The fine was written on a plain form, in Omar Khalil's careful hand, at the small desk in the corner of the station where the morning paperwork was done. It was not a large fine. It was the standard fine for selling without a permit, written out in full, with the date and the place and the name of the vendor set down in the proper boxes. Omar wrote it slowly, because he wanted every word to be correct, and when he had finished he read it through twice, the way he always read his own paperwork, checking for errors. The form stated that Mariam Haddad had been selling vegetables on the pavement without a permit, and that a fine was due, and that the produce could be held until the fine was paid. Omar looked at that last line for a long time. He had written it because it was part of the form. He had never liked that line. He put the pen down and sat back in his chair, and he thought about the tomato Karim Nasser had held to his nose, and about the crowd that had watched, and about the street that had bought every crate Mariam had. He thought about it for a long while.
Karim stood by the window, looking out at the street, and he did not speak while Omar worked. He had already told Captain Fouad Salim everything that had happened, in order, without leaving anything out: the complaint, the crates, the tomato, the order to clear the pavement, Mariam's steady answer, the crowd, the phone that had filmed it all. The captain had listened without interrupting, and then he had asked two questions, and Karim had answered them honestly. Then the captain had said that no decision would be made in a hurry, and that the complaint and the video and the permit question would all be looked at together, and that until then nothing was to be seized and nobody was to be arrested. Karim had written those words down in his notebook, exactly as the captain had said them, because he wanted to remember them correctly.
The captain called Omar into his office that afternoon, and Omar took the fine form with him, folded neatly in half. Captain Salim read the form through once, and then he set it down on his desk and looked at Omar over the top of his glasses. He asked Omar what he thought should happen next, and Omar, who was not a man given to long speeches, said that he thought the fine should wait. He said that the vendor had no permit, which was true, and that the complaint had been properly filed, which was also true, and that the street had settled the matter for one morning at least, which was true as well. He said that collecting a fine from a woman of seventy four who sold vegetables to pay for her medicine would not make the pavement any clearer, and that it would make the force look hard in a way he did not want to be part of. Captain Salim listened, and nodded, and said that the fine would be set aside pending the permit review, and that nobody would collect it, and that the paper would stay in the file, unsigned, until the review was done.
Omar carried the paper back himself, that same evening, to the corner where Mariam's crates had stood. The pavement was bare by then, and the chair Elias Khoury had brought out was still standing in the shade of the awning, empty. Omar walked up to Mariam's door with the folded form in his hand, and Rami Haddad opened the door, and Mariam came out onto the step to meet him, with her headscarf straightened and her hands folded in front of her. Omar did not put on his sunglasses. He held out the form and explained, in plain words, what it was and what had been decided: that a fine had been written, as the rules required, and that it would not be collected, and that it would stay unsigned in the file while the permit question was reviewed. He said that her produce would not be touched, and that she would not be arrested, and that she could come back to her corner in the morning. Mariam listened to every word, and when he had finished she nodded, slowly, and thanked him, and invited him in for coffee, which he politely declined, because he was still on duty and because he did not want to presume.
He thought about the form in his pocket, unsigned, and about the captain's words, and about the way Mariam had listened to him without fear and without anger. He had given orders on that corner that he was not proud of, and he had watched a younger officer smell a tomato and change his mind about a job he had been doing for years, and he had begun to change his own mind as well, slowly, the way a man turns a heavy boat in a narrow channel. The fine had been written, as the rules required. It had never been collected, as kindness required. Both things were true, and Omar carried both of them home with him that night, folded together in his pocket, unsigned, waiting for the review that would decide what kind of street his city intended to be.
Chapter Twenty Five
The Pitch Marked in Chalk on the Pavement