The girl walked to the kitchen and informed the cook of my presence. The man peeped at me from a square opening, nodded to her, then ignored me and returned to his fire.
Are you the daughter of the owner? I asked.
Yes, how did you know? the girl said, and smiled at me.
I just know things.
What else do you know?
That you’d rather be somewhere else today.
Yeah, like where?
In bed, or hanging out.
She giggled.
No school? I asked her.
Not now, she said. In a few days it will start again.
School sucks, I said.
The girl nodded and laughed again.
I used to run away from school, I said.
And where did you go?
I hung out.
Yes, I like to hang out, too, she said.
Maybe we can hang out together, I said.
She smiled and did not answer.
I hang out with my skateboard in Old Montreal all the time, I said. You know, I jump over those stair rails on the government buildings.
No, you don’t, she laughed.
Sure I do, I said. I wear baggy pants and my cap in reverse.
No, you don’t.
Sure I do. I am only dressed like this today because I am meeting your father for a job.
My father will only hire you if you fear God. He says he only trusts those who fear God.
Do you like God? I asked her.
I don’t know.
I do not like him, and I do not fear him.
Well, if you tell that to my father, he will never hire you.
It will be our secret, I said. Our first secret.
What is our second secret?
I will tell you if I am hired.
Okay, she said, and smiled with her head tilted towards the table. I’d better go now. My father will come soon. He does not like it when I talk to strangers.
Oh, is he jealous?
No.
Just afraid that his pretty daughter might run away with a stranger on a skateboard?
The girl laughed and walked away. A few minutes later the owner tapped on the window and the girl rushed to let him in. He entered, his bald head bowed and his hunched posture making him look as if he was about to sniff the floor or fall on his face. He did not say a word. He barely acknowledged the presence of his daughter and ignored me as I stood up to greet his most important presence. I said salaam in a semi-glossy monosyllabic chant.
He replied with a brief dry salaam and went straight to the kitchen. He disappeared for a while and then came back. Without wasting time, he said: We open from Wednesday to Sunday. You can work as a busboy, Friday to Sunday. I do not need you more for now. You work for part of the tips and three dollars an hour. You stay until the end. At the end of the shift, you vacuum the floor and the carpets, you clean and mop the kitchen and the bathroom. Okay?
Okay, I said, nodding more than once.
Come Friday. Be here at three in the afternoon.
Thank you, I said.
And come dressed in a black suit and a white shirt only. And everything should look clean.
But of course, I said. Clean. Clean like the robe of God.
He gave me a quick look, half pleased, half suspicious.
I immediately put on a semi-fearful face, and a semi-pious one. I nodded only once, because there is only one god left. The rest were all slain while they enjoyed offerings of calves and poultry, while they were drunk on wine in the company of sirens and blind poets. Now everything on earth is monochromatic like snow. One, one single nod that goes up and down, like the extended hand of a zealous soldier, is all that we are allowed.
On my way out, I saw the daughter sitting at a table with a big smile. I winked at her. As I walked towards her like a Cyclops, she giggled with joy and fear. I twisted the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped outside into a world that looked flat, square, and one-dimensional.
III
I TOLD GENEVIEVE about my new job. She was happy, even touching my hand. Then she drew back fast, knowing full well that I was willing to take her hand and lead her to a spacious bed where we could always have the session in horizontal.
Why the austerity? I wanted to ask. Why this formality? Maybe all I ever needed to be cured was to be held by warm arms, above silky sheets, and fed by food in a full fridge, and gazed at from pillows, and feel my hair caressed. Maybe all these formalities, these thick clothes, this claustrophobic office, these ever-closed thighs and pulled-back hair are making me reluctant to open my innermost thoughts. I am thinking: Doctor, Genevieve, my luscious healer, my confessor, I confess to you that we should touch. Words have no effect on my skin, will never straighten my hair, won’t make my fingers reach out, wet, to explore triangles of pubic hair and soft red cracks, hollows of sensitive secret spots. Words, my love, keep tongues busy with dry air and clacking noise, words are what keep us away from the sources of liquid and life. There must be some branch in therapy where silence is encouraged and touch is the answer.
Tell me more about the job, Genevieve said. Tell me how it happened.
I went inside and waited, I replied. I talked to the daughter of the owner because the owner was not there.
How old is the daughter? Genevieve asked.
Maybe sixteen. I’m not sure.
And what did you talk about?
Skateboarding.
Was she nice?
She giggled.
You made her laugh?
Yes.
Let me look at my notes, Genevieve said, dismissing my attempt at joy and laughter. Okay, so last time when you burst out of the office — do you remember that? You were telling me about your sister and her husband, Tony.
Yes, I was telling you that.
Do you want to go on with that?
I’m not sure where I left off.
Tony had a gun.
Yes, almost everyone did. I mean, many people did.
That is interesting. And how do you feel about guns?
A gun could be useful.
For what?
To get things, accomplish things, defend things.
It will be by means of force — you realize that?
It’s not wrong if there are no other options, I said.
You are not a pacifist, I assume?
Pacifism is a luxury, I said.
Can you elaborate?
No, I can’t. Well, yes. I mean, you have to be well off to be a pacifist. Rich or secure like you. You can be a pacifist because you have a job and a nice house, a big TV screen, a fridge full of ham and cheese, and a boyfriend who goes with you to nice resorts in sunny places.
How would you know? How do you know I have a boyfriend?
I am just assuming. Just because.
Because of what? Her voice was firm and abrupt, she moved a touch forward, her eyes blinked twice from behind her glasses.
Because you grew up here and you have a job and a house, and you know people.
Not everyone who grew up here has a job or a house. There are many poor people who grew up here. But enough about your assumptions. You were saying about your sister and her husband?
Well, one day my sister came back home to my parents’ place, covering her baby in a pink quilt, and her eyes had black rings around them. The bastard had beat her up. My sister cried all the time. She was humiliated. My mother, with her “I knew it” attitude, you should have never married that loser, and my father, with his “women deserve it” attitude, took her and the baby in.
I went looking for the brute. I knocked on the door of his house. He was sitting in a room with two other gangsters, smoking and laughing. When he saw me, he knew I would kill him with my bare hands, with my pierced eyebrows, if I could. His gun was laid out on the table. Everyone became quiet. I stared at the gun, thinking: If I had wings, I could fly over, pick it up, and shoot the three of them from above. Or maybe if I was an insect I could crawl under their doors at night and slay them all in their filthy bedsheets.