But the odd thing is another slave, a porter, also left his master's town house to meet with a vegetable seller.

"Now the war will spread," said a 33-year-old vegetable seller who identified himself only as Samir.

And when a vegetable seller came down with the disease, all 2,400 people working in that market were forced into quarantine.

"I have procured the cart of a vegetable seller from the country," he said.

I'll fill it and leave it over there, with the vegetable seller just behind us.

His father was a schoolteacher, his mother a vegetable seller.

"Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers," he kept saying.

The vegetable seller caught his sleeve and held him.

He opened the gate for the vegetable seller, then ran his hand up and down the bars.

"You could tell somebody come morning when you go off duty," the vegetable seller said slowly.