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“Yeah, since this morning.
We went upstairs. I could hardly believe it; she was twenty-two, an old lady, and she was all mine. She explained how to wash, then how to make love…
Of course, I already knew, but I let her talk, so she’d feel more at ease, and besides, I liked her voice, a little sulky, a little sad. The whole time, I almost fainted. At the end, she stroked my hair gently and said,
“You’ll have to come back and bring me a little present.”
That almost ruined my joy: I’d forgotten about the little present. That was it, I was a man, I had been baptized between a woman's thighs, I could barely stand, my legs were still trembling, and the trouble was starting: I had forgotten the famous little gift.
I ran back to the apartment, rushed to my room, looked around for something precious I could offer, then hurried back up Rue de Paradis. The girl was still under the porch. I gave her my teddy bear.
It was around this time that I met Monsieur Ibrahim.
Monsieur Ibrahim had always been old. Unanimously, as far back as anyone on Rue Bleue and Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière could remember, Monsieur Ibrahim had always been seen in his grocery store, from eight in the morning until the middle of the night, braced between his cash register and the cleaning supplies, one leg in the aisle, the other under the matchboxes, a gray smock over a white shirt, ivory teeth beneath a dry mustache, and pistachio-green and brown eyes, lighter than his brown skin, marked by wisdom.
For Monsieur Ibrahim, in everyone's opinion, was considered a wise man. No doubt because he had been the Arab of a Jewish street for at least forty years. No doubt because he smiled often and spoke little. No doubt because he seemed to escape the ordinary bustle of mortals, especially Parisian mortals, never moving, like a branch grafted onto his stool, never tidying his stall in front of anyone, and disappearing somewhere between midnight and eight in the morning.
So every day, I did the shopping and prepared the meals. I only bought canned goods. If I bought them every day, it wasn't
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