A face like the moon

by Mina Athanassious

  “Nothing like this in Egypt,” he said.

  “Is it like this forever?”

  “I hope to God it isn’t.”

  The two got off the plane in line and marched through the jetway and into Pearson International where the heat kicked in and Tino grew warm again. The boy and his father followed the crowds as they moved through long corridors. Tino looked up and all around him. Half the ceiling hovered as bare glass above him and he stared into the sky he’d just inhabited, blue and wide and free. There were no glass ceilings in Alexandria.

  The floors were tiled white and grey and clean. Walking through the corridors, the boy spotted old white people with eyes as blue as his mother’s. They smiled at him as they approached. He looked away. There were black people darker then the Nubians he’d seen in Aswan, and narrow-eyed Asians and smooth haired brown people and men with earrings and long hair and women with short hair and pantsuits and all kinds of colours and dresses the boy had never seen.

  “Baba,” the boy said. “Why is that man wearing an earring?”

  “He’s confused.”

  The two made their way through customs and got their bags from the baggage carousel at the end of the airport and waited by the carousel for his uncle John who picked them up within the hour. His car was sleek and black and brand new. A Mercedes.

  “I like your car, uncle,” the boy said.

  “Not bad eh? I worked hard for her.”

  The man was a pharmacist and owned three pharmacies in the area.

  “You can do anything you want in this country if you work hard enough,” he said.

  The boy ran his fingers through the stitching in the leather on his seat. He pressed a button and watched the car window roll down. The cold seeped in through the narrow opening and the boy rushed to close it.

  “By the way,” uncle John said. “I’m sorry about the-”

  “Don’t mention it,” his father said.

  “Were you talking about mama?” the boy said.

  “Yeah son. I’m really sorry about what happened. I’m sure it must be-”

  “Shut up,” the boy said with a hush as cold as the new country.

  “Tino, apologize,” his dad growled. “I’ll take off my shoe.”

  “Do it,” the boy said, surprised at his own words. “But he’s not allowed to talk about mama like she’s dead.”

  His dad’s face wrinkled and his eyes narrowed and he looked back at the boy and sprung his arm at him. John stretched his right arm towards Tino’s father and blocked him.

  “Whoa, listen Karim it’s okay,” he said and lowered his voice. “Look at everything that happened. How’s he supposed to be okay?”

  His father turned towards the streets and stared at his boy through the rearview mirror and calmed his voice.

  “Watch what you say boy.”

  “I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing Tino,” his uncle said.

  They arrived at the lowrise building owned by St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Mississauga who sponsored them. His father and uncle grabbed their luggage and took Tino to the seventh floor to a small white-walled apartment at the end of the hall. His father shook hands with John and thanked him for all his help. He closed the door and took off his shoe. Tino ran to the bathroom and closed the door and tried to lock it behind him. His father forced the door open. He grabbed the boy by the wrist, held him against the wall and swung his shoe at the boy’s left side. Tino cried and blocked his body with his hand, sliding down to the floor. His father held the boy’s wrist behind his back and swiped a few more swings at the boy’s flank.

  The man stood up straight with his shoe in his right hand and breathed deep from the short run through the house and the work he did to pin his son down. He looked down at the boy who stared down at the tiles. Tino wiped the tears from his eyes and held his left side, red and hot to the touch in his palm.

  “I know it’s been difficult,” his father said. “It’s been hard on everyone. I miss her too. But I will not tolerate you talking to my brother like that.”

  He walked out of the bathroom to unpack his shisha. Tino turned to touch his red skin onto the cold ceramic tiles and sobbed softly. He laid on the floor and remembered the times his mother stood between the boy and his dad, calming her husband with cool words and a light touch.

  ~~~

  Tino and his father walked to the bus stop on a cold mid-January morning, the boy’s body snug in a thick red winter coat and black snow pants and a scarf and mittens and a Maple Leafs toque. Thirty dollars all in for everything from Value Village, down from fifty after haggling. The boy strode through the snow with his mittened hand in his father’s. His body felt warm and his face cold and numb and leaking from the nose.

  Tino tried to pull his hand away from his father’s but he wouldn’t let go. The snow glowed perfect white under the light of the sun and worked to shades of brown as it approached the snowbanks on the side of the street. A large truck with a scoop the width of its face shoveled snow to the side of the street and sprinkled something that looked like specks of glass underneath its path.

  “What is that?” the boy asked.

  “I think it’s salt. It melts the snow.”

  “That’s too big to be salt.”

  The cold breeze bit at the bare skin on his neck. He stretched his scarf to cover the skin and wrapped it tight around his neck.

  It was Tino’s first day of school in Canada. He sat alone at the front of the bus across from a tiny olive skinned girl in pigtails with bright pink Hello Kitty earmuffs. She swayed her legs and stared at him as he watched the cars outside his window. He felt her stare at the back of his neck.

  “Hi,” she squeaked.

  The boy turned and looked at her. She wore a short innocent smile and a jacket as puffy as the boy’s. Her arms hovered a few inches between her waist pushed away from the padding in her sleeves.

  “What is your name?” she said.

  “Martino.”

  “I never seen you before,” she said.

  “Zis is my ferrest day,” he said slow, listening to the sound of his words. He knew enough English to get by from his private school back in Alexandria.

  “You speak very funny.”

  The boy scowled at the girl and blew her a raspberry. She giggled and pulled her dangling legs up towards her body and held her boots in her hands.

  “You’re not from here,” she said.

  The boy turned away and back to the streets.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  Tino didn’t answer.

  “Boy!” she said. “Where are you from? Why did you turn from me?”

  If he didn’t answer, she might keep asking.

  “I am from Egypt,” he said.

  “Really? Wow! I’m from Syria,” she said in Arabic. The boy had some trouble with her Syrian dialect, though he understood it better than English.

  “I don’t like your Arabic,” he said in his own dialect. “All of you Syrians’ sound like girls.”

  “I am a girl!” she said and readjusted her legs.

  The boy nodded.

  “Do you like snow?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s cold.”

  “That means you don’t know how to play with it,” she said. “Come with me at recess and we can build a snowman and we can name him Martino like your name. And we can make a snow girl too and we can name her Christina like my name and they can get married.”

  The boy tried to fight back a weak smirk.

  “What’s a snowman?”

  “I’ll show you,” the girl said.

  He looked at her, examined her round brown eyes and tiny hands in pink mitts and straight brown hair and that short staccato smile. He smiled back and nodded.

  They reached school together. The bell rang and Tino followed the girl through the gate and to the playground, past the yard to the front doors. He got in line behind the girl and waited until a thin la
dy in a long brown ponytail called the line in and walked them to class. She watched the boy as he put his jacket and backpack and scarf and mitts on the rack and made his way into class. The lady waved the boy towards her and bent down to meet his eyes.

  “Hi,” she smiled. “My name is Mrs. Riley. I’m your third grade teacher. You must be Martino.”

  The boy nodded.

  “You look very sophisticated in that sweater vest Martino. Who picked it out for you?”

  “Baba bought it for me from Valu Vellaj,” the boy said.

  “What a cute little accent you have. Where is that from?”

  “Egypt.”

  “Wow! We have pharaoh in our class,” she said. “Well, usually when we have a new student, we get him to introduce himself to the class. Would you be comfortable saying a few words to the class about yourself? Your name, where you’re from, what you like doing. Anything.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “No? Not even a few words? It’s scary I know, but it will help you make friends quicker if the kids get to know you right?”

  Tino shrugged. The woman spoke too fast for him to understand.

  “Just give it a try,” she said as she grabbed his hand and led him inside. She stood him beside her desk and quieted the class. She told everyone of the new student and asked the boy to introduce himself.

  “Hi I am Martino. I am fine how are you?”

  “Hi Martino,” the class said.

  “Tell us about yourself Martino. Where you’re from, what you like to do in your spare time.”

  “I am from Egypt. I like to play toy cars.”

  “His English is stupid,” a chubby Asian boy in the front of the class yelled. The class laughed. Tino felt his cheeks warm and redden.

  “James!” Mrs. Riley said. “Any more of that and you’re in with me for recess.” James slunk back into his seat.

  Mrs. Riley thanked Tino for his introduction and patted his back. She told him to find a seat in the class where he was comfortable. Tino grabbed a chair off a short stack and placed it beside Christina at a small hexagonal table.

  He sat next to her for the morning and listened to Mrs. Riley as she explained counting by twos to the class. He didn’t understand much of what she said and he didn’t count along with the class when they practiced. He sat back and pretended to absorb the information.

  Mrs. Riley gave free time at the end of the period before recess. The boy picked up a Lego set from the front of the class. He built a small fort out of yellow and brown Lego pieces. Christina helped him by arranging the Lego men and women at a table in the fort.

  “They’re drinking orange juice,” the girl said.

  The bell rang.

  Christina grabbed the boy’s hand and pulled him to the coat rack outside. The two dressed in their winter wear and ran outside with the other children. Christina led him through the yard towards the thickest snow that climbed up to the boy’s knees. She took a handful of the white powder and patted it into a small ball.

  The boy stood and stared eyes wide at the novel substance. He took off his mitts and pressed and rolled his own ball of snow. Scattered and fragile as it was, it hardened the more he squeezed until it solidified in his hands, the cold piercing his skin. He dropped the snowball onto the ground below him and put on his mitts.

  The girl flashed a smile at Tino and rolled the little snowball across the ground. The boy helped and saw the snowball grow thick and heavy. When they were done, the once tiny snowball had grown to reach up to Tino’s waist.

  “Now we make another,” she said.

  The second was smaller, only up to his knees, but still heavy. And a third even smaller, about the size of the boy’s head. Christina asked Tino to help her put the second ball on top of the larger one. He and Christina pushed the second snowball against the first and rolled it upwards until it perched on the thick base. She went and grabbed the smallest snowball and placed it at the top.

  She told Tino to find a stick on the boundary of the forest south of the yard. They picked up a handful and created arms and a mouth. Christina poked eyes out of the top snowball with her hooded finger. She slid her earmuffs off her head and placed them on the bald head of the figure and her pink mitts on its frail wooden hands. She reached into a pocket below her jacket in her pants and pulled out a pencil. She jammed it below and beneath its eyes, eraser side out, and the boy saw the bare white man for the first time. He stared at Tino and smiled a scraggly wooden smile. The girl stepped back and stood beside Tino and stared at the life they’d created. They boy felt the silence between them. He felt that it was good.

  “We built this thing,” she said.

  She grabbed his thick hooded head in her mitted palms and pulled him towards her and kissed his cheek like his mother used to. He felt a warmth move through his body amongst the cold.

  “Eeeeaarthquaaaaaake!” a voice cried in the distance as it got louder and crashed into the snowman’s round form. The Asian boy that laughed at Tino in class blitzed the structure with his body and tackled the middle ball pushing it to the ground where it smashed into dull undefined pieces along with the head. James the Asian and the few boys behind him laughed.

  “Why did you do that to him? I loved him.” Christina whimpered.

  “That’s what happens when a girl kisses you,” James said as he turned to Tino. “Your snowman dies of AIDS.”

  The warmth that had spread through Tino’s body turned cold and he could feel the greyness of day around him. He scowled and marched towards the narrow-eyed boy that laughed at the sight of the destruction of the broken man Tino made with Christina. Tino took off his mitts and wound his heavy arm back and swung his tiny fist at the Asian and knocked the tip of his nose.

  James fell to the ground and held his face and cried. His friends gasped and shoved Tino as he knelt at James’ feet. Tino pushed the other boys off him and took off his boot, held the toe in his palm and came down on the submitted boy’s head. James wailed. He covered his eyes and nose and lips with his palms and the sight of his fear pushed the boy’s anger and the boot came down harder again.

  “Stop,” James cried, his words loud and raw. “I’m sorry!”

  Tino beat his face with the boot until James’ blood drained from his nose and dyed the snow red. The sight of it justified Tino.

  “What’s happening?” an approaching voice called. Tino looked up and saw Mrs. Riley trudge quick through the snow.

  “Martino, up!” she said. She grabbed James by the shoulder and helped him to his feet. His nose was red and blood smeared across his face and on his gloves, down below his lips to his chin where it dried.

  Tino forced his heavy head up. He held his mouth agape and stared at the boot in his hand. The bloody face. The crimson snow. He breathed and felt his mind sober. The sight of blood reminded him of the streets of Alexandria on that warm winter night. The memory of his mother’s hand risen above the bodies, lifeless and limp but still capable to grasp the boy’s mind, latch itself to the back of his scalp, its fingers dug between his thick black hair grasped at his skin. Escaping to the new country couldn’t erase the memory of old blood.

  “You need to come with me,” Mrs. Riley said as she grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the school. “You too James.”

  Martino made it seven steps before he stopped, bent at his waist, and vomited what little was left in his stomach.

  ~~~

  Tino and James sat on separate sides of the same room waiting for their parents. Tino ran his eyes through the narrow lines that separated the grey tiles on the floor like the streets that severed snow and land he saw from the sky staring down at the new city and he remembered his dad pointing out the places and scenery and he wondered what his dad would do when he found out what happened.

  A short Asian man in uniform entered the school from the front doors, his hair slicked back and face sleek and edged and his eyes narrow and terrible. The principal greeted the officer at the door. James ran
to him and hugged his waist and cried, his face now cleaned of blood and a reddened tissue clogging his left nostril.

  The principal led the man out into the entrance and explained to him what had happened, the officer all the while dodged his eyes between her and Tino through the large glass part of the wall that separated the corridor from the office.

  “I assure you,” Tino heard the principal say behind the wall. “He will be punished.”

  The officer asked repeatedly if he could speak to Tino for just a minute, his voice jagged but calm. The principal told him that was against school policy. After much trying, the officer nodded his goodbye to the principal and walked out with his hand on his boy’s head.

  Within the minute, Tino spotted his father walk in and say hello to the principal. He marched up to his son and set his eyes on Tino’s. Tino withdrew his cold stare and glared back down at the tiles. The principal explained what had happened to his father.

  “I don’t know how it is in your country,” she said. “But in Canada, this behaviour is unacceptable.” The boy would not be permitted to return to school for another week. The father stood and nodded. The principal handed Tino a paper that she told him explains his suspension. He folded the sheet and slid it in his pocket.

  “Okay,” his father said. “I will deal wiz him when we get home.”

  The father motioned the boy up when the principal finished, said goodbye, and the boy and his father made their way outside.

  “I know this is a bad time,” his father said. “But I have a surprise for you.”

  The man walked the boy away from the bus station and towards the parking lot. They stopped at a large white station wagon with no curves. Straight lines all around with a star on its front grill. Long panels of fake wood stretched across its side. Patches of rust ate at the body from all corners. Tino’s father unlocked the passenger door and carried the boy up to the seat and strapped him. The cloth that lined the roof had separated and hung off the topmount steel right above the boy’s head.