She grins then and the two men grin also, not at me but at each other. I see I've made a mistake, I should have pretended to be an American.

"Amburger, oh yes we have lots. _How_ much?" she asks, adding the final H carelessly to show she can if she feels like it. This is border country.

"A pound, no two pounds," I say, blushing even more because I've been so easily discovered, they're making fun of me and I have no way of letting them know I share the joke. Also I agree with them, if you live in a place you should speak the language. But this isn't where I lived.

She hacks with a cleaver at a cube of frozen meat, weighs it. "Doo leevers," she says, mimicking my school accent. The two men snigger. I solace myself by replaying the man from the government, he was at a gallery opening, a handicraft exhibit, string wall hangings, woven place mats, stoneware breakfast sets; Joe wanted to go so he could resent not being in it. The man seemed to be a cultural attache of some sort, an ambassador; I asked him if he knew this part of the country, my part, and he shook his head and said "Des barbares, they are not civilized." At the time that annoyed me.

I pick up some fly dope in a spray can for the others, also some eggs and bacon, bread and butter, miscellaneous tins. Everything is more expensive here than in the city; no one keeps hens or cows or pigs any more, it's all imported from more fertile districts. The bread is in wax paper wrappers, tranché.

I would like to back out the door, I don't want them staring at me from behind; but I force myself to walk slowly, frontwards.

There used to be only one store. It was in the front part of a house, run by an old woman who was also called Madame: none of the women had names then. Madame sold khaki-coloured penny candies which we were forbidden to eat, but her main source of power was that she had only one hand.