The knife sharpener who comes to Libération market on Fridays
He sets up between the fishmonger and the olive stand at seven, works until the crowd thins, and charges four euros a blade.
I brought him a knife I'd been ruining bread with since April. He looked at it the way a doctor looks at a patient who waited too long.
Libération on a Friday is already a full conversation — tomatoes, gossip, someone arguing about parking — and then you hear the stone. It is not loud. You follow it.
If you go: arrive before nine if you want him without a queue. He takes cash. He will tell you, kindly, if the knife is not worth saving. Mine was. It now cuts tomatoes instead of crushing them.
I still shop the rest of the market after. That is the other half of the lesson. The sharpener is a reason to go; the rest of the stalls are why you stay.