The mayor’s aide measured the balcony for three microphones. Savri looked up from the market street and placed herself at the third one.
At the other end of the awning, Dexo was doing the same thing.
The mayor would announce her choice before the noon procession. Next week the council would vote. With her backing, Savri’s storm shelter proposal would probably pass. Without it, the ward chair would have to find three more votes herself.
Savri had managed hotels for twenty years before she was elected. She knew how to make a room look prepared. The drawing under her arm showed a shelter for her whole ward, built on the city’s open market ground. No expensive land purchase. No years spent waiting.
It showed no market stalls.
Dexo crossed the street. He was younger than Savri and dressed as if he intended to carry crates after the speeches.
“Walk the site with me,” he said.
“I know the site.”
“You know its shape.”
Savri’s aide, Pell, had already gone under the awning. Her mother sold breakfasts from a folding table there. Savri followed, annoyed that Dexo had found a line she could not politely refuse.
They passed a fish seller, two vegetable stalls, and a woman repairing the buckle of a customer’s bag. Everybody nodded at Dexo. At Savri, they looked down at the drawing.
“Will that cover all this?” the bag seller asked.
“It’s a shelter. The ward needs one.”
“My father needs one,” the seller said. “He can’t get upstairs anymore. But this is where I make the money that feeds him.”
Dexo stopped beside her table. “I said we would keep every stall.”
“I saw your leaflet. I didn’t see where Dad goes in a storm.”
Savri watched him rub a speck of fish scale from his cuff. His answer did not come quickly.
“We have the room above the market.”
“Upstairs,” the seller repeated.
Pell carried two breakfast rolls over. “My mother says eat these before you decide whether her table is in the way.”
“Did she say that exactly?” Savri asked.
“No. She said it worse.”
They ate standing up. Savri unrolled her drawing on an empty crate. The bag seller leaned close enough to see the proposed walls.
Savri tapped one edge. “A smaller building could go here. Half the market.”
“Half the people fit?” Dexo asked.
“About half my ward. The upper room takes some more. We’d still be short.”
“And my sellers?”
“Some stalls remain. Not all.”
The bag seller asked about her father again.
“The sports clubhouse is on ground level,” Pell said. “It’s small.”
Savri knew that room. She had counted its doors during a campaign visit, thinking about how many voters could stand inside.
“If its committee agrees, we could reserve it for people who can’t use the stairs,” she said. “But we must count places. We can’t tell everyone to turn up.”
The bag seller returned to her customer. They had not won her agreement.
Back upstairs, the mayor waited in a room full of procession flowers. Orva wore a white jacket and held the balcony schedule.
“I can get your full plan through,” she told Savri. “Dexo must stop making this sound like an eviction.”
“Some people would lose stalls.”
“The city would help them move.”
“Where?”
“We can work on the details after the vote.”
Savri had used that sentence herself. It had always sounded better before she had to answer it.
Orva laid the schedule down. “You want the shelter. I want a decision today. If you bring him around, you get my backing and the speech.”
From the balcony door, Savri could see people gathering for the procession. An old colleague waved up at her. She imagined him saying afterward that she had looked like a mayor herself.
She asked for ten minutes.
In the corridor, Dexo had taken off his jacket. Pell stood by a window, trying to reach her mother between customers.
“Half the market,” Savri said. “Some people still lose their stalls. We need them choosing who helps plan this. Not us picking someone who already agrees.”
Dexo looked at the drawing. “You could take the full site with Orva’s votes.”
“Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I can’t tell that bag seller where her work goes.”
He folded his arms. “I can’t keep my leaflet’s promise either.”
At last he pointed to the unbuilt half of the drawing. “We keep these tables while we plan. We find out which sellers can move and what rent they can pay. I won’t call that keeping every stall.”
“And the clubhouse is a limited stopgap,” Savri said. “Not a shelter for everybody.”
Pell ended her call. “Mum hasn’t looked at any of this. Don’t tell Orva the market backs you.”
Savri nodded. She had been about to ask for something close to that.
They took the smaller proposal to the mayor together. Orva listened, then pushed the drawing back.
“I can’t announce a list of problems from the balcony.”
“You can announce the plan,” Savri said. “Including what it doesn’t yet do.”
“You’ll have to find your own council votes.”
Outside, the procession band began tuning. Orva called for her aide. Dexo picked up his jacket, and Savri rolled the drawing. Neither was offered a microphone.
They went downstairs.
At the breakfast table, Pell’s mother was counting change. Savri began explaining the smaller building. The woman stopped her after the second sentence.
“Do I keep my place?”
“We don’t know yet,” Savri said.
“Then don’t start with the building. Start with that.”
A shelter campaigner behind them asked why the plan had got smaller. Dexo said the market had to stay open for people who worked there. Somebody asked him about his leaflet. He answered that, too.
Pell’s mother turned away to hand a roll to the next customer.
“Both of you, come back after the rush.”
Savri moved out of the queue. Above her, the mayor stepped onto the balcony. Down here, Dexo was still explaining what he had promised.
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