Free Face/Mask by Gabriel Boutros Page B

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.
    Pierre and Marie-Eve Shaheen had come to Canada in 1986, refugees from the civil war that had torn their jewel of a country apart, and opened a fast-food kiosk in a local shopping mall. This was a precursor to their more successful restaurants, the first of which they opened in 1995, the year Sarah was born.
    Of their three children, Elias, Jean and Sarah, she was the youngest and by far the most spoiled. She was the apple of her father’s eye, a dark-haired beauty like her mother, but with her father’s stubbornness and quick temper. While her brothers showed the kind of entrepreneurial bent that would see them expand their father’s business, she showed unexpected academic prowess, and there was talk of her going on to medical school one day.
    When she graduated at the top of her class from Queen of