barts. When Barts was here. You remember Barts?" "No. I've only been working here six months. But yes, the neighborhood has changed." "Oh yeah. I used to work here. It's veeeerrrry different now," she sniffed. She wandered around with her wheeled suitcase, her earrings clinking. "It's good the old timers are still here though,"she says. "Lovely store." "Thanks," I say and smile. "Everything changes, I guess," she sighs. "Yes, it does." I reply. She sighs again. "Barts was a better use of the space." "Ok." I say.
She pokes around some more, picking up a $200 serving platter, examining a $210 corkscrew. She is muttering her appreciation under her breath as she moves from object to object. Abruptly, she walks to the door and pushes it open. "Keep up the good fight!" she says as she leaves and pumps her fist in the air. I have no idea what that means.
Another gem. Why not put together a collection?
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