Mariam woke before dawn, the way she always woke, and she put her hand to the inside pocket of her dress before she did anything else. The packet was there. The paper was there. She had felt for it three times in the night, and each time it had been there, and now it was there again, and she smiled in the dark, alone, at her own foolishness and her own joy.
Rami was already awake in the kitchen, boiling water, his books stacked on the table. He looked up when she came in, and he smiled, and he did not need to ask why she was smiling, because he knew.
"Today is the first legal morning," he said.
"Today is the first legal morning," Mariam agreed, and the words felt grand in her mouth, and she did not care.
They walked to the corner together, Rami carrying the heaviest crate and Mariam carrying the bag of greens, and the street was still half asleep, shutters down, cats moving along the walls. The chalk line was still there on the pavement, a little faded at the edges from feet and wind, but plain enough to see. Mariam stopped at the line and looked down at it, and Rami stopped beside her, and neither of them said anything for a moment. The line was only chalk. The line was also everything.
She set out her crates the way she always set them out: potatoes first, in the big crate on the left; onions next, in their net bags; leeks in a row, green and white, laid straight; leafy greens in bunches, damp from the morning wash; and tomatoes last, in the shallow crate on the right, red and round, each one turned so that its best side faced the street. She arranged each crate with care, the way she had arranged them for thirty years, and when she stepped back, the square looked the same as it had always looked, and different, because now it had her name on it.
"The paper is in my pocket," she said to Rami, patting her dress. "If anyone asks, I will show them."
"Let them ask," Rami said, grinning. "You have the answer."
The first customer came as the sun came over the rooftops, a woman with a basket who had bought from Mariam for twenty years, and she stopped at the chalk line and looked at it, and then looked at Mariam, and then laughed.
"Is this your square now, Mariam?" she asked.
"It is my square," Mariam said, and she stood a little straighter as she said it. "My name is on the paper. My paper is in my pocket."
The woman bought potatoes and onions, and paid, and dropped an extra coin into the tin cup, and said it was for luck, and Mariam thanked her, and the tin cup rang softly, the way it always rang.
The morning filled up, customer by customer. A man who drove a taxi bought leeks. A mother with two children bought greens, and the children chose the tomatoes, pointing with small fingers, and Mariam let them choose, and she weighed them with the old scale, and the needle trembled and settled. Sami Barakat came with his bread, and he set his basket down beside her crates, at a respectful distance, and he nodded at the chalk line.
"Still there," he said.
"Still there," Mariam said. "And the paper is in my pocket, and my name is on the pitch, and the crates are where they have always been."
A regular customer, a man with a grey moustache who bought onions, stopped and paid, and Mariam counted his change into his hand, coin by coin, and he thanked her by name, and she thanked him, and the morning went on.
Elias Khoury opened his shop and came to his doorway, and he looked at the crates, and he looked at the chalk line, and he nodded at Mariam, and she nodded back, and neither of them said anything about the complaint, or the chair and the water. The nod was enough.
At mid morning, Karim came down the street on his round, in his vest, without Omar, and he stopped at the corner, and he looked at the crates, and he looked at the chalk line, and he looked at Mariam, and he smiled. He did not pick up a tomato that morning. He did not need to. He put his hands behind his back and said, "Good morning, Mariam."
"Good morning, Karim," Mariam said. "Would you like tomatoes?"
"Not today," Karim said. "Today I only came to see the square."
He stood for a while, watching the customers come and go, and Mariam saw that he was pleased, and that pleased her more than she had expected. When he left, he raised one hand in farewell, and she raised hers, and the morning went on, busy and ordinary and perfect.
At noon, Rami left for his classes, and he kissed his grandmother's hand, and she told him to study well, and he ran for the bus, looking back once to wave. Mariam watched him go, and then she turned back to her crates, and she sold through the afternoon, and the sun moved across the pavement, and the chalk line stayed where it was, and her paper stayed in her pocket, and her name stayed on the pitch. At dusk she swept her square clean and walked home slowly, and the chalk line was still there, waiting for morning.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The Journalist Who Wrote the Story Without a Villain