Face/Mask (7 page)

Janus pressed the glowing red buttons and heard a far-off ringing sound through the small speaker in the wall. After a few rings there was a click, followed by a harsh, electronic-sounding voice asking who it was.

“Me. Uh, Allen,” he answered, nervously looking around. A buzzer sounded, unlocking the inside door, and he stepped into the disinfection area, removing his air mask once the building’s warning light turned green.

Walking to the elevator Janus noticed the smells emanating from behind the various apartment doors. Fish frying, lamb roasting, sweets baking: it was a sensory cornucopia that he’d never previously experienced
.

When the rusted elevator door opened, Janus had to step up a foot to get into the car, which rocked with his weight. The door rumbled closed, and he found himself accosted by the lingering stench of body odour that quickly erased all memory of the corridor’s savoury scents. Sahar’s apartment was on the fourth floor, and he managed to hold his breath for the bumpy ride until he could escape into the hallway. Still gasping, he got to her door and took a moment to catch his breath before knocking. Her voice, from inside the apartment, sounded throaty and lightly-accented, as it had during their chat.

“Come in, please. The door is not locked.”

He opened it and stepped in. What he saw confounded his expectations. He’d imagined an erotic harem room, with soft music, incense and low lighting. Instead the apartment was lit by a bare neon bulb in the middle of the ceiling, with sparse, functional furnishings that lacked any sense of the exotic Middle-East.

In the far wall was a doorway with a beaded curtain. Through the hanging strings stepped Sahar, wearing a short robe decorated with red and gold flowers that hung loosely over her thin shoulders. He saw that she was easily in her forties, not nearly the nubile young woman he’d talked to through the P-screen. She must have been using masking software during their chat, and Janus felt a pang of disappointment at the deception. Her hair, falling around her face in messy curls, was pitch-black. As she approached, however, he could see the roots were gray. The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth were evidence of a difficult life, as was a small scar along her chin. She lifted a cigarette to her garishly-painted lips, and eyed him with an appraising eye, as if she were a customer evaluating some goods.

He blushed noticeably under her gaze, causing her to laugh loudly, which added to his discomfort.

“I am so happy to meet you, Allen. But why do you look so embarrassed?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Leaning toward him she placed her hands gently upon his chest. She looked up into his eyes, her face wearing a grin of conquest. He could see her small, drooping breasts as the top of her robe fell open.

Part of him wanted to run out of the room, cursing himself for being such a fool. But he hadn’t been this close to a naked woman other than Terry for more than twenty years. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that she was older. Unlike Terry’s body, which had gone soft with their sedentary life, Sahar’s was so thin as to be bony. She could see that his eyes were drawn to the opening of her robe, so she hooked one side of it with her little finger and pulled it open, revealing a thick patch of pubic hair.

“I think you are happy to meet me too, Allen,” she whispered.

Later they lay next to each other in her small bed, their sweaty bodies stuck to each other in a way that Janus had always found uncomfortable. She pulled out a cigarette and held it towards him.

“Do you like a cigarette now, Allen?”

“Oh. No, thank you.”

“You do not smoke?” she asked, her expression showing that she found the thought humorous.

“Uh, no. It’s not really healthy, you know.”

“Allen, the fucking air is on fire and you worry cigarette is going to kill you?”

His first reaction was shock at her foul language; in all his years with Terry he’d never heard her use an expletive. Then again, Sahar had done things with him that night that would make Terry blush. She looked at him with a mischievous grin, clearly daring him to break out of the rules which confined him. He slid the cigarette from between her fingers, took a tentative puff and promptly choked on the smoke.

She laughed once again, as she often would in the coming months when he would do or say something awkward. Angry with her for laughing at him, and angry with himself for choking on the cigarette, he got out of the bed and moved next to the window. She didn’t move after him, nor did she say anything to try to assuage his feelings, so he ignored her.

Looking through the filmy glass, he was surprised to see so many cars still crawling along in an all-night rush hour. The noise of the traffic was louder than Janus was used to. The majority of drivers leaned constantly on their horns.

Realizing that there was no real reason to be angry, Janus turned from the window to look at her lying naked in bed, spread-eagled over bed-sheets that smelled of their bodies. He was surprised at how comfortable she was with her nudity, especially since she told him she never stepped out of her apartment without wearing a veil and full-length dress. But inside her apartment she was somebody else, no personal inhibitions and no cultural prohibitions. Was she living out a secret fantasy? He certainly was.

When he got home Terry and the kids were asleep. A light shone from underneath Joe’s bedroom door, but Janus tip-toed past so as not to attract his attention. He changed out of his clothes in the dark and slipped into bed next to his wife.

Like most nights, he lay with his back to Terry. Years earlier he’d enjoyed snuggling up to her, her soft breath against his face giving him a sense of comfort and security. But that had been long ago, before he’d begun to notice that the smell of their supper sometimes lingered on her breath. It was before he found himself unable to block out the wheezing sound she made due to a blocked nasal passage. And it was before he realized he couldn’t lie there facing his wife while his thoughts were of another woman’s body.

Lying next to Sahar he’d been surrounded by smells that he once found offensive. Her breath smelled of the contraband cigarettes she smoked, and yet he lay with his face pressed up close to hers as she slipped into a doze. As he lay there he could smell the odour of their sex mingled with her sweat, yet he hadn’t minded.

His father had once told him that a lady didn’t sweat, she perspired. But Janus would have told him that Sahar, on that humid summer night when she’d driven him out of his mind, did indeed sweat.

Her smell, her taste, her casual nudity; she had bombarded him with sensations he was unused to, embarrassing him with her brazen sexuality. And that was the difference between what he had with Terry and Sahar. Sex with Terry was pleasant but safe. They never did anything that would make Janus feel embarrassed or dirty. But he’d liked the sex with Sahar because it did make him feel dirty, and at his age that was like the fountain of youth. 

That she also turned out to be a sympathetic ear for him to recount his troubles made his time with her that much more precious. He thought of Terry, snoring lightly behind him, and the fairly hermetic world she lived in. He felt a pang of guilt at having complained to Sahar about their married life. He could imagine how Terry would react if she found out he had not only slept with a prostitute, but that he had told her about their domestic troubles.

That first night he didn’t have the slightest inkling of how much time he would spend talking to Sahar about his home life.

February 24, 2039:
    

Once Joe made his first trip to Tony’s butcher shop he knew he’d found a home away from home. He needed two metro-buses to get there, but that didn’t dissuade him from visiting his newfound friend at least once a week. At the little shop they’d sit for hours at the small table by the window with a few other older gentlemen, sometimes with Tony alone. They drank their espressos, ate some
biscotti
, and talked of how the world had changed since their youth.

Tony was always interested in stories about Joe’s village, especially in the years since the Black Shirts reappeared. A dozen years younger than Joe, and brought to Canada by his parents in the early eighties, he hadn’t lived through the imposition of martial law that had gripped Italy since the early twenties.

One day, a year and a half after the first visit, everything changed for Joe. Tony, who was always full of nervous energy, kept jumping from the table to the counter in order to serve a customer, then hurry back to rejoin the conversation with Joe. On this day, Joe had been particularly emotional about what had been done to his homeland, reminiscing about how he fought against the
carabinieri
in the streets alongside protestors half his age.

He’d never mentioned to Teresa about the times he was arrested in Italy, nor the brutal beating he’d taken under order of the
sindaco
who wanted to set an example for those villagers who longed for a time when they were actually allowed to vote for their leaders. As he’d gotten older, and the threats against his life and his property had become more virulent
,
he came to the realization that there was nothing left for him to fight for in Miramare, and so he’d accepted his niece’s invitation to join her family in Canada.

Nearing the end of his visit with Tony, Joe took a last sip of his coffee and wiped his greying mustache with a paper napkin. Tony, looking around somewhat excitedly, put his hand on his arm.

“Giuseppe. You’re not leaving yet, are you?”

“It’s a long metro-bus ride,
amico mio.
I have to make dinner for my family.”

“Stay a little more. I can drive you home.”

Joe looked at his friend and wondered what had gotten into him. Never one to sit quietly for long periods of time, today Tony had been acting, as Rollie would say, like he had ants in his pants.

“
Che cos’è, Antonio?
You are full of excitement today.”

Before he could answer, Tony’s attention was drawn to a lone figure walking up the sidewalk to the store. He patted Joe’s arm with a mysterious smile, then jumped up and ran to the front door. He opened it just as the newcomer entered, and then closed and locked it quickly behind him.

Joe noticed that the stranger wore an air mask although it had been yellow alert for most of the week.

Must have the
mallatia polmonare
.
Poor man.

The stranger stood just inside the door, looking directly at Joe but making no movement to remove the mask. Behind him Tony ran around pulling down the shades on the store’s large windows, as well as the front door. For a nervous moment Joe imagined the man was a Black Shirt from Miramare who’d followed him across the ocean to arrest him, or perhaps worse.

Then Tony came to stand next to the stranger, beaming like a happy child, and squeezed the mysterious figure’s arm. As if on cue the stranger removed his air mask, revealing that he was, in fact, a woman. She had thick black hair that fell out of the mask and hung over her shoulders. Joe thought she must have been quite beautiful when she was young, and her beauty could still be seen under lines that were caused by worry and the passage of time.

“Giuseppe Pizzi,” Tony said to her, by way of introduction. “He is my good friend I told you about.”

The woman smiled warmly and stepped toward Joe, taking his outstretched hand between both of hers. When she spoke her accent reminded him of his mother.

“I am so happy to meet you, Joe. I have heard so much about you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Joe blustered, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks, “
Signora…
?”

“You can call me Sahar.”

Chapter four

Journal of J. Dupont-Henderson, U.S. Ambassador to Canada, April 17, 2020:

“It was my express hope that the two Governments would be able to act in concert as to their policies in regard to citizens of the Muslim faith. There would, of course, be a number of individual internments, but our hope was to not have to intern all Muslim citizens. However, that might be difficult in view of the treacherous nature of the attack on Qebec (sic) City, the evidence of premeditation and collusion, and the news reports from our European allies that they had interned all Muslim residents, etc.”

June 8, 2039:

The Saturday that they were to have Rollie's eighth birthday party was approaching. Terry had invited all of his classmates, but the forecast was orange for the weekend, and that would mean no outdoor games. There was a good chance that several children wouldn’t be coming due to their own respiratory fragility, their parents not wanting to expose them to more of the unhealthy air than was strictly necessary.

On Wednesday Uncle Joe announced to Terry that he’d be getting Rollie the best birthday cake ever from his favourite Italian bakery, right next door to Tony the butcher. Although she thanked him with a big kiss, she also realized that Allen wasn’t going to appreciate Joe’s offer as the kind gesture that it was meant to be.

“What? No way,” Allen protested when she told him as they got ready for bed that night. “You know I’m getting Rollie a cake.”

“I know,” Terry answered, depressed by the predictability of Allen’s reaction. “Joe begged me to let him get the cake. How could I say no?”

“Like this: ‘no’. See? That’s all it took.”

“I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“How about my feelings?”

“If I’d known you were going to be such a baby about it…”

Allen didn’t answer, busying himself with hanging his suit in the closet, fastening the buttons down the front so that it fell perfectly from the hanger. His expression showed her he truly was hurt by Joe’s offer. She knew it made her husband happy to be able to buy his children the best of everything. It was his way of showing them the love that he was uncomfortable displaying outwardly; of letting them know how much they mattered to him. Yet Uncle Joe also loved the children, and his nature was such that he had to always be giving to those he loved.

Allen had recently complained that Joe gave the boys too many things, and much of what he gave was of inferior quality, or not age-appropriate, but Terry knew that the main source of his displeasure was jealousy over the close bond that had developed between the old man and his sons. It puzzled her that Allen couldn’t get himself to play with his own children, yet was bothered because Joe had never hesitated to answer their call.

“You know,” Allen’s strident voice interrupted her thoughts, “the French bakery that we used before has great cakes.”

“They haven’t made great cakes in the longest time. Uncle Joe says his uses real eggs.”

“And where do they get those from, I wonder? For such a mild-mannered old gentleman your uncle sure knows a lot of people who sell things on the black market.”

“That’s not fair. Lots of people know where to get proper food. Just because you never had the nerve to-”

“Sure! How do you think that would go over at the Department? You don’t think I’m going to risk my excellent record, do you?”

“God, you’re so dramatic. It’s just a little good food. Everybody does it, and the
Cons
know that. You’re the only one who ever says anything about it.”

Allen paused and gave her a look of surprise at hearing her use the derogatory French nickname for the Re-Constituted Military Police.
Con
was French for idiot, and even among the English-speaking population the term had caught on when referring to the reformed police force. As an administration official Allen avoided using the insulting term, except when Terry had gotten parking tickets.

“Terry,” he said, “I’m a Director now. I have to set a good example.”

“Not that that’s ever stopped you from eating all the goodies Joe brings home.”

“Well, once he’s already got them…Oh, for crying out loud. This argument’s a waste of time.”

With that, Allen turned around brusquely and headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth. His “waste of time” line was how he ended most arguments when he realized he wasn’t going to get his way.

Terry took no satisfaction in the argument, nor with how it had ended. As much as she thought Allen had no reason to be hurt, she recognized that his pain was real, and this saddened her. Joe was kind to everyone he met, and he was loved in turn by everyone who met him. Yet this just made her husband colder toward him. She’d tried her best to smooth over any conflicts between them, and she knew that Joe himself, sensing Allen’s displeasure, was constantly trying to get on his good side. It was all to no avail, and all she could do was try to keep the peace as best she could. 

Terry had been married to Allen Janus for twenty years, and for the first ten of them she’d had no doubts about his love for her.

Through her five pregnancies, three of which she carried to term, she’d never doubted his passion for her, nor his devotion. They’d laughed together with their newborn babies, taking turns bathing them and rocking them to sleep. Twice he’d held her through the long nights that followed her miscarriages, whispering to her that it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t her fault, that they could always try again.

But after those first ten years she sensed a gradual change in him. About the time that administration scientists had admitted that the over-heating of the planet had become irreversible, Allen began to grow colder and more distant around her. He’d often avoid eye contact when she spoke to him. He didn’t respond to her touch as readily as he used to. His mind often drifted, taking him elsewhere when he should have been with her.

She knew that Allen’s feelings about his work were a bit of an open sore. When he had received his long-awaited promotion to Department Director, nine years into their marriage, it hadn’t brought the satisfaction he’d expected. In fact, he told her once in a rare moment of intimacy, after the initial excitement of starting a new job his days had settled into the same drudgery as his previous position. Except that now he was responsible for the mistakes of others as well as his own.

At the same time, as much as he loved his three boys, he was never entirely comfortable around children. He’d wanted so much to be a part of their early years; it was part of the image he had of what a father should be. However his awkwardness and impatience around them soon convinced him that he should do as little hands-on parenting as possible. The result was that he spent little time with his family, and was either grumpy or taciturn on those occasions when he had no choice.

Yet Terry was certain that his greatest source of displeasure came from being married to her.    When she looked at herself in the mirror she tried to see herself through his eyes. At age forty-five she worried that her beauty had started to fade, even if her large, blue-grey eyes still sparkled like a teenager’s. Maybe Allen had grown bored with her; maybe the weight she’d kept on her petite frame after the birth of Francis turned him off; maybe it was because she wasn’t as exciting in bed as he would have liked. The reasons were never made clear to her, but she had no doubt of their existence.

Whenever she’d tried to broach the subject with him, asking if there was something she could do to make him happier, he told her everything was fine. Once she’d vented her own feelings of helplessness, tearfully accusing him of not loving her anymore. He told her she was crazy, that it couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course he’d continued flicking through news reports on his P-screen while he said this, making no attempt to take her in his arms and console her the way he used to.

Despite the obvious thaw in his ardour for her, Terry continued to love her husband as she had when they’d first begun dating. She knew he considered her a romantic school-girl for her frequent displays of affection, although that too had not bothered him in the early years.

So she lived in a perpetual state of hopeful uncertainty. She looked forward to his coming home from work, so that he could tell her how his day went, and she could give him the details about her time with their children. Yet, when he went up to bed early and alone each night she felt a sense of relief that she would no longer have to bear the look of disappointment which had taken up permanent residence in his eyes.

She didn’t know if he cheated on her, although if truth be told he was a barely competent lover, so the idea of his having an affair was totally out of character. As far as she could tell, he hardly drank and she had no idea where he could go to gamble if he ever had a mind to.

There were times when she wished he would take up some of these vices, if only to have something in his life which truly made him happy. Maybe if he found some release from a life which so obviously bored him he would share a bit of his happiness with her.

And if not with her, then with his sons. When she sat with them at meal-times she was often overwhelmed with her love for them. While the world around them slipped closer to disaster, the one thing she wished for them was a father who was happy just to be with them, as she was. But her husband showed little more joy being in their company than he did being in hers and that knowledge broke her heart.

She wondered how long they could continue in their silent misery.

June 9, 2039:

Thursday night. For an hour or two each week, Janus would leave his life behind and slip into Sahar’s arms.    

She sat on the old armchair to the left of her bed. A small table next to the chair held an ornate metal tray with two small coffee cups and a stainless steel kettle. She was using one of the cups, empty except for the thick dregs at its bottom, as an ashtray. Her ankles were crossed and her hands placed in her lap in a pose that would have passed for demure had she been wearing any clothes.

Janus recognized the expression she wore as she lit another cigarette. It was a look that told him she was trying to be sympathetic, but that in fact she found his situation humourous. He leaned back on the pillows he’d piled on the bed behind him and waited for her verdict.

“Is cake very important for you, Allen?”

“That’s just it. It’s not-”

“Just the cake,” she interrupted. “I know, I know. But now you talk twenty minutes about a birthday cake. So it must be important if it make you forget how to fuck me.”

Janus winced at the language she used, but she just smiled condescendingly. He knew it made no sense to expect the woman he was paying for sex to show delicacy when speaking about what they did, and he wondered if he’d ever get used to her often raw vocabulary. He’d explained to her once that he’d had a very conservative upbringing in small-town Ontario. She’d gotten impatient then, and said that he just didn’t want her to ruin his fantasy that she was something other than a whore. He’d had nothing to say in response.

“OK, maybe the cake is important,” he finally conceded. “We make a big deal about birthdays in my family.”

“Everybody makes a big deal about birthdays, Allen. Even Muslims have birthday parties.”

“Fine. OK. Birthdays
are
a big deal, particularly kids’ birthdays. And instead of Rollie giving me a big hug and thanking me for the cake, he’ll be hugging and thanking Joe.”

She flicked ash from her cigarette into the coffee cup and let out a small sigh of impatience.

“Allen, will your son not also hug and thank you when you give him his gifts?”

“Yes, of course. But he’ll be getting lots of presents.”

“And only one cake. I understand.”

Janus hoped she really did understand what he was trying to get at. He knew that he spent much of their time together complaining about his life in general, and Joe in particular. No matter how serious he thought his complaints were, when he told them to Sahar they suddenly seemed petty and childish. That she often laughed derisively at some of his grievances only added to his aggravation.

“So, what will you do Allen? Nothing, yes?”

“Nothing, yes, of course. What am I going to do, start a fight over a stupid birthday cake?”

“No. Nobody fights over
stupid
cake.”

“You know it doesn’t make me feel any better knowing how ridiculous the whole thing sounds.” He glanced in her direction again and she answered by raising her eyebrows.

“Fine. How ridiculous the whole thing
is
,” he conceded.

“I know,” she answered softly, stubbing the cigarette out in the coffee cup. “I can only listen to problems, not give you answers. But, if you let me help you, I still can make you feel better.”

May 28, 1995:

She was born Sarah Shaheen in the affluent Montreal suburb of Town of Mount Royal, her father having made a modest fortune with three high-end Lebanese restaurants. She was raised a Maronite Catholic like her parents, both of whom were born, met and got married in the town of Zahle, in the mountains of Lebanon.