The sky above the wholesale pavilions sits in a hard blue darkness, not night anymore, not morning yet. Trucks reverse beneath high lamps. Forklifts glide between loading bays. Men in heavy aprons shout over the scrape of crates and the slap of plastic doors. Cold air rolls out of the seafood hall and cuts through the early heat waiting beneath the day.
Serena stands beside me with a notebook in one hand and her hair pinned low at the back of her neck. She does not look impressed.Good.Impressed people slow everything down.
“You brought me here at 5:30 AM,” she says, looking toward a row of fish stalls glittering under fluorescent light.
“I did,” I say.
“You’re aware most people begin professional conversations with coffee.”
“You’re holding coffee.”
She lifts the paper cup I bought her at the entrance.
“This is evidence, not mercy.”
“It is both,” I say.
Her mouth curves, and she turns toward the first stall before I can enjoy it too much. That’s something I notice about her immediately. She does not wait for me to present the market as if I own it, even though some part of me has behaved for years as if I do. She steps into Rungis with attention already sharpened. Not tourist attention. Not journalist curiosity dressed in pretty language. She looks at the floor, the crates, the hands, the ice, the pace, the vendors’ faces. She is reading the place before anyone offers translation.
“This is where the city starts,” I say as we move into the seafood pavilion.
Serena glances at me. “Not the farms?”
“The farms start the product. This starts the decision. Paris does not eat what is grown. Paris eats what someone chooses.”
She does not write that down. Instead, she looks toward the fish laid over crushed ice.
“Then show me how you choose.”
I take her to Baptiste first. He sees me and makes a sound of profound suffering.
“No,” Baptiste says in French.
“Not today. I am too tired for you.”
“You are always too tired for quality,” I say in French.
Baptiste points at Serena.
“You brought a witness?”
“I brought someone with better manners.”
Serena answers in French before I can translate.
“That’s not been confirmed.”
Baptiste looks at her, then laughs.
“I like this one.”
“That will pass,” I say.
Serena looks at me. “Probably.”
Baptiste pulls a crate forward. Turbot. Four of them, bright-eyed, firm, clean from the sea and cold enough to make the airaround them sharper. I lift one gently, check the gills, the body, the recovery of the flesh beneath my thumb. Serena watches my hands first, then the fish, then Baptiste. She misses very little.
“What are you looking for first?” she asks.
