MARKET MADNESS

"How much for the dress?" I ask.

"For you . . . a hundred American dolla'."
White teeth grinning in the swarthy, crinkled lizard-skin face.

I scoff and roll my eyes.
"Fah!" I exclaim. "I'll give you fifteen Egyptian."

"You want to rob me," shouts the stallkeeper.
"Make it eighty dolla'."

"I have no American money," I say, shrugging.
"But I'll give you twenty pounds."

"It's worth a hundred twenty pounds," he cries.

I know I'm getting warmer.
"Twenty pounds," I say.

"No, no, look at the workmanship.
I must have fifty dolla', one hundred pounds."

"I'll make it twenty-five pounds," I say.

"You insult me," he cries.

"You insult me," I reply.

"Give me eighty pounds," he cries.
I shove the dress back at his hands.
"Make me an offer," he begs.

"I did," I say.

"All right, all right!
Seventy-five pounds, and it's my last offer!"

"Thirty pounds, and it's my last offer."
"Seventy, and that's rock bottom," he exclaims,
forcing the dress back into my hands.

I push it back at him.
"I'll pay thirty, and not a penny more."

"Sixty-five!"

"Thirty!"

"Sixty!"

"Thirty!"

"Fifty-five!"

I pause for effect.

"Thirty-five," I say finally.

"Fifty?" he pleads.

"I said thirty-five," I reply with a sneering smile.

"Forty-five?"

I know I've won.
"I'll give you forty," I say, and shove the money into his hands,
then step out into the street with the dress on my arm.

Down the street, out of sight of the shop,
I look at the workmanship.

The beadwork, the gold braid are very fine, indeed.

At Niemann's it would cost me thirty-five hundred American dolla'.

Table of Contents

SYZYGY

A Poetry Chapbook
by
Honora Finkelstein

© 1997

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