Face/Mask, page 5
“I’m hungry,” Janus said, changing the subject. “What’s to eat?”
“Joe made a great lasagna and-”
“Jesus, does Joe do everything here?”
“Hon, you know how much they need me at the hospital. Joe loves to cook for us, and it beats eating frozen.”
“Well, I don’t feel like lasagna.”
“But it’s yummy.”
“I don’t care if it’s yummy. I don’t want to eat it.”
“Fine. You can make yourself a sandwich then. And you’re just being ungrateful.”
She spun around and walked out of the bedroom. Janus knew she was right. But he wasn’t merely ungrateful; he was fed up with good old Uncle Joe’s involvement in every aspect of his family’s life. Of his life.
Not involvement, he told himself. Interference. That’s exactly what he’s doing, butting into everything we do until Terry and the kids can’t do anything without him. Meantime nobody ever expresses any gratitude to me for getting up every morning and riding an over-crowded metro-bus through the poison air of the city to get to my crap job just to make sure they get food on the table.
He decided to make himself a sandwich. Then he’d go on-line and look up that woman whose ad he’d seen the other day. She had an exotic name, Arabic he was sure, assuming it was her real name. The idea of talking to a strange woman sent a nervous thrill through Janus’s body. Her Muslim origins added an element of the forbidden. He didn’t know much about Arabs except what he saw on the news. Did he have the nerve to find out more?
September 16, 2038:
Janus remembered that Laval had once been a prosperous bedroom community, just over the bridge from Montreal, with a population of various ethnic groups. But it was in the late teens that the Arab population began to grow. Between the constant stream of immigrants, both legal and otherwise, as well as a higher than average birthrate, the Arabs began to outstrip all other groups. There were Lebanese, Egyptians, Moroccans, and others that Janus couldn't remember.
He supposed that made it easier to choose Laval when they set up what was essentially an open-air prison. They’d chosen the eastern half of the island (originally called Île Jésus in French, although nobody told the Muslims that) which had parcels of undeveloped land where the immigrants could settle. They built checkpoints along the bridges on and off the island, and put up fences with guard towers and auto-drones flying overhead.
Soon after the US sent in the military advisers in late 2018 people with Islamic-sounding names began moving to the large island north of Montreal. In the first year they’d been offered financial incentives to move there; then they were strongly urged, and finally they were rounded up and shipped en masse to this ghetto. Ontario had two similar restricted zones, and B.C. one. As for the U.S., there were an unknown number of these communities scattered across the country.
The administration had divided Laval in two, with non-Muslims who’d been living in the east being resettled in the western half. Their houses and apartment buildings were expropriated “in the national interest” and the new Muslim arrivals found themselves living three or four families at a time in large, upper-middle class homes. Newer developments were smaller, designed as single-family units, the better to squeeze in as many internees as possible. The place that some called “Little Gaza” was soon born.
It had been years since Janus had taken the one remaining highway which ran north across Laval to the Laurentian Mountains. All ramps leading off the highway were guarded by road blocks, preventing unauthorized residents from leaving. Non-Muslims were allowed to enter Laval with written permission, although their entries and exits were registered and their vehicles searched in both directions. Several large signs at the off-ramp made it clear that safety couldn’t be guaranteed for anyone travelling alone.
After his latest argument with Terry about Uncle Joe, Janus had locked the door of his basement office and tried to read some news reports. Once he was certain his family had gone to sleep, he’d switched away from the news and pulled the ad from its private folder, and punched in her site code. Within a minute he’d received, and accepted, Sahar’s invitation for an on-line conversation.
She appeared in front of him, wearing a knowing smile and a sheer, half-open bathrobe. She looked young and full-bodied, as he imagined a character from The Arabian Nights might look. She told him that Sahar was Arabic for enchantment, and he had no doubt that she’d been aptly named. She spoke with a Middle Eastern accent that he didn't recognize, and her syntax was broken just enough to make it charming. He could almost smell her foreignness, and wild fantasies were already racing through his mind.
She explained that there were certain border guards, at the first entrance to Laval off Highway 15, who could be bribed to allow him through without too many questions. There was, naturally, an element of risk, especially for someone in Janus’s position, but that added to his excitement.
On Thursday evening he told Terry he had to work late. He was willing to risk going into the restricted zone just to find a prostitute. The comfort workers were readily available, many of them in better parts of the city, and just a touch on the P-screen away. But when he’d responded to Sahar’s ad he knew he was looking for something more than quick, impersonal sex to calm his increasing restiveness. This little adventure would allow him to sweep aside his highly-regimented life, if only temporarily.
Janus drove slowly along the busy highway, his thoughts and heartbeat racing. He had an envelope full of twenties in his pocket, and his air-mask hid his face as effectively as any veil. He’d checked the car out of the Department motor pool, punching his name onto the requisition chit without a second thought.
He was surprised at how easily a hundred dollars got him through, and wondered if the guard made his money on sheer volume. There must have been many “Sahars” making their living this way.
From the checkpoint off the Cartier Street Exit on Highway 15, he followed the directions she’d given him. She had suggested that he not plug her address into the memory of the car’s GPS lest it be accidentally discovered; surely a lesson learned by previous clients.
The streets of Laval were heavy with old cars and buses. One road was partially closed by a group of masked workers repairing a sewer, wearing hip-high waders in a large, chemical green puddle. Further on a truck was double-parked with its engine running, while men carried large boxes out of its open back. Other drivers honked as they tried squeezing past, but Janus sat patiently in his car, taking in the sights and sounds. Until that moment it had never occurred to him that inside this forbidden zone life could look so normal.
He’d expected it to look like the prison he knew it to be, but there were few outward indications that people’s movements were restricted. There were cameras peering down on every street, an intrusion into people’s lives that existed throughout North America. Take away the guard towers in the distance and a few long-robed women and he could have been in downtown Montreal. The air-masks that rendered society anonymous also rendered it homogenous.
He got to a large apartment building, twenty storeys high, and checked the address on his wrist-pod. There was parking around the back, she’d told him. He parked in one of the spaces marked “visitors only,” next to a spot reserved for pregnant women. The lot was full of mini-vans and family wagons, none of them recent models.
He walked around to the front entrance, held the door open as an elderly couple carried in plastic shopping bags printed in Arabic, then entered the cubicle.
The names of the residents, printed in a glass display case, were also written in Arabic, but she had provided him with the code.
He was going to be Sahar’s last client that night, and for that she was thankful. Ahmed, her previous customer, had been more aggressive than usual today, and she wanted nothing more than to finish up and get some rest.
She rubbed her upper arm, still sore from where Ahmed had grabbed her, and hoped her new client wouldn’t mind some marks on her body. At least Ahmed hadn’t hit her in the face this time; he’d done that once a year earlier and she’d locked her door to him for three months. The poor man had begged her and apologized until she’d relented, but only after he’d promised never to strike her again and to pay triple her rate.
She knew it wasn’t easy for him. As the Imam of Laval’s biggest mosque consorting with a prostitute would have caused a massive scandal. But he had needs that his wife of thirty years could no longer fulfill, especially since the difficult birth of their seventh child. He came to see her twice a week, despite his own fatwa which limited her and her colleagues to serving a heathen clientele.
She had no doubt that he was, in his own way, a truly pious man; the tortured guilt on his face when they had sex was proof of that. When his conscience got the better of him he squeezed her too hard, like today. But he never hit her again.
Beggars can’t be choosers, she told herself toweling away the sweat from her armpits. She remembered a passage she’d learned as a child, from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”
Sometimes marriage isn’t enough, she thought, aware that she’d become more cynical than when she’d been a girl who memorized passages from the Bible for her Catechism classes.
Only this Canadian remained tonight. He’d looked so nervous on the P-screen she didn’t expect he’d be there long, unless he was a talker. Some men couldn’t help but share their family troubles, as if she were a bartender.
At least I’m not on my feet all day, she thought with a tired smile.
A glance in the mirror confirmed that her hair had that mussed, “just got out of bed” look. She smacked her lips and smiled at the bright red lipstick that was so much a part of her image.
Cheap, yet exotic. Sexy, yet roughly used. After twenty years in the profession she knew what her clients expected.
The buzzer interrupted her reverie. She touched the picture frame on the table next to her bed and the image of a tall, slightly heavy-set man came into view.
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.
