Mariam Haddad had no permit. She said it plainly, without shame. She had sold on the same corner for thirty years, but she had never held a paper that said she was allowed to be there. The paper had a fee, and the fee was more than a week of tomatoes. A week of tomatoes was the difference between paying the rent on time and paying it late, and between buying all of her medicine and buying only half of it.
She had tried once, years ago, when Youssef Haddad was still alive and the cart still rolled out of the yard every morning with both of them pushing it. That was the year the city put up new signs, and a man with a clipboard came to the corner and told the vendors that everything would be regular now, that a paper would protect them, that a paper would mean no more mornings of fear. Youssef believed him, because he believed that politeness was a promise. Mariam believed him too, for an afternoon. They went together to a long room with high windows and a line that moved slowly, and at the front of the line there was a desk and a stack of forms.
The forms asked for her full name, and she gave it. The forms asked for an address, and she gave it. The forms asked for the name of her business, and she did not know what to say, because she had never thought of the crates as a business. A business had a sign and a door and a bell. She had a corner and a tin cup and a cart her husband had built. The clerk told her to write a name anyway, and she wrote the word vegetables, and the clerk shook his head and said that was not a name, that was a thing. She did not understand the difference then, and she still does not understand it now.
Then the forms asked for money. The fee was written at the bottom in a box, and Youssef read the number aloud, and Mariam felt her hands go cold, because the number was larger than any number she had ever paid for anything except the rent. It was more than a week of potatoes and onions and leeks and greens and tomatoes together, and it was money she did not have. Youssef asked if the fee could be paid in parts, and the clerk said no, the fee had to be paid whole, at once, in cash. Youssef asked if there was a smaller paper for old women who sold from crates, and the clerk said no, there was one paper, and the fee was the fee.
They went home with the forms in a plastic folder, and Youssef put the folder on top of the wardrobe, where important papers lived. Then the folder gathered dust, and the dust became a kind of answer. The answer was that the paper was not for people like her. She did not go back.
After Youssef died, Rami found the folder while looking for a blanket, and he read the forms aloud to her, and he said the words were not so hard, they only wanted to know who she was and where she sold and what she sold. Mariam said that was true, the words were not hard, the money was hard, and Rami was quiet, because he was young and he had no money either. Nour, who was small then, drew a picture of the corner on the back of one of the forms, crates and a sun and a woman in a headscarf, and Mariam kept that picture, and the folder stayed on the wardrobe, and the years went by.
She paid other costs instead. She paid the rent, late some months, early when the tomatoes were good. She paid for her medicine, and when the medicine was dear she bought half and prayed that half would be enough, and Lina Azar told her gently that half a dose was not a dose, and Mariam nodded and smiled and did what she could. She paid for Rami's books and for Nour's school things, and she counted the coins at night.
When Omar Khalil gave the order to clear the pavement by noon, Mariam thought about the permit for the first time in years. The order was not cruel. Omar was not cruel. She knew that if she had the paper, the morning would have been different.
That evening she went home with Rami carrying the lightest crate and Sami Barakat carrying the heaviest, and she put the tin cup on the table and counted the coins, and the coins were fewer than usual, because the crowd had watched instead of buying, and she did not complain. She made tea. She told Rami and Nour that she had no permit, that the fee was more than a week of tomatoes, and that she had tried once, years ago, and the forms had defeated her. Rami said he would help her this time. Nour said she would read the forms aloud, slowly. Mariam smiled at them both, and she imagined a morning when the crates would stand on the pavement with a paper in her pocket. She woke before sunrise, as always, and went back to the corner, as always, permit or no permit, because the vegetables would not sell themselves, and the rent would not wait.
Chapter Seventeen
The Clerk Who Explained the Forms in a Kind Voice