In the park, people were eating bowls of strawberries, raspberries, orange slices, blueberries, pineapple -- and green serrated leaves that she did not recognize. Using wooden cups that hung from their belts on leather thongs, people helped themselves to fruit from trough-like bowls.

Many people in the crowd wore shirts with writing and pictures on them, as if they were advertisements for things that Clara had never heard of. Someone handed her a plastic cup. She filled it with strawberries and serrated green leaves.