It was a cause for celebration. It certainly was. That was what Mother decided, so it must have been so.

The fact that we were walking down this nice, clean city street, dressed in clothes that for once weren’t tattered, torn, or worn from use, and hand in hand as if we were always this close, seemed like proof to my young mind that this actually was a special occasion. I still didn’t know what happened, or why today was so special. Did someone else marry into our household? No, I would have been introduced before. We didn’t get a lot of potatoes this year, either. Father and Uncle still came home from the mines grumbling and sore. Nothing really changed for our family in years. What could have happened today?

It wasn’t until years and years later that I would learn the truth. There was no special occasion, no cause for celebration. Mother had simply grown tired of the homegrown booze that she sucked down like water. “Water” was and is the only thing that comes to mind when I think about that stuff, not because of Mother’s excess of consumption but because of her constant loud and bitter comparisons between the two liquids. It’s too damn weak, she says. Can’t get a goddamn buzz from this. Something along those lines. At some point we began to tune her out.

Where I come from, if someone wanted to get drunk, or had some other use for alcohol, he had two options: he could find booze elsewhere and buy it, or he could find out how to make his own. But alcohol is, apparently, an expensive and jealously guarded commodity around here, and most folks make such a modest living that the first option is extremely impractical and out of the question. And so, every family in the Farms had a still in some shape or form lying around their property. They weren’t always the best of manufacturers, either. Stories have been told of people who had gone blind or dead because they couldn’t brew properly and drank that poisonous stuff.

Uncle says that in countries like America, the alcohol we make would be called Bathtub Gin. Or something. All I know is that the rich folks in the cities call it intolerable and we just call it the norm.

But here we were in the big city, about to buy fancy flavored alcohol for whatever purpose, and in our best attempts at appearing as if we were as wealthy as our surroundings. We spent the better part of the morning scrubbing ourselves pink, then abandoned the comfortably worn-in cloth pants that we usually wore for overly starched, brightly-dyed, and dusty dresses that - in our minds - resembled wealthier fashion. We did our best to walk tall, our heads held high, as if we weren’t used to bending over in a field most of the day. Mother was also holding my hand, as if to suggest that we weren’t more absorbed in the labors of the day than in being together. It all felt so strange, this lie we were trying to project. “Just to the market and back,” Mother insisted.

As far as I can remember, that was my first visit to this particular market. I pictured a lively patch of land, with few stalls and a lot of people and animals, and near-deafening sounds to match. I pictured an impossible crowd that smelled like exhausted farmers and animals - that ever-present combination of dirt, sweat, and dung - but the market that we actually approached was so different from my imagination that it at first didn’t register that we had already arrived. The reality even seemed to stump Mother, but only for a moment.

There were people about, yes, but there was so much open space that there wasn’t as much of a crowd. There weren’t any stalls in sight, but plenty of sturdy-looking shops lined the market square in their place. No animals were around, either, but one of the shops clearly advertised itself as a butcher. Nobody smelled, either, and the roar of activity that I was expecting was replaced by the dull, barely audible murmurs of passers-by.

“Mother, are you sure this is a market?”

A group of women walking nearby heard me ask and shot suspicious looks in our direction.

“Of course it is, darling. Don’t be ridiculous.” Mother squeezed my hand tighter and tighter as a warning. She’s probably saving that scolding for later, I thought.

Mother dragged me around the square for a distance I don’t quite remember until we reached one little store on the opposite side from where we entered. It was darker and cooler inside than out, and the mixed smells of something sickeningly sweet and that familiar booze were faintly there. All I could see from my height were shelves and all sorts of glass bottles filled with liquid of any color imaginable. Some of the bottles had labels written in English, some in our tongue and some had no label at all.

Mother appeared to take great pleasure in scanning each row and column of perfectly-organized glass bottles. She held me close to ensure that I wouldn’t touch anything, but after breaking one of her bottles months before I knew better than to be so careless. I followed close behind, my eyes wandering aimlessly as Mother carefully examined each bottle in front of her. She paid special attention to the bottles labeled with English - that was supposedly the best stuff.

Her eyes eventually settled on a clean bottle of warm, golden booze, with a picture of a beach on the label. It looked so inviting, I probably would have picked it up as well. Mother couldn’t read the label, and neither could I. It was written in a tongue that only the rich folks ever learned, but it certainly looked appealing to Mother.

She took the bottle and made her way to the counter to pay for it. I was dragged mercilessly along. The shopkeeper took one look at the bottle, then shot a strange glance at Mother and me. The look was quick, but the meaning had not gone unnoticed. He seemed to be telling us, “You’re not fooling anyone. You’re still a dirty peasant buying alcohol that is likely worth more than your house. Assuming you’ve one of your own, that is.” Mother caught it, and looked away at once. I don’t remember anyone seeing Mother’s confidence stripped so quickly.

“Fifty,” the shopkeeper finally said, bringing Mother back to the present. He held out his hand in expectation of payment.

Mother shook her head. “The price on the shelf is thirty. That is all I am paying.”

My eyes opened wide in surprise at this response. Not because of Mother’s defiance, which I would come to learn was enormously disrespectful for a woman of our class, but because of what she was willing to pay. Thirty dots could buy a full basket of tomatoes at the other market - the dirtier market. It was also more than what Father and Uncle brought home at the end of the workweek - double their pay, if I recall. We always needed something other than what our farm could give, and for that reason I never could get a doll that looked vaguely humanlike or see one of the traveling plays that came by every now and then. Both were luxuries enjoyed by other children I knew, whose families claimed that the expense wasn’t too unbearable if only paid at rare intervals. But Mother wanted to throw away that money on something that would be gone by nightfall? Did Father or Uncle know about this? Was it okay? Well, I reminded myself, this was supposed to be a special occasion.

The shopkeeper responded with a scoff. “Clearly, your kind wouldn’t understand good business practices,” he began. “But the market for alcohol is quite unstable. Prices rise and fall at the drop of a hat, without warning. The price of that particular bottle of rum rose this morning, and I have not had the opportunity to change what is written on the shelf. If I took the time to do so for every bottle in this shop, I’d be exhausted in an hour. The price is fifty, I will accept no negotiation.”

Years later I would learn that the prices of alcohol are not as subject to change as he would have Mother believe. He merely saw an impoverished woman with the Dependency and decided to milk that for all it was worth. This practice, while technically illegal, was rarely enforced by the aristocrats who held the same lowly opinion of the working class as that shopkeeper did. Nobody seemed to care that a few extra dots were squeezed out of a Dependent woman.

Squeezed out, they certainly were. Mother, as defiant and reluctant as she was, fished out an extra twenty dots and handed them over with a cold glare. “Come on,” she finally said to me, and dragged me along on her way out the door.

I could hardly believe it. Thirty dots was expensive enough, but fifty was a number that likely never crossed my mind until that day. And for such a little bottle? I almost wanted to taste some for myself. If it was worth so much, worth nearly two full tomato baskets or a whole barrel of rice, it had to be good, right? I never had the chance to find out, however. That month’s worth of food was gone before we reached home again.