Small world

A couple of my friends have asked me what daily life is like in a small village. It’s a little like this:

I enter the butcher shop. It’s market day, so it’s very crowded. There are two butchers, brothers. The taller one is holding court on the raised platform behind the glass shrine of meat. They are both in their 50s and always seem to be in a great mood … always. Friends of mine who visited were amazed to see one brother telling jokes over his shoulder while whacking a huge hunk of beef down to size with a foot-long cleaver.

This tendency might explain the missing part of one finger.

Today, he pauses between customers to cut a sample of porchetta (a delicious Tuscan thing—a roasted whole pig stuffed with herbs) and has the crowd pass it to a specific customer, a woman in her 50s who is with her daughter and is seated near the door. The daughter says loudly enough for everyone to hear: “He spoils you.” The butcher says: “I was in love with her when we were in preschool.”

At this point, another patron, a grandmother who is just tall enough to see over the meat part of the shrine but not over the top of the glass, adds: “No you weren’t. You were in love with Clementina.”