Face/Mask (4 page)

“But how can you, when you know what the money is for?”

“What for is money? It is so we can live together in my new life. So we live happy.”

Again, Janus was left speechless by Joe’s offer. It wasn’t just the generosity of it. The man wasn’t judging Janus or the way he’d gotten himself into this situation. He had understood that if Janus was up all night worrying about it then it was a real and pressing need. The rest wasn’t his business. Janus wondered if a man could train himself to think this way.

“If I said OK,
if
...how long would it take you to get your hands on it?”

“Allen. Money is in shoe box in my closet. Where do you keep
your
money?”

Janus let out a short laugh that couldn’t conceal the tears that streamed out of his eyes, so he turned away again in embarrassment. Maybe it was the amount he had drunk that night; maybe it was because he was in truly desperate straits, but Janus realized that he was actually considering taking Joe’s life savings. That realization brought on a sickening feeling.

He’d always been proud of his financial success, his professional achievements; of making sure his family had the best of everything. But he’d put everything at risk and now his best chance to avoid losing it all was this man who had so little to his name. For Joe to show such generosity was too much for Janus, so his reaction was only normal.

Janus despised him more than he thought possible.

August 29, 2037:

Joe stood at the bay window, and thought of how strange it felt to finally be in Montreal. Teresa, Allen and the boys were all out for the day, as they always were during the week. Joe didn’t mind being alone in their large house, but knew he’d have to get out and explore his new city soon. Richard, their oldest son, had shown him how to use the local metro-buses, which seemed to run on an arbitrary schedule, and Teresa supplied him with a list of com numbers he could call if he ever got lost.

But he certainly wasn’t about to step outside today, not with that filthy rain that looked like it was never going to stop. The noxious steam rose off the pavement in front of Allen and Teresa’s home like a poisonous cloud that threatened to kill anyone who stepped outside. Joe shivered and let his gaze wander down along the brown streaks that stained the glass, and his thoughts drifted to the gentle summer rain that once fell on Miramare, carried in on the warm breeze from the Adriatic.

It had been three weeks since he’d moved, and Canada was taking some getting used to. He knew that when the wind blew north from the industrial city of Trieste the air in Miramare was as toxic as any major North American city. Nevertheless, the happier memories of his youth coloured any images which he retained, and it was sometimes an effort for him to remember that the country he’d fled was far from idyllic.

Beside the pollution from which no country could escape, Joe’s native land was under the grip of black-shirted military policemen. He was saddened to find that Canada had its own military police, even if they wore nice suits and blended into the background. The surveillance cameras on every street corner meant that there was no need for security policemen to stay out in the foul air all day.

Joe sipped at his tea, scalding hot the way he always drank it, although it lacked the honey he so loved. He watched as a garbage truck trundled down the street, the roar of its engines rattling the window-panes, its diesel fumes pouring out the overhead exhaust pipe. The black smoke spread gradually upward into the damp air, bringing to mind dark stories Joe had heard in his youth.

He remembered his uncle Silvio, sitting in an old armchair, an empty bottle of
Barbaresco
at his feet, telling little Giuseppe, in a voice made hoarse by weeping, about the black smoke that once poured out of the stacks at
Risiera di San Sabba
. The concentration camp had been built in the 1940’s, and had been the major industry in Trieste for three years.

Silvio, who’d been a raw draftee just out of his teens, spent six months as a guard there until the Allies overran the camp in 1943. In later years he would tell his impressionable young nephew stories about working under the Nazis, seeing men and women gathered like herds of cattle, sent to a death which denied they had ever existed. Silvio’s descriptions of entire families, Jews, Slavs and who knew who else, walking quietly to their deaths, had terrified little Giuseppe, until he was certain that one day black-shirted Nazis would come and get him too. Until the sight of exhaust coming out of a garbage truck brought up horrible memories that weren’t even his own.

Silvio had been haunted by his nightmares for over three decades. Eventually all the alcohol he consumed no longer provided the buffering fog he needed to get through each day. He took his life, sitting on that same old armchair that Giuseppe once imagined he lived in, with a Luger he’d brought home from the war.

Joe’s thoughts snapped back to the present. His past was filled with as many dark memories as happy ones. He’d been spending too much time with only his thoughts for company since he’d moved to Montreal, still hesitant about wandering out alone in the huge metropolis.

While Allen went to work and the boys attended school Teresa volunteered at the chest hospital each day. Joe understood that she needed this work to give herself a sense of purpose outside the confines of home, although he worried that she might be overwhelmed by all the suffering that she saw. Still, spending her days with an old man that she hardly knew anymore made no sense. But for a few hours each day, until the house filled up again with the noise of an active family, Joe was lonely.

“
Basta!
” he said out loud. Since when did he feel so sorry for himself? He had much to be thankful for, and it was up to him to adapt to his new country. Just the other day Teresa had driven him to the local supermarket where he could buy what he needed to make their suppers, a task that he’d volunteered for soon after his arrival. The quality of the food was unimpressive, (he’d noticed that all the vegetables smelled like plastic) and the prices were exorbitant. Still, she’d explained to him, they were among the luckier families in town who could afford to eat whatever they pleased.

He’d mentioned to her a man known as Tony the Butcher, whom he’d heard of through friends back home, but this had led to her warning him against buying food which didn’t have administration stamps. He had no idea if Tony’s food was stamped or not, only that the man’s cousins in Miramare had often bragged of his popularity with Montreal’s Italian population.

Joe thought that in a few days, once he’d gotten his bearings a little more, and once this disgusting rain ended, he might head down to the area that was known as Little Italy, buy some decent groceries and surprise Teresa and her family with a truly delicious meal. From what he’d been told, Tony’s was also a place where he could while away an afternoon drinking espressos and discussing politics. And that wasn’t a bad way for an old man to spend his time.

He was slightly in awe of how Teresa and her family treated the rain as a minor inconvenience that hardly slowed them down in their daily routines. But Joe hated the smell of sulphur which caused him to wear his air-mask even when it wasn’t an orange alert day. And the steam that rose from the rancid puddles reminded him too much of death for him to walk through it with any equanimity.

But for today there was more than enough to do at home. He didn’t mind cleaning the house or preparing the dinner for the family. A lifelong bachelor Joe had learned to cook at his mother's side, and had always felt at home in the kitchen. As Joe was a stranger to Canada, his mother, Samira, had been an immigrant to Italy, married to an engineer who had met her while working in Aleppo, Syria, in the 1950’s.

She too had left her world to live among strangers, adopting the language and the religion of her husband. It was only when he got older that Joe learned that she was born Muslim, not Catholic like everyone else he knew. Yet she told her son that when she’d arrived in Miramare she’d never been made to feel unwelcome or treated with hostility by any of the villagers, who were surely the most hospitable people in the world.

Today, Joe knew, in this modern, pluralistic Canada she’d have been shipped off to one of the many internment camps, like the one he’d heard of just north of Montreal. And her children would have been condemned to spending their lives in the camp with her.

Before he’d left Italy Terry had told Joe how to falsify his papers to hide his mother’s religious origins, or he might never have been allowed into the country. Even if his mother had converted to Catholicism and raised her children with more religious fervour than any of her neighbours the law would make no exception for her.
So much for the open-minds of the West
, Joe thought, crossing himself vigorously as she’d taught him to do.

“
Madre di Dio
, keep us safe from all the
ignoranti
who would teach us hatred in your holy name,” he said aloud.

Joe rummaged under the sink and pulled out a large stainless steel pot, which he slowly filled with filtered water. One day soon he would try the lamb that was supposedly so good at Tony the butcher; better than the freeze-dried generic meat Teresa bought from her administration supermarket. But it would have to be pasta tonight, not that anybody would complain.

Joe thought that Allen worked so hard all day in his important position within the administration that he deserved to have a good hot meal waiting for him. He remembered the conversation they’d had the previous night, revealing that even as upstanding a man as Allen could have embarrassing secrets. If it hadn’t been for that unexpected confession Joe would have continued to think of Allen as nothing more than a solid, if somewhat boring, family man.

He shook his head in wonder at the thought of this upright bureaucrat owing money to the kinds of men who ran a dog-fighting ring. He understood that Allen could never let anyone know of what he’d done, especially not Teresa. Joe would keep this secret like it was his own.

He shrugged and headed for the kitchen. The world was full of surprises, and he’d long ago learned not to judge how others found happiness.

As for his darling Teresa, let her go help those poor souls whose lungs had turned black from breathing the filthy Canadian air. Joe would feed her family, putting his love and gratitude into every meal he cooked. He would forget the past, both the happy days and the dark. As his mother had, he would learn to love his new country.

Taking care of them made him feel like they were his children. He could finally be the good father that God in his wisdom had not permitted him to be, and he was sure he’d be loved in return.

He smiled as he cooked, feeling good about himself and about the happiness he was sure to bring to his new family. There was nothing he wanted more than to bring joy to Teresa, the boys and especially Allen. Allen was an
Inglese
and had no blood relation to him, yet he’d welcomed this stranger into his home and shown him all the love and respect that Joe could hope for.

Content in his eagerness to please, Joe began to whistle as he worked.

June 6, 2039:

Following that late night conversation two years earlier Janus came to understand how integral a part of his household Joe had become. The old man was a well-loved part of the family, and Terry and the boys would have found life without him as unthinkable as life without Janus. Once settled in, Joe set about making himself useful in any way he could. He was always ready to step in to handle any of the day to day problems that Janus never had the time or interest to deal with.

Today had been a particularly dull day at work, and the ride home on the crowded metro-bus was long and hot. Janus was in a foul mood and wanted nothing more than to get home and wash off the day’s sweat and grime. He approached his house and stepped up to the doorway when the sensors picked up his presence, turning the large fans on with more power than they had in months. Unprepared, he was nearly blown off the front porch.

Terry had complained for the longest time that the fans weren’t strong enough to clear the air inside their doorway, and that the sore throats and head-aches that constantly haunted the family could be linked to the slow-moving rotor blades. While Janus had assured her that they’d been inspected twice and conformed to normal safety standards, this explanation never satisfied her. And today someone, most probably Uncle Joe, had taken it upon himself to double their rotation speed.

Trying to keep his irritation in check, Janus steadied himself and keyed the front door open, stepped inside and let the automatic door swing shut behind him. Standing in the sealed mud-room he waited impatiently while the blue light of the disinfectant beams slid down his body. Eight seconds and the beams turned off, and a small green light flashed over the inner door which swung open.

He removed his air-mask and his cover-all, hanging them on one of a series of pegs along the wall next to the door.

“Allen, is that you?” Terry’s voice, a screech that was too high-pitched to make for a pleasant greeting, came from the living room.

He stepped to the archway and looked inside. Richard had his P-screen enlarged to cover several square feet of the room. Floating in front of him was a miniature moon circling around a perfectly blue Earth. Joe wasn’t around; he was probably playing chess in the bedroom with Francis, and Janus was thankful for the opportunity to regain his composure before having to face him.