The Fish Counter – Part 1: Sea Bass
Workplace·EN·2 min read·Published 2026-11-07, updated 2026-11-07·Part 1 of 2
"You're stacking the bream wrong," said Karim.
"I'm stacking them beautifully," said Manon.
"Heads out. Tails in. Customers like to see the eyes."
"Customers like to see freshness."
"Eyes are freshness."
They glared at each other across the narrow gap between their stalls, in the cold salt air of the old harbour at Marseille, at six in the morning. Fishing boats rocked at the quay. Gulls screamed. The market was a roar of voices and ice, crates of glittering fish, buckets of sea urchins, women with baskets, men in rubber aprons shouting prices.
Manon was thirty, a new stallholder, small and fierce, in a bright yellow apron, with her dark hair under a woolly hat and a blue plastic knife-sheath on her belt. She had left a hotel kitchen to take her late father's pitch. Karim was thirty-five, tall, bearded, with forearms like ropes and a laugh like a foghorn. He had run his stall for fifteen years and was loudly, publicly sure of everything.
"The sea bass," he said, "are better on my side."
"The sea bass are identical."
"Mine were caught this morning."
"So were mine."
"Prove it."
She seized a fish from her own tray, held it up by the gills and looked it in the eye. The glassy black pupil gleamed. She sniffed it. She pressed its flank. She slapped it on the counter. "Firm. Clear. Sweet. It was swimming at four."
Karim leaned across the gap, took the fish, and did exactly the same. His face went through four expressions in a row.
"Fine," he said. "It's a good fish."
"It's an excellent fish."
"Fine. Excellent."
She laughed. His shoulders shook. Neither could keep a straight face. By noon, a queue stretched from her stall round the corner: word had spread that two fishmongers were having an argument and selling the best sea bass in the city for half price.
"We should do this every day," said Karim.
"Argue?"
"Sell."
"Can I ask you something?" said Manon.
"Yes."
"Is it always this loud?"
"Only when you're here," said Karim.
"Green?" she said, an ice crate, a light.
"Green," said Karim, going pink. "Very green. Pass the ice."
Continue the story: Part 2 – Last Tide.
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Part 2 of 2: Last Tide · 2 min read
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