The Vine Basket

Mehrigul scanned the crowds at the market, looking for Ata. Surely by now her father had spent the yuan they’d made from the sale of a few peaches. But there was no sign of him along the dirt paths that were lined with the autumn harvest from nearby farms, the green and red peppers, the onions and potatoes piled high on donkey carts or spread out on blankets. Ata was not among those bargaining for turnips or carrots or meat cut from hanging carcasses of sheep.
He’d been gone long enough to get drunk. Wasn’t that why he had brought her? Each Wednesday he left her alone with the cart for a longer and longer time.
Her gaze shifted to the mounds of honey peaches that lay unsold, the pile of willow baskets. Until her brother went away, it had been his job to come to the market. Memet had insisted Mehrigul come, too, during her summer vacation. She arranges wilted radishes so they look good enough to eat, he’d told Ata.

She could arrange the family’s goods, but she had no gift for selling. When Memet was in charge, they’d sold everything, and their legs swung happily from the edge of the empty cart as their old donkey pulled them home.
That seemed a lifetime ago. It had only been eight weeks.
“Are you alright?”
The woman selling yarn next to her had called out to her. Mehrigul was standing, gripping the edge of the cart. She forced her hands to loosen their hold and made a slow turn to face her neighbor, who sat on a crate pulling yarn into her lap, winding it into skeins.

Would you mind watching my cart? for just a few minutes?” Mehrigul asked.
The woman waved Mehrigul away. “Take your time. Neither of us has many customers today.”
Mehrigul bobbed her head. She put two peaches into a basket and walked off. A hard-boiled egg would take away the pangs of hunger, if not her troubling thoughts.