The Darling of Kandahar

by Felicia Mihali

  Meat, vegetables, dairy products, cakes, beverages? Canada’s Food Guide unrolled quickly in my mind, for my mother had put the latest version up on the fridge, the one that increased fruit and vegetable portions yet again. It did no good, though; people were in love with meat and sweets. Maybe the problem was that portion sizes were not clearly enough explained. Was a glass of juice equal to a few apples or a basket of strawberries? A portion of apples could not be identical to one of orange juice or blueberries, could it?

  Seeing me so disoriented, Jane helped me again. “Italian food, or maybe Chinese?”

  So that’s how it is. Celebrities’ gastronomic preferences are counted in Italian and Chinese meals. What else could I say other than that I liked a good slice of all-dressed pizza? It was even on the menu at Les Trois Brasseurs. As soon as I thought about it, I remembered the whole menu of our restaurant, which also included mushroom soup and smoked meat sandwiches. I asked Jane to note that I like smoked meat sandwiches.

  As my imagination started to roll, I told her I sometimes went to Schwartz’s on St. Lawrence, to eat real smoked meat with pickles. I could see this moved me up a notch in Jane’s eyes, as she also knew that small restaurant whose fame was bigger than the quality of its sandwiches. My God, what was the difference between the smoked meat sold under that name and that available in many other places? My mother could not tell the difference either, even though she came from the same country as Schwartz. But going to Schwartz’s was more than eating smoked meat. For this question therefore, the right answer was that I liked smoked meat at Schwartz’s.

  Afterwards, Jane asked me how I would characterize myself in two words. I have no idea, Jane. Is it possible for two words to summarize somebody’s personality and their life since childhood, including all the remorse, excesses of confidence, and complexes of all kinds?

  Jane was not at all disposed to speculate on the matter; she was totally sure of what modern media could do. She offered me a short list from which I could choose what fitted me the best: “intelligent,” “hard-working,” “persevering,” “realistic,” “optimistic,” “kind,” “polite.” I loved that list right away, with its positive view of human life. Is there anyone who would prefer instead to describe themselves as “stupid,” “jealous,” “lazy,” or “pessimistic”?

  Without thinking, I chose “intelligent” and “hard-working.” Was this me? Not really, but who is a purist? Nevertheless, I felt guilty about my choices. For justice to be done, I told Jane I smoke a lot. Saying this during an anti-smoking campaign made me feel better, and so I figure I could have added “courageous” to Jane’s list as well.

  After only three questions, I felt the excitement of risky things. Here I was, faced with the secret machinery of public life, and human beings take pleasure in rebuilding their own identity. So I was disappointed when Jane had no other questions for me. She had me pegged as a smart and hard-working woman who loves the colour green and smoked meat sandwiches at Schwartz’s.

  She abandoned me with the same smile that showed me how grateful I should have been to her. Kevin was waiting nearby, smoking a cigarette. They went down to the métro station, and I waited a little while before going back to the restaurant, just enough time to smoke a cigarette. When I entered the kitchen to put on my apron, nobody noticed my return since there was a huge number of rush hour customers, but by evening three men had asked me if I was the woman in the picture.

  I guess this is the time I should tell you about Henry and Manuel, the two men in my life before Yannis.

  I met Henry at a birthday party for Lina, a Chinese classmate. He was Chinese too. My relationship with him came just in time, as my mother was very worried about my solitude and asceticism, but whose fault was that, having me put in a school for girls, and Catholic to boot? I would have had more chance of becoming a lesbian, anyway, which was the reputation some of my classmates had.

  Outside the grey school wall, people had all kinds of sexual fantasies about us, as we were wearing those kilts, with our knees naked. The girls contributed to those fantasies themselves, because as soon as they went through the big iron gates at the end of the school day, they shortened their skirts by rolling them up at the waist. We were very aware of the reputation a girl’s school could have in the collective mentality.

  I was Henry’s friend for two years, but it was only towards the end of high school that we slept together. It was just a child’s game, a mixture of timidity and shame. Henry represents the kind of experience that means nothing to a woman.

  People imagine that the first time a woman makes love, it means a lot to her, as this is the point of no return, the moment of an irreversible conversion. A woman will never be the same again, for better or for worse. Which may be true. We usually associate the revelation of our own body to the small tear between our legs and to the smarting pain that comes with it, which is more of a surprise than it is painful. In my case, it was just the shame, religious shame in the face of sin, and that, too, was my parents’ fault for having chosen Villa Maria.

  Unfortunately, what my memory selected afterwards was just the smell of Henry’s basement on an autumn afternoon while his parents were at work. He had set out a beach towel and a small cushion printed with big red chrysanthemums on the sofa, just for the occasion. Despite the warmth outside, inside it was chilly, and the air smelled slightly damp. The room was almost empty, as his family had installed neither a home cinema nor ping-pong nor a billiard table, as was the custom inside Canadian houses. I thought maybe his father was keeping the room for his yoga exercises. The window was covered by a double curtain that stopped the light filtering inside. To illuminate the room, Henry turned on a small lamp with a blue paper lampshade.

  Henry came from a Chinese family from Hong Kong that had sought refuge in Canada when Hong Kong was transferred to China. The family was wealthy, and in their new country they had continued doing what Chinese people do best: trade. Their house had a motley mixture of expensive objects and cheap knick-knacks, and the air smelled of sandalwood, hotpot and jasmine tea. Colourful rugs spoke to the custom of removing shoes at the entrance and might have invited guests to feel a certain intimacy.

  In my case, it was humility. Once I was barefoot, I did not know where to place my shoes, next to his mother’s slippers or further on, under the wooden shelf where men and women’s shoes were together, one on top of the other. Despite the atmosphere of tidiness and elegance in each room, the presence of certain objects revealed the kind of isolation that comes to a family whose guests all tend to share their own origins. I would not have known how and in what circumstances to use the thermos placed on a small table in the living room, which was surely filled with hot water.

  Henry’s father ran a secondhand furniture shop on Jean Talon West. Once I accompanied Henry there, as his father had asked him to go in for half an hour. He never introduced me to his father, just as I had never introduced Henry to my mother, even after two years of friendship. While Henry spoke to his father in the back office, I wandered through the store like any other customer.

  The furniture was displayed on two levels in the big hall of an ancient factory, which had been turned into small shops. His father had set up cozy exhibits, like those in IKEA, to show the clients how to fit all those mismatched pieces together. As the chairs, tables, beds and dressers came from different houses, it needed a special adroitness to set them up. To improve the look of this bric-a-brac, he had included a few odd objects which were not for sale: bronze statues of Buddha, Chinese pottery, and pretty tea sets. People had to buy the all-included display.

  That day I had to wait quite a long time, as Henry was working on the computer, assisted by his father, who stood behind him. They were occasionally interrupted by his father’s associate, a Turkish guy. I sat in turn on frayed sofas and in armchairs covered in tapestry. Some pieces were real antiques that would have been better disp
layed in a museum. Even with my little knowledge of business, I thought the prices were high for this kind of furniture.

  Henry said everything could be negotiated, but nobody ever succeeded in beating his father down. One way or another, he would charge the client for delivery or he would make them buy more in order to round up the amount of money. His father was a small man, skinny and almost ugly. His mother, of whom I have only seen a picture, was extremely beautiful. Henry looked like his mother.

  Right from the start, our friendship was an adventure without a future. I don’t know why this idea was set in both our minds the first day we met; we both felt like we were just Lina’s friends. Things looked simple to us until Henry started to change. He suddenly grew up, and his voice became strong and sharp enough to break glass. When he laughed, he made such a noise that people turned to look at us. He let his hair grow long and put it up on top of his head in a samurai-like knot. Knowing something of the history of Hong Kong and the Japanese invasion, I had no doubt that his father was unhappy about that.

  He was often asked to go and help his father in the shop, as part of secret preparations for the Turk’s dismissal. Henry obeyed his father without enthusiasm, but his father paid him honestly. This was the best way to keep him interested, for Henry was quite stingy. The contact with his father’s business was part of what changed him. By the end of the second year of our relationship, he was touching me more and more often, and when he proposed that we make love together I agreed right away. What I remember even to this day was my fear that his father would come home while we were still in the basement.

  Our first love meeting took place without any preamble, and Henry remained silent throughout. Next time, things followed the same pattern. We went slowly down into the basement, as if this would convince us of the seriousness of our act, undressed discreetly, each of us in the opposite corner, and then afterwards, we parted without a big farewell.

  I imagined that what was spoiling Henry’s pleasure was the same fear as mine, that his father would return while we were still naked. I knew Henry would have shielded me if that had happened, but I also knew he would have been mortally embarrassed. I saw Henry as an honest and brave young man, but at the same time I guessed his childish weakness and suspected the terrible gulf that our relationship would have opened up between him and his parents.

  Each time I went home, I was grateful to him for his silence and decency. Neither of us knew what to say in such a situation. What embarrassed us most was our shame at trying to act like adults.

  I was in my first semester at Marianopolis College when Henry invited me to his place one afternoon, as usual. He had just got back from the store, which should have reassured me his father would not be around. For the first time, though, I refused to go. I was tired and overwhelmed by the changes that had recently taken place in my life. Big changes were rare in my experience, and I had always had a long period when I could get used to the idea of my father’s departure, my mother’s remarriage, and my enrolment at Villa Maria.

  What I was having trouble with now was the switch from French school to English college, new classmates, and new teachers. I took refuge every day in my mother’s cosy apartment, and the day Henry called I had no intention of leaving the house. It was a natural feeling of protectiveness, and he should have understood. But he did not. He stopped calling me and I never made any attempt to contact him. I accepted that my initial intuition had been right, and the relationship had no future. And I realized that associating my anti-social mother with a Chinese businessman from Hong Kong who ran a second-hand furniture store on Jean Talon would have been really awkward.

  So I was alone again, and I did not dislike it. Unlike my mother, I was not at all worried at being on my own. I have never told her what happened with Henry, but she knew. She knew right away, when I got home after having been down in the basement with Henry that first time, and she passed over the occasion in silence, just as Henry had. I spent my Cégep years in the company of girls of many different origins and languages. I was particularly close to the Chinese girls, who reminded me of my relationship with Henry, whom I had not met since that phone call. I did happen to see him a couple of times in the street, but I didn’t call out to him.

  Once I started at university I went to work, which my mother has never accepted. Why did I have to work, she did not stop wondering, as my father paid my tuition fees and she took care of room and board? What kind of cruel system was this that forces young people to spend the best years of their lives deadening their minds? She would never get used to the North American way of life. In her mind, at this age young people should spend their time reading or just relaxing, letting their mind work instead. Traveling a little bit on their own, wandering here and there, visiting people or family.

  Instead of acquiring wisdom, North America pushed them to deaden their minds, just to gain experience. How awful these words were: North American experience. And what kind of experience was it, anyway? On your feet eight hours a day for a pittance that soon vanished on a few jars of cosmetics, nylon thongs, and a couple of lunches at McDonald’s? Why were people’s standards so low? They naively trusted the propaganda of a consumer society that turned them into slaves in a cycle empty of value and personality.

  My father agreed with me, and not just because my working reduced the amount he had to pay for my schooling. He was much more at ease with North American values than my mother, and he called her old-fashioned and a Communist.

  Manuel came into my life in big, bold steps. He was a supervisor at the box company where I had been hired thanks to one of my classmates, who had worked there for about two months. It was because of Manuel that I stayed there for more than a year. The routine of working at the conveyer belt was a killer. I had to stand motionless for eight hours and stick silk fabric inside paper or plastic boxes. That was the task I was assigned at the beginning, and it never changed.

  The company produced containers, from small boxes for jewels to money or gold ingot boxes. For larger orders from banks and other corporate clients, they had to hire extra staff. During the normal season, there was a team of about 30 people, most of them Asians and Latinos.

  It was like an ancient slave galley and, once aboard, you never left. There were some old women who had been working there for more than 20 years and who spoke neither of the two official languages. When the supervisors wanted to teach them new things to do, they had to show the woman what to do. If they had to correct the women, they just said, No good! At lunchtime, these women clustered together in a small corner to speak their own language and eat their fish and rice with old wooden chopsticks. Nobody dared to stop them bringing in such stinky meals, so all of us had to eat our lunch in a room smelling of microwaved fish.

  When they had to design new kinds of boxes, the two bosses made an appeal for the Chinese men’s services. Together, they drew and built up the new models in paper, which were cast afterwards in plastic molds. For the inside and outside cover, a special team was needed, and Manuel was often asked to help. Most of the work was done by hand because machines were not able to fix the delicate satin pleats.

  Each time I ended up lining a box in red silk, I asked myself where it was going to, to whom, and for what necklace or ring. What man was going to offer a precious gift in this box, and to what woman? I was sure this kind of nonsense was on the Asian women’s minds, too. They must have made up their own fantasies that one could no longer read on their exhausted faces.

  At the end of the day, their features were almost shapeless, their eyes haggard, their slightly open lips hanging, and their backs bent, scarcely able to support their heads, which were crowned with short, disheveled curls. Those women were a gloomy sight every day, worse even than the monotony of the work.

  I used to terrify myself, trying to imagine what their lives were like outside the workshop, thinking about their very small portion of human hap
piness. After work, I imagined, they would head home promptly to prepare supper, and they would go to bed early so they would be able to punch in on time next morning. And their lives would continue like that, day after day, in this huge, grey, mournful space with its filthy glass walls, where they would stand next to these greasy machines and breathe in air that smelled of glue.

  My mother’s life was not at all like those of the women who were working here, and she fought to keep me away from these vivid examples of human failure. She knew better than I how tiredness destroys a person’s hopes and dreams.

  I would soon have left the company if it hadn’t been for Manuel. His kindness, and later on his passion for me, made me put up with the place. After just a few weeks, I was no longer judging the women I worked with, for I myself had I started to look like them: my mouth remained half-open. I got used to their tiny share of happiness as, yes, humans can build their well-being on small things. A day off, for example, when the company had few orders, was a source of pleasure. The employees returned home earlier than usual and for the rest of the day they sat on their balcony watching children playing around the public pool.

  Manuel was Spanish, and he had arrived in Canada more than 20 years before. He held a Master’s degree in psychology from the University of Madrid, but as an immigrant he had been unable to find a job in his field. He therefore temporarily entered the factory and never left because, thanks to his education, he was named supervisor of a team of 30 people.

  His pay was not much higher than that of the workers; I think that what kept him there was his title rather than the work. His job was ten times more exhausting than that of his employees. As they only spoke their mother tongue, he had to show them what to do and how to do it for every new project with his own hands. He also had to keep watching them for a few days afterwards to reduce the amount of material wasted.