Chapter Thirty Two
The Doctor Who Said Rest and Was Ignored Politely
Doctor Lina Azar had known Mariam Haddad for years, and every time Mariam came to the clinic she told her the same thing: she must rest. She said it kindly, while she listened to Mariam's heart and looked at her knees and asked about her sleep. Mariam always listened with great respect and nodded at all the right places. Then she went home, rose before sunrise the next morning, and carried her crates to the corner, exactly as she had always done. Lina had come to expect it. She wrote rest in her notes anyway, because it was her duty, and because some part of her still hoped that one day Mariam would obey.
On the morning after the council meeting, Mariam went to the clinic because Rami had insisted. Her knees had ached for a week, and her back complained when she lifted the crate of potatoes, the heaviest of all the crates. She sat on the examination table in her long dark dress and headscarf, hands folded in her lap, and answered Lina's questions plainly. She slept badly. She was tired in the afternoons. Her chest felt tight when she hurried. Lina frowned, pressed her fingers to Mariam's wrist and counted, then listened to her chest with the stethoscope for a long time without speaking.
Lina sat at her desk and folded her hands. She said Mariam's heart was tired and her blood was running too high, and her knees were worn from thirty years of standing on cold pavement. She said the word rest as if it were a medicine, three times, slowly. Mariam must stay home for a week, feet up, and let Rami and Sami Barakat mind the stall. She must drink water, take her medicine every morning, and lift nothing heavier than a bag of greens. Mariam nodded, thanked her, and said yes, doctor, and meant it in the moment with all her heart. Lina wrote it down and gave her a paper with the instructions. Mariam folded it into her dress pocket beside the permit receipt and walked home slowly.
At home Rami and Nour were waiting, and they had already decided Mariam would rest. Rami would mind the stall before classes, Sami Barakat had promised to help, and Nour would count the change after school. Mariam smiled and said they were good children, and that she would rest for one afternoon, and that one afternoon would have to be enough. Rami began to argue gently, but Mariam held up one hand. The stall was her living and her name was on the pitch, and a name on a pitch was a promise. She would rest that very afternoon, feet up, and drink her water, and take her medicine, and do it properly. Rami looked at Nour, and Nour looked at Rami, and both knew one afternoon was all they were going to get.
Mariam kept her word. That afternoon she sat in her chair by the window, feet on a low stool, a blanket over her knees. She drank her water, took her medicine, and lifted nothing heavier than a cup of tea. It was the longest afternoon of her life. She watched the street from the window and thought of the crates in their chalk square without her, and the tomatoes sitting in the sun with nobody to turn them. She dozed once and dreamed of her husband Youssef's cart, and woke certain she had overslept. Only three hours had passed. She asked Nour to read the doctor's paper aloud, and Nour read it in a serious voice while Mariam nodded at every word. Then Mariam asked for the tin cup and counted the coins in it, slowly, just to have something useful to do with her hands.
The next morning, before sunrise, Mariam was at the corner. She had risen in the dark and walked to the stall in the dark, and when Rami arrived with the first crates he found her arranging potatoes in neat rows and turning tomatoes so the reddest ones caught the first light. Rami opened his mouth to protest. Mariam smiled and said she had rested, and drunk her water, and taken her medicine. She would rest a little every afternoon, sitting down between customers, and let Rami carry the crate of potatoes, and drink from the jug Elias Khoury kept filled beside her chair. Rami saw this was the most she would give. He accepted it, carried the potatoes, filled the jug, and did not argue again.
Lina Azar heard about it from Layla Mansour and laughed, a fond and exasperated laugh. She called Mariam the most politely disobedient patient she had ever had. She came to the stall herself one morning, before clinic hours, and stood watching Mariam work. Mariam came over at once, worried, asking if something was wrong. Lina said nothing was wrong; she had come only to see with her own eyes. She watched Mariam sit between customers, drink from the jug, and let Rami carry the potatoes. She understood at last what the stall was. It was not only a living. It was Mariam's place in the world, and taking her from it would do her more harm than any amount of standing.
Lina said so, plainly, and Mariam took her hand and thanked her. Lina said she would come every month to listen to her heart, and Mariam must promise to sit, and to drink, and to let Rami carry the potatoes. Mariam promised, and meant to keep it.