Face/Mask (27 page)

“They blamed us for it, Walid. But they were in on it.”

“What are you saying?”

“They killed Rafik and my beautiful daughters, then they put us in these filthy camps and treated us like
we
were the monsters. It was all part of the plan to keep their fucking war going!”

Walid sat back, stunned, and looked out the window as if expecting to find a military drone looking in on them. Sahar decided to wait while he processed what she’d just told him. She knew it was a lot to take in, but there was no going back, for her or Walid.

After a minute Walid moved forward onto the edge of the sofa and turned toward her to speak.

“Have you seen the chip’s contents?”

“I have. I read the reports.”

“You’re probably mistaken about what they say, you know.”

“I’m not mistaken.”

“It’s all technical jargon. Would you even know what it meant?”

She looked directly into his eyes, and her already-soft voice dropped into a whisper.

“Much of it is very easy to understand, Walid. I am not mistaken.”

“Then it’s a fake. A hoax of some kind.”

“It isn’t. The man who got this information works for Homeland…Worked for Homeland Security. He killed himself…they say.”

“
Sahar. Est-tu certaine
?”

“
Très certaine.
This is all true.”

He nodded at her affirmation and paused for a moment before reaching out and squeezing her hand. It was clear to her that he’d come up with some sort of plan.

“
Ma chère
, this information, if it’s the truth…”

“It is.”

“…is astounding. It quite boggles the mind. But I don’t know if the public is ready for such news just yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sahar. If you called me, it’s because you know that I know what I’m doing,” he said, his words coming faster as he got excited. “I assume you have confidence in my judgment.”

“Of course.”

“Then this is not the time to make this information public. It is twenty years old and most of the people involved are out of the picture now.”

“But
we’re
still in the picture, Walid.”

“Of course, of course. What I’m saying is that the people who did this are no longer around to be held responsible. The question is how this little chip can be put to the best use.”

“That is why I called you.”

“And you did wisely,
ma chère
. Because even if the responsible people are no longer around this is not the kind of information the administration would want to be made public.”

“You think they’ll try to stop us?”

“Even better. I think they’d be willing to
pay
us to keep it from the public.”   

“Pay? Pay what?”

“That, Sahar, is the question. Pay what? As in ‘what amount?’ Certainly this could be worth millions. Many millions.”

“I don’t understand, Walid. I don’t want to sell it. I want to let everybody know what’s on it.”

“Sahar, sweet Sahar,” Walid said, patting her hand as her father had done years earlier, the time he tried to explain why she could not possibly marry that Muslim mechanic. “The world is a complicated place. You think that in France or Germany they will suddenly free their Muslim populations because of what’s on this chip? You think our own angry young men will accept to be told, ‘sorry, it was all a misunderstanding’? Will our people calmly walk out of Laval tomorrow and buy a home in the suburbs, or will they be filled with rage and thoughts of revenge? What’s done is done, and this will not return things to the way they were. It will cause more turmoil, more hatred among our people, more fear in the Canadians…and the Americans, of course. What I’m thinking of will be of the greatest benefit to all of us.”

She pulled her hand away abruptly and stood up, unsure what to do next. Then she strode to the front door and began opening the deadbolts, while speaking to Walid with her back to him.

“I want you to get out now, please.”

“Sahar…”

“Walid, please leave. What you are suggesting is horrible.”

“Think of the money.”

“I’m not trying to make money from this,” she said, swinging the door open.  “I’m trying to help people.”

“You can use your money to help whomever you please. That is how to best use this information.”

“I want to get us all out of these prisons. Most people don’t have friends which let them get in and out whenever they want. Most hardly have proper food to eat or medicine when they’re sick. You hardly even live here, Walid. So you don’t know.”

“But I do know what is going on outside your little world. What you are dreaming of will only hurt people. You can never change what-”

“Stop it! I want you out. Now.”

Walid came toward the door and stood facing her. She realized that he was thinking about using force to take the chip, and she took a step back.

“If I scream, Walid, you know my neighbours will come running. You don’t want them to catch you here.”

Walid stood expressionless for a few seconds, and then he blinked and shook his head, as if waking from a dream.

“Scream? What in the world for, Sahar? We have never fought before, why would we fight now?”

“So will you leave?”

“Yes, of course. Just promise me one thing, please. Before you do…anything, or speak to anyone about this, please let me talk to you one more time. Maybe I didn’t think things through properly just now. You gave me quite a surprise tonight. Let me consider the options, how you can help the most people. You will give me that chance, yes? After-all, you asked me for my advice.”

“Fine. Yes, Walid, I will not do anything without speaking to you first. There is no hurry anyway. Nothing will happen for now.”

“Thank you,
ma chère
. You know how highly I think of you. It hurts me that I upset you, that you do not trust me. I will work hard to earn back your trust. You will see.”

September 29, 2039:

Once Janus decided that his best chance for getting the money lay with Walid, he had to find place for them to meet. He wasn’t sure there was any point in being discreet but, assuming that he hadn’t given the RCMP enough reason to arrest him yet, he preferred not returning to the
Café Liban
.

He went back to Sahar the following Thursday, reasoning that if he’d been going there over many months without repercussions there was little likelihood that his next visit would make things worse. He also missed her touch, her smell and even her candid opinions, and he rushed into her arms with a passion he’d rarely displayed even as a younger man.

After losing himself in their lovemaking he eventually recovered his senses enough to tell her that he needed to see Walid again, although he preferred that it be somewhere other than his cafe. She had previously told him that Walid could travel outside of Laval when he wanted to. The corruption of the border guards plus the man’s underground connections meant that the fences were nothing more than inconveniences.

This time, however, Sahar’s face darkened when he mentioned Walid’s name, something Janus hadn’t expected.

“Is something wrong? You don’t look pleased.”

“It is not that, Allen. You don’t really have much choice. But I think you need to be careful with Walid. I do not trust him.”

Janus sat up in the bed and looked her in the eyes, as if expecting to find something written there to explain her sudden change of attitude.

“I don’t understand. You’re the one who gave me his name. Did something happen?”

“No, no. Nothing happened. But you have to remember the things he does, how he makes his living. He often hurts people.”

“Has he hurt you, Sahar?”

She smiled and shook her head.

“No, Walid would never hurt me.”

Janus realized there was some history between Walid and Sahar. A pang of jealousy hit him, and he wanted to know more.

“You and Walid,” he said, “you’re more than just friends?”

“No. We are not…now.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “There have been many sides to our relationship, Allen. When I came to Laval Walid was someone who helped me survive. Perhaps not in the way I would have liked to, but we lived in a time of limited choices.”

“He was your pimp?”

She reached out and squeezed his hand in order to forestall the rising anger on his face.

“Allen. I was not always the successful entrepreneur that I am now. So, yes, when I began he was my pimp. And my lover, in case you were wondering.”

Janus nodded. He realized that it was silly to be jealous of who a prostitute had slept with, even if she meant as much to him as Sahar did. But he wanted to know more about what kind of man Walid was.

“And why did that part of your relationship end?”

Sahar’s face darkened again, and she turned from him. Clearly Janus was forcing her to bring up painful memories, but that only drove him to ask again.

“Sahar, I have no secrets from you. You don’t need to keep secrets from me.”

She turned back to him and her face wore a determined expression.

“You want to know everything about my life, Allen. I understand that. So, let me tell you about this man who was my lover, a man who you should know is still very much in love with me. He betrays people for money. He already told you, yes? When he began to do this I accepted it because his protectors in the RCMP made both our lives so much easier.

“But Walid wanted to be more than an informer, or even a café owner. He thought he was important enough that he should run things in the camp.”

“What things?”

“Criminal things. Allen, will you make me spell everything out for you? There were many groups competing for control here. There were threats on the people for money…”

“Protection rackets.”

“Is that what they are called? Yes, protection is a good term. And, of course, smuggling. And prostitution. We have crimes here, just like you do.”

“What happened?”

“In the summer of 2030 Walid decided to get rid of his partner. A Moroccan who lived in the northern part of the camp. They were always fighting over their shares of the profits, and Walid was certain that the man was stealing from him. I swear to you Allen, I didn’t know about any of this until after he’d done it.”

“What did he do?”

“He got a bomb…I don’t even know where he got it. He didn’t know how to make it himself. It was from outside the camp.”

“Jesus, Sahar. Did he kill the man?”

She nodded her head and lit a cigarette that she’d been playing with.

“He blew up the Moroccan’s car. He’d never handled explosives himself before, and afterward he was telling me all about it. He was bragging about what he did, but I could tell he was scared, like he couldn’t believe he had really done it.”

“Was it a big bomb?”

“It was big enough to kill the Moroccan, Allen. More than that, I do not know. Walid talked a lot about the technical aspects of the bomb, to show off about what he knew, but I didn’t understand much of it. I remember he said the timer was very particular, an old-fashioned wrist-watch, the kind with a quartz crystal. I think I had one of those before I got married, but they’d stopped making them years before this. He said it was very retro, like it made this bomb something special.”

“Is that when you ended the relationship?”    

“Eventually. I will not lie, Allen, and say I threw him out of my home the same day. I tried to understand and accept what he had done. Mostly because I was so afraid of being alone again. But, in the end, I could not live with the knowledge. So we ended up going our separate ways.”

Janus sat there a while, letting everything she’d told him sink in. He’d wanted to know the kind of man he was dealing with, and she’d told him. But, like she’d said, he didn’t have much choice.

September 30, 2039:

Sahar got the message to Walid that Janus wanted to meet at a place where he didn’t feel at risk. Janus knew few places in Montreal for this kind of meeting, except the one where so many of his problems had their origins: the dog-fights in Park Extension.

And so, that evening, he found himself in the middle of the same crowd of sweating, cursing men he’d sworn to leave behind a year earlier. Michael was still there, and had glared at Janus as if trying to remember where he knew him from, before letting him through the door.

Janus stood near the back of the crowd that gathered around the fighting ring. Sahar had warned him that Walid tended to show up late, but it was an hour after their agreed time and Janus was certain that he’d been stood up. He was debating whether to leave when he felt a tug on his sleeve, and turned to see Walid smiling casually. He looked out of place in a silver jacket with a red handkerchief in his front pocket. Walid swung his air-mask from one hand while he looked around them with nervous excitement. He seemed to derive pleasure from being out of his usual element.