store was apparently that you waited outside for your cart and looked at the stands nearby. If you did not have a canvas shopping bag on you, perhaps because you had just arrived from America, you might well do what Noah’s father did, and dart over to the stand that sold shopping bags, returning very soon to rejoin your son in the shopping-cart line. And meanwhile, if you were that son, you made a ranked list in your head of all the different things sold in those stands. Cabbage and potatoes ranked low.
The
best
stand outside the supermarket, according to Noah’s mental list, sold little doughnuts that trundled along a mechanized gangplank from the frying vat to the sugar-covered cooling board.
“On the way out,” said his dad, following Noah’s eyes. “I agree.”
The
closest
stand sold two — exactly and only two — different kinds of cheese.
Near the entrance to the grocery store was a counter where people coming out wrapped their groceries in sheets of gray-brown paper. And then those people would put their wrapped groceries into their shopping bag and hand off their grocery cart to someone going into the store.
What was the store like? It was like a clever copy of any grocery store in Virginia. It had aisles and shelves like any grocery store, and fluorescent lights and containers of food with pictures on the outside, just like a store back home. But if you looked closely, you began to see the differences.
For one thing, the lights weren’t very bright. It was dimmer here than in the shiny American stores Noah was used to, and the vegetables were limited to the not-very-colorful kinds, like potatoes and onions and cauliflower. Everything for sale in that supermarket looked edible, looked perfectly okay, looked fine, but at the same time somehow managed to look like a rough copy of the things for sale in the supermarkets of Virginia. There were pictures on the cartons, sure, but the pictures were all a little indistinct, a little fuzzy.
Noah and his father bought a box with a blurry picture of crumb cake on its cover. And rice. And a slightly dreary-looking cauliflower. And a carton of eggs. And milk in a blue-and-white-checked cardboard pyramid.
A pyramid! Full of milk!
“That’s about the strangest bit of packaging I’ve ever seen,” said Noah’s dad. “Well, all right. There must be some good reason for putting milk in pyramids.”
He and Noah looked at each other, and Noah’s dad shrugged. They had no idea.
It was time to scoot home and make their party offering, anyway.
“What’s it going to be?” said Noah’s father.
Noah looked at the ingredients in their canvas bag and couldn’t guess. There wasn’t anything there that looked particularly party-like. Nothing fancy. But Noah’s father snapped his fingers. He always, always could come up with an idea about dinner.
“Fried rice!” say Noah’s father, obviously quite delighted with himself. “Curried fried rice. We can use some of our curry powder. It will be
tasty
!”
When Noah’s mother came through the door later that afternoon, she looked quite surprised to find the rest of her family filling the apartment with the smell of curry powder and cooking oil.
“What’s this?” she said. “You know they’re sending someone to pick us up in half an hour.”
“Food for the party!” said Noah’s father. “Party food!”
“I’m not sure people bring fried curry rice to parties in East Berlin,” said Noah’s mother. “In fact, I’m pretty sure they don’t.”
“They do now!” said Noah’s father, and then they had to rush to get ready, which basically meant putting clean shirts on and combing their hair and, in Noah’s case, popping his
Alice
book into his backpack so that he would have something to read while the grown-ups sat around and talked.
“They’ll be wanting to look us over,
to
get to know us,
” said Noah’s mother. She said it with one of her warning stares, and she wiggled seven fingers at
The
best
stand outside the supermarket, according to Noah’s mental list, sold little doughnuts that trundled along a mechanized gangplank from the frying vat to the sugar-covered cooling board.
“On the way out,” said his dad, following Noah’s eyes. “I agree.”
The
closest
stand sold two — exactly and only two — different kinds of cheese.
Near the entrance to the grocery store was a counter where people coming out wrapped their groceries in sheets of gray-brown paper. And then those people would put their wrapped groceries into their shopping bag and hand off their grocery cart to someone going into the store.
What was the store like? It was like a clever copy of any grocery store in Virginia. It had aisles and shelves like any grocery store, and fluorescent lights and containers of food with pictures on the outside, just like a store back home. But if you looked closely, you began to see the differences.
For one thing, the lights weren’t very bright. It was dimmer here than in the shiny American stores Noah was used to, and the vegetables were limited to the not-very-colorful kinds, like potatoes and onions and cauliflower. Everything for sale in that supermarket looked edible, looked perfectly okay, looked fine, but at the same time somehow managed to look like a rough copy of the things for sale in the supermarkets of Virginia. There were pictures on the cartons, sure, but the pictures were all a little indistinct, a little fuzzy.
Noah and his father bought a box with a blurry picture of crumb cake on its cover. And rice. And a slightly dreary-looking cauliflower. And a carton of eggs. And milk in a blue-and-white-checked cardboard pyramid.
A pyramid! Full of milk!
“That’s about the strangest bit of packaging I’ve ever seen,” said Noah’s dad. “Well, all right. There must be some good reason for putting milk in pyramids.”
He and Noah looked at each other, and Noah’s dad shrugged. They had no idea.
It was time to scoot home and make their party offering, anyway.
“What’s it going to be?” said Noah’s father.
Noah looked at the ingredients in their canvas bag and couldn’t guess. There wasn’t anything there that looked particularly party-like. Nothing fancy. But Noah’s father snapped his fingers. He always, always could come up with an idea about dinner.
“Fried rice!” say Noah’s father, obviously quite delighted with himself. “Curried fried rice. We can use some of our curry powder. It will be
tasty
!”
When Noah’s mother came through the door later that afternoon, she looked quite surprised to find the rest of her family filling the apartment with the smell of curry powder and cooking oil.
“What’s this?” she said. “You know they’re sending someone to pick us up in half an hour.”
“Food for the party!” said Noah’s father. “Party food!”
“I’m not sure people bring fried curry rice to parties in East Berlin,” said Noah’s mother. “In fact, I’m pretty sure they don’t.”
“They do now!” said Noah’s father, and then they had to rush to get ready, which basically meant putting clean shirts on and combing their hair and, in Noah’s case, popping his
Alice
book into his backpack so that he would have something to read while the grown-ups sat around and talked.
“They’ll be wanting to look us over,
to
get to know us,
” said Noah’s mother. She said it with one of her warning stares, and she wiggled seven fingers at
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