Chapter Forty Two
The Photograph Taken Where the Crates Once Stood
The idea for the photograph came from Layla, who said it on the anniversary morning while the crates were still half full. She said that they should take a photograph where the crates had once stood without a permit, with everyone together, on the very square of pavement where it had all happened, so that the street would have a picture of what kindness looked like when it stayed. Mariam laughed softly and shook her head, because she did not like photographs. But Rami said at once that it was a fine idea, and Nour clapped her hands, and Sami Barakat nodded, and Elias Khoury came out of his shop smiling, and the idea grew legs before Mariam could object.
They waited until the afternoon light turned soft and golden, because Layla said the light would be kinder then, and because the street looked its best in the late afternoon, when the shadows fell across the pavement and the shopfronts glowed. Mariam changed her headscarf for a clean one, and she smoothed her dress, and she stood in the middle of her marked square, with the chalk line clear at her feet, and she looked around at the people gathering, and she felt shy and proud at the same time, which was a feeling she had not expected at her age. Rami stood on one side of her, tall and straight in his clean shirt, and Nour stood on the other side, small and bright, holding her grandmother's hand, and Mariam put one arm around each of them, and she stood a little taller, as if their youth lent her strength.
Karim came in his uniform, but without his vest, because Layla had asked him to come as himself and not as an officer on duty, and he stood beside Rami, and he smiled. Omar came too, in plain clothes, without his sunglasses, and he stood beside Karim, and he looked people in the eye the way he had learned to do. Elias Khoury stood on Mariam's other side, in his shopkeeper's apron, and he put one hand on the edge of the empty crate that Rami had set there for the photograph, and he looked at Mariam with a warmth that would have been impossible a year before, when he had stood in his doorway and filed his complaint. Sami Barakat stood at the end of the row, with his bread basket in his hands, and he grinned.
Layla set up her camera on a small tripod, and she stepped back, and she looked at the group through the lens, and she moved Omar half a step closer, and Nour half a step forward, and she told them all to look at the camera and to think of something good, and she counted to three. On the count of three, Mariam smiled, and the smile was real, and it reached her eyes. The camera clicked, and Layla looked at the picture on the small screen, and she showed it to them, and they crowded around to see, and they laughed and pointed, and Mariam saw herself standing in the middle of them all, in her square, with her grandchildren beside her, and the officers beside them, and the shopkeeper beside them, and the baker at the end, and she saw that she did not look old in the picture at all. She looked like a woman who belonged, and who was loved, and who had stood her ground.
They took another photograph, just in case, with Nour standing in front and holding a tomato up like a prize, and everyone laughed harder, and Layla took that picture too. Mariam asked for a copy, and Layla promised her two, one for the wall of her house, and one for the stall, and Mariam said she would put the stall one where the customers could see it, so that everyone who came to buy would know the story of the square, and would know that the square belonged to everyone who treated it kindly. Elias said he would put a copy in his shop window.
When the photographs were done, the group did not scatter at once. They stayed and talked on the pavement, in the soft afternoon light, about the year that had passed,, and Mariam listened, and she thought that this moment deserved to be held. The crates had once stood on that square without a paper, and now they stood with a paper, and the people who had once faced each other across the crates now stood together in a row, smiling, and that was the story, and the photograph told it without a single word. As the light faded, Layla packed her camera away, and the group broke apart slowly, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, and Mariam walked home with Rami and Nour, carrying the flowers from the morning and the promise of the photographs, and she thought that the street had given her more than a living. It had given her a family that was wider than blood, and a place that was hers, and a picture to prove it. She kept the photograph where she could see it every day, and every time she looked at it she remembered the tomato, the chalk line, and the faces of the people who had stood beside her. The picture told the story better than words, and it told it to everyone who stopped at her stall.