From Souk to Souk by Robin Ratchford

wolfing it down.
    I smiled goodbye and continued to amble through the gallery, feeling I was the only person there without an ice cream. The shops were uninspiring, but the ever-growing number of people more than compensated in terms of visual interest. Men, mostly in Western clothes, bustled past, while women in more conservative and distinctly Arabic dress shuffled along, often laden with shopping bags and followed by gaggles of children. Many faces had film-star looks, but others seemed to have been doled out startling combinations of features – elongated faces, horse-like teeth, and bulging eyes – as if the least desirable genes from past invasions had by some misfortune all come together at once. As in most high streets, the multitude was a mix of shoppers and people just walking around, looking, talking, and laughing with their friends and family. The scene was at once familiar and exotic; the ambience was relaxed, yet my thoughts kept returning to the man I suspected was following me. I had done nothing untoward, but perhaps my worst fears were being confirmed.
    After a while, I began to bore of the endless shops selling clothes I would never buy and decided to head back. I turned and retraced my steps past the Great Mosque and through to the spice souk, keeping a discreet eye out among the myriad faces for the dark eyes I had seen earlier. In the shadows of the covered market, I began to feel people were observing me: curious glances from shopkeepers, enquiring looks from passers-by, the occasional stare and furtive whisper. Was I imagining it, or were people deliberately bumping into me as I tried to fight my way through the crowds? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement in one of the murky first-floor rooms, a figure slipping out of view behind the dusty glass as I looked up. I told myself it was probably just somebody working in a storeroom, but, in the subdued lighting of the souk, I could feel my pulse quickening as reason struggled to stay its ground. When, a short while later, I once again emerged on to Straight Street, away from the mass of people and the thick, scented air of the spice market, it seemed as if I had been granted a reprieve from the darker recesses of my own imagination.
    â€˜Hello! Hello!’
    It was the young man from the nut and dried fruit shop, enthusiastically beckoning me across. I felt a strange sense of relief to see a familiar face. After a moment’s hesitation, I walked over to where he was standing, his slim form squeezed into a pink T-shirt and a pair of the tight, faux-designer jeans that seemed so popular here.
    â€˜Try these, my friend,’ he said, pushing a few pistachios into the palm of my hand. ‘They are from Iran. The best!’
    I cracked open the shells and began tasting the little green nuts.
    â€˜Yes? You like them?’ he gave an appealing smile. ‘Where are you from?’
    â€˜I’m British,’ I replied, after a brief pause, wondering how he would react.
    â€˜Manchester United!’ he grinned. ‘You like Manchester United?’ I was not sure if his enthusiasm was real or merely sales banter, but he seemed to take it in his stride when I said football was not quite my thing.
    I bought half a kilo of pistachios and now had two bags to carry: the dried roses and the nuts. Dipping occasionally into the latter, and, somewhat irrationally, feeling reassured after the brief conversation, I continued my stroll and contemplated the long history of the narrow street with its modest architecture. Perhaps Saint Paul had also once stopped to buy pistachios from a street vendor all those centuries ago, I mused. Once again, here in Damascus I felt the sensation of continuity derived from the banal: everyday actions we repeat, as did countless generations before us, which link us to our past in a way that mere masonry and stonework cannot. As I walked along lost in my thoughts, an art shop suddenly caught my eye. Pausing