And every Friday his mother would wait for him precisely at midday at the gate of his school, with her blond plait framing her head like a wreath and a brown tortoiseshell comb planted at her golden nape. They would go together to do the last-minute shopping in Mahane Yehuda Market, he with his satchel on his back and she clutching her wicker shopping basket, a sapphire ring gleaming on her finger. The smells of the market, sharp, savory Oriental smells, filled them both with childish glee. As though they were conspiring secretly against the heavy Ashkenazic sweetness of the pics at home and the cloying carrot and the strudel and the compote and the sticky jams. And indeed, his father disliked these Friday raids on the market. He grumbled sardonically that the child ought to be doing his homework or improving his body with exercises, and in any case they paid a fortune to have a maid, whose job it was to do the shopping, and surely one could buy everything nearby in Rehavia, so there was no need to drag the child among those filthy stalls with foul liquids swilling on the pavement. The Levant was swarming with germs, and all those pungent spices with their clamorous smells were nothing but a camouflage for filth. He made a joke of his wife’s attraction to the enchantments of the Thousand and One Nights, and what he termed her weekly quest for Ali Baba. Fima trembled inwardly at the recollection of the illicit thrill of helping his mother to choose from among various kinds of black olives, with their almost indecent smell and their sharp, dizzying taste. Sometimes he noticed the smoldering look one of the stall holders fixed on his mother, and although he was too young to know its meaning, he could faintly feel, as in a dream, an echo of a tremor that ran through his mother’s body and seemed to overflow into his own. He could hear her voice now, in the distance. Look what they’ve done to you, stupid. But this time he answered cheerfully, Never mind, you’ll see that I still haven’t said my last word.