seen him from a particular angle, as if she were standing at the angle of thirty-seven degrees and Isador at forty-five. She saw his flat underside but not he himself. Isador was in a similar position yet of course different. So he would return years later with a small bunch of white flowers and a placid face. And June at thirty-seven degrees still, would gesture to the shabby office and decline. But perhaps if they had seen each other from all angles none of this would have happened, not even their first meeting. We do what we can with what we have at the time, even when we believe we are trying to break the angles.
Beatriz would never show up with flowers, June thought. Beatriz was serrated, another geometry.
“Olvidate que me conocias,”
she’d told June. That could not be mistaken for anything but what it was. Forget you knew me. Perfect. Though June felt slightly imperfect at the time, slightly miffed that she wasn’t the one telling Beatriz this. Of course that was ego—but perhaps it was love too. Because, after all, isn’t love absence? Like the absence of a limb makes you notice where it was and what it did. Beatriz had been very obtuse and suspicious. And there were reflexes to her that June did not want to travel. The nights Beatriz didn’t wake up from sleep violently at her throat, she hadinsomnia and lay there smoking beside June. She was the type of woman you should ensure leaves you, rather than the other way around. That way she would not hunt you down.
EIGHT
S ome young men your age are making jihad, look at you. Nothing. Gangster, what is that? No faith, no nothing. I wish you would wear a vest with bombs rather than being a thug. You waste my life and you are a shame in the face of the prophet. I waste my life here for you
.
“You want me to make jihad? Eh, Dad? You making jihad doing taxi?”
To tell the truth this is a city built for winters. In the summers Toronto sits disconsolate, humid in its thick pink fibreglass insulation. This is what the father, Da’uud, thinks and he thinks this is how his children have become, built for winters, thick and with a rough, abrasive inside. Theyare dull against his words, his barbs. He is not even a religious man. At times he is harsh with them, he says things he doesn’t mean. He cannot make that Bedri do anything. He has invoked the worst curses against this winter boy,
ciyaal baraf
, this boy who grew way beyond the height of the doorway and the width of Da’uud’s hand.
“In this city you have to keep your belongings with you,” Da’uud tells this to a woman in his taxi. He tells her everything about the boy and everything about himself; how he was an economist, how he trained in Switzerland in 1978. How many languages he speaks, Italian, English, Arabic, French, Somali. How he went back home and how in 1994 he fled. The whole country fell apart under the men who knew everything. The military men, the religious men. The hard men. “You’ve heard this story?” he asks her. “Before you know it, you’re trapped. Five languages, Miss. Five.”
She is looking out the window along the lakeshore. “No, that’s terrible,” she says. Why do men force their lives on me, she thinks.
“Yes, terrible,” he says. “So I tell him all this. He doesn’t care. He can’t understand.”
“Hmm,” she says.
Da’uud picked her up on Eastern Avenue and he’s driving her along the lake as it wanders in and out from view. “So where are you going, Miss?”
“Nowhere, really,” she says. She’s vague. But the man she is meeting has told her she is beautiful.
“No, Miss, I mean the address. Where you call the taxi for to go.” He drives past the island airport with this red-haired passenger. Does it matter who he was before this? No, it doesn’t. The day he stepped into this cab it ceased to matter who he was. The day he set foot in this cab his life, so to speak, changed.
“Sunnyside,” the passenger says.
“Sunnyside,” he
Beatriz would never show up with flowers, June thought. Beatriz was serrated, another geometry.
“Olvidate que me conocias,”
she’d told June. That could not be mistaken for anything but what it was. Forget you knew me. Perfect. Though June felt slightly imperfect at the time, slightly miffed that she wasn’t the one telling Beatriz this. Of course that was ego—but perhaps it was love too. Because, after all, isn’t love absence? Like the absence of a limb makes you notice where it was and what it did. Beatriz had been very obtuse and suspicious. And there were reflexes to her that June did not want to travel. The nights Beatriz didn’t wake up from sleep violently at her throat, she hadinsomnia and lay there smoking beside June. She was the type of woman you should ensure leaves you, rather than the other way around. That way she would not hunt you down.
EIGHT
S ome young men your age are making jihad, look at you. Nothing. Gangster, what is that? No faith, no nothing. I wish you would wear a vest with bombs rather than being a thug. You waste my life and you are a shame in the face of the prophet. I waste my life here for you
.
“You want me to make jihad? Eh, Dad? You making jihad doing taxi?”
To tell the truth this is a city built for winters. In the summers Toronto sits disconsolate, humid in its thick pink fibreglass insulation. This is what the father, Da’uud, thinks and he thinks this is how his children have become, built for winters, thick and with a rough, abrasive inside. Theyare dull against his words, his barbs. He is not even a religious man. At times he is harsh with them, he says things he doesn’t mean. He cannot make that Bedri do anything. He has invoked the worst curses against this winter boy,
ciyaal baraf
, this boy who grew way beyond the height of the doorway and the width of Da’uud’s hand.
“In this city you have to keep your belongings with you,” Da’uud tells this to a woman in his taxi. He tells her everything about the boy and everything about himself; how he was an economist, how he trained in Switzerland in 1978. How many languages he speaks, Italian, English, Arabic, French, Somali. How he went back home and how in 1994 he fled. The whole country fell apart under the men who knew everything. The military men, the religious men. The hard men. “You’ve heard this story?” he asks her. “Before you know it, you’re trapped. Five languages, Miss. Five.”
She is looking out the window along the lakeshore. “No, that’s terrible,” she says. Why do men force their lives on me, she thinks.
“Yes, terrible,” he says. “So I tell him all this. He doesn’t care. He can’t understand.”
“Hmm,” she says.
Da’uud picked her up on Eastern Avenue and he’s driving her along the lake as it wanders in and out from view. “So where are you going, Miss?”
“Nowhere, really,” she says. She’s vague. But the man she is meeting has told her she is beautiful.
“No, Miss, I mean the address. Where you call the taxi for to go.” He drives past the island airport with this red-haired passenger. Does it matter who he was before this? No, it doesn’t. The day he stepped into this cab it ceased to matter who he was. The day he set foot in this cab his life, so to speak, changed.
“Sunnyside,” the passenger says.
“Sunnyside,” he
Similar Books
