The neighbors went home with their purchases the way people carry things that matter, carefully, with both hands, and with frequent stops to shift the weight. The woman from the second floor carried her potatoes up the steps one step at a time, pausing on each landing to rest the bag against her hip, and when she reached her door she set the bag down gently, as if she were afraid of bruising what was inside. In her kitchen she emptied the bag onto the table and sorted the potatoes by size, the way her own mother had taught her, and she put the largest ones aside for soup and the smallest ones aside for roasting.
Down the street, the baker's wife carried her onions and leeks in a cloth bag slung over her shoulder, and she walked slowly because the bag was heavy and because she wanted to enjoy the walk. She stopped twice to talk to neighbors, and each time she opened the bag a little so they could see the leeks lying green and white inside. The leeks smelled clean and sharp, and the smell reminded her of winter soups and of the kitchen she had kept for forty years. She thought about Mariam Haddad standing at her crates in the early morning, arranging everything with such care, and she thought about how easy it would have been to walk past without stopping. She was glad she had stopped. She was glad the whole street had stopped. The bag bumped against her leg as she walked, and she did not mind the weight at all.
The children carried the greens. Two small girls, sisters, each held a bundle of leafy greens in both arms, the way one holds a baby, and they walked home in single file along the edge of the pavement so that the leaves would not brush against the wall. Their mother walked behind them, carrying the tomatoes, and she told them not to run, and they did not run, although they wanted to. When they reached home the girls laid the greens out on the kitchen table in a row, and their mother praised the way they had carried them, and the girls glowed with pride as if they had done something important. In a way they had. They had carried home proof that their street could be kind when it chose to be, and children understand such things faster than grown people do, because they have not yet learned to pretend otherwise.
The old man who lived alone carried his potatoes home in a plastic bag that swung from his hand, and he stopped on a bench halfway home to rest his legs. He sat with the bag on his knees and looked back down the street toward Mariam's corner, and he thought about the years he had bought vegetables from her, and about the mornings when she had added an extra tomato to his bag without charging him for it. He had never thanked her properly for those tomatoes. He had meant to, many times, and the words had never quite come out. He decided, sitting on that bench with the potatoes in his lap, that he would thank her the next morning, properly, in words, and that he would bring her a loaf from the bakery as well. It was a small plan, and it made him feel better than he had felt in days. He stood up, picked up his bag, and walked the rest of the way home with his back a little straighter.
Sami Barakat stayed at the corner long after the last customer had gone. He stacked the empty crates in a neat pile and tied them together with a length of rope from Mariam's cart, and he lifted the stack onto his shoulder as if it weighed nothing, although Rami Haddad knew very well that it did not weigh nothing at all. Sami carried the crates down the street to Mariam's yard, walking steadily under the weight, and Rami walked beside him with the cart, and Mariam followed behind them with her tin cup held in both hands. At the yard gate Sami set the crates down and stood them against the wall, in the same place they always stood, and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and grinned. Mariam thanked him, and he waved the thanks away, as he always did, and said that carrying crates was what neighbors were for.
That evening, all up and down the street, kitchens filled with the smell of cooking. Potatoes went into pots. Onions were sliced and fried until they turned gold. Leeks were washed and chopped. Greens were rinsed in cold water and laid out to dry. Tomatoes were sliced and salted and served with bread, the way they were meant to be served on a day like that. In house after house, families sat down to meals made from Mariam's vegetables, and the meals tasted like ordinary meals, which was exactly right. Nobody made a speech about it. Nobody needed to. The street had carried the potatoes home like treasure, and the treasure had turned into dinner, and dinner had turned into the quiet knowledge that the woman on the corner was not alone. Mariam sat in her own kitchen that night with Rami and Nour Haddad, and she counted the coins from the tin cup one last time before she put them away, and she smiled at her grandchildren across the table.
Chapter Twenty Three
The Shopkeeper Who Came Out With a Chair and Water