Authors: Gabriel Boutros
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 Angels Academy her father’s pride knew no bounds and a hall was rented so that the entire community could admire and envy her. Her father, Pierre, was so busy receiving congratulations, and congratulating himself, that he took no notice of a young man named Rafik Chamseddine, the goalie on Elias’s soccer team, who floated around Sarah all evening. Marie-Eve, however, did notice this man and, as is often the case with a mother, was quite aware of the sly looks that her daughter constantly threw the young man’s way.
That Rafik was a Muslim had never mattered to the Shaheens. They hadn’t escaped Lebanon’s sectarian violence to bring its prejudices with them to their new life. They were quite happy that Elias had befriended this pleasant young man, who was an excellent goalie by all accounts, even if his father was a dry cleaner. It was important for their sons to be open to people from all walks of life, and all religions, if they were to be good and successful Canadian citizens.
And so, while Marie-Eve was mildly concerned about the attention her daughter and the young man were showing each other, she decided to hold her tongue. Sarah was such a beauty that it was to be expected that every young man would be captivated by her. And as a young girl who’d led a fairly sheltered life it was normal for her to feel flattered at this attention, especially as it came from a man five years her senior. The Shaheens were planning to fly to Lebanon in two weeks, where they’d spend their summer between the mountains and the sea.
Marie-Eve thought that two months in Lebanon would be enough time for any infatuation that was growing between the youngsters to dissipate. That was before Sarah ended the night’s festivities by announcing that she was carrying Rafik’s child. She was seventeen years old and she wasn’t going on any family vacation with them, intending to move in with her one true love while her family was out of the country.
What happened next was as sad as it was inevitable. Pierre attempted to buy off Rafik, certain that money was all that interested him, but he was quickly rebuffed. Pierre’s sons convinced him that killing the young father-to-be would hurt the family even more than the disgrace their sister was bringing on them. There were certain traditions that were better left behind in Lebanon.
So Pierre Shaheen made the young couple the offer of their lives: he would buy them a small home in Quebec City, where nobody knew him or his family. He would open a bank account in his daughter’s name with an amount of money that was sufficient for them to live off while Rafik studied auto mechanics, his only passion other than Sarah. The money would also allow Rafik to open a small garage upon graduation.
In return Sarah had to take her husband’s name and promise never to contact anyone in her family for as long as she lived.
Sarah, holding tightly to her broken-hearted mother’s hand, agreed readily. She was being exiled, a refugee as her mother had once been, but she was being given a chance many others never had. She understood that her father was turning away from her forever, and it was only due to the love he had so long held for her that he was offering this aid. She let go of her mother’s hand and walked to the street corner where Rafik waited in his eight year-old Corolla.
From that point she dedicated her life to being a wife and mother that Rafik could be proud of. She attended her first Sunni mosque with him in Lévis, just outside Quebec City. Before Rafik married her, she told him, she wanted to learn and love the god he worshipped. She was giving up the last vestiges of being a Shaheen, including Catholicism, in order to more fully re-create herself in an image that her father would never recognize.
It was shortly before their marriage, when she was six months pregnant, that she stopped being Sarah. She was lying in Rafik’s arms, his hand resting gently on her swollen belly, listening to his contented breathing as he slept. As tired as she was, she often forced herself to stay awake in order to fully enjoy this peaceful time with him.
Suddenly Rafik woke up and smiled at her.
“Guess what I just thought of?”
“You mean while you were sleeping,” she laughed.
“Yes, while I was sleeping. It occurred to me that your parents misspelled your name. It shouldn’t be Sarah, it should be Sahar. Because you are like magic.”
“Then forget the name they gave me,” she said, stroking his fine hair. “I love the name that you’re giving me. From now on, I am your bride to be, Sahar.”
The following years were happy ones, despite the circumstances. She missed her mother and brothers, and even her father who had doted on her for so much of her life. But she’d found her place as the wife of Rafik Chamseddine, mother of Wafah, their first-born, and two years later, Almaz. As Sahar’s father had done with her, Rafik spoiled his two daughters as much as he could while working long hours getting his auto-body shop up and running.
The money set aside by her father was of great help, but it wasn’t without end. Sahar often told her husband that she could get a job to help with expenses, but he insisted that she stay home with their children. Although born and raised in Montreal, he retained an old-world mentality. He would hear no talk of his wife going to work, nor would he listen to any arguments on this point.
After six years of saving and struggle it was in 2018 that Rafik’s hard work bore fruit. He came home one day, bursting with excitement good news which he tried to tell her as slowly and calmly as he could. The week before, he’d repaired a damaged Mercedes sports coupe that a young driver had rammed into a brick wall. The car belonged to the head of a large business conglomerate and the driver, barely out of his teens and full of reckless energy, was the rich man’s son.
The boy had insisted that the car’s brakes failed, unusual in such a reliable model, and the father suspected street-racing was the cause of the accident, if not his son’s likely drunkenness. Rafik had no idea why the man had brought the car to his garage instead of taking it to his dealer. (“Allah must have sent him to me,” he said while recounting the story to Sahar, beaming like a child who’d won a spelling-bee.) While taking the details from the father Rafik could see the son, sitting alone in his father’s sedan, looking miserable.
“
C’est mon fils
,” the man told Rafik, pointing toward his waiting car. “He’s the brilliant driver who crashed my lovely little coupe. He says the brakes failed, but I don’t believe a word of it. But I guess it won’t hurt to check them out while doing the rest of the repairs. Once you confirm that the brakes were fine I’m taking his licence away for a year, and that’s just the beginning of his misery.”
Rafik glanced again toward the boy and felt a pang of sympathy. It hadn’t been so long before that he’d been a reckless young man himself, living every minute of life as if it were his last. Before Sahar and the children.
Later that day, looking up at the undercarriage of the damaged car, Rafik realized that he didn’t want to hurt this spoiled rich boy whom he didn’t even know. He looked at the brakes, but there were no visible problems. Sometimes, he knew, air built up in the brake lines, which could conceivably cause brake failure.
Strange how that can happen
, he thought with a wry smile. It would make for an acceptable explanation for the alleged brake failure.
He pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and inscribed on the work order that the brake lines needed to be bled, then he picked up his screwdriver and set about doing the job.
Sahar looked at him in awe when he told her this part of this story. “You would never do such a thing,” she said. “There must have been a reason for it.”
“There was, my love. It was fated for me to do. The boy came back today, with three friends, all driving
very
expensive sports cars. He’s making me their personal mechanic, and he said they have many other friends who will need my services. All rich kids, all happy to pay. This kind of clientele, Sahar, once they spread my name among their people, can make our garage a true success.”
“
El hamdullah
,” she said. “Thank God.”
“
El hamdullah
,” he concurred, folding her into his arms and holding her tight against his grease- and sweat-stained shirt.
As happy as this news was for the young family, a few days later a phone call from Montreal put an end to Sahar’s joy.
“Sarah,
c’est Jean,
” her brother’s voice, not heard for many years, sounded choked over the phone.
Sahar felt no joy at hearing it, only dread. If he was calling it meant bad news.
“Jean, what is it?”
“
C’est maman
. She had a stroke last week…”
“Last week? Why are you calling me now?”
“Papa didn’t want me to tell you. He doesn’t even know I’m calling you now. But I had to.
I think she’s going to die, Sarah. You have to come home.”
His words went through her heart like a knife. The pain of the previous six years of separation was instantly forgotten as she told him she’d be on the next flight to Montreal. She hung up and rushed into the living room where her husband and children were colouring on the floor. Rafik looked up at her, saw her grief-stricken expression and jumped up.
“
Habbibti?”
“It’s my mother. I have to go back to Montreal tonight.”
There was neither need nor time for further explanation. He swept up the children, who squealed with uncomprehending delight, and rushed them to the car. He drove his small family quickly but safely to the airport and before she had time to catch her breath Sahar was on the seven PM shuttle to Montreal.
Two hours later she stepped out of a taxi at the New Montreal General Hospital and ran as fast as she could down a number of long corridors, following the signs toward the intensive care unit.
She came to a sudden stop at the sight of her father and two brothers sitting with tears streaming down their faces while a doctor stood over them, whispering solemnly. Her father looked up and saw his daughter. For the briefest moment she saw love in his eyes, but then it was gone. Turning away as if he’d just remembered something, he walked through a nearby closed door.
Sahar stared at her brothers knowingly, afraid to hear what they might say. Jean walked slowly toward her, shaking his head as he approached.
His mouth formed the words “she’s gone, Sarah,” but his sister heard nothing. Her ears were filled with a whooshing sound as the blood rushed to her brain, and she reached out to the brother who’d become a handsome young man since she’d last seen him. He hugged her, crying and speaking into her neck as he held her, yet all she could hear was the pounding in her ears.
Suddenly, from the staff rest area a nurse let out a horrified scream that reverberated down the ICU’s halls, stopping all who heard it in their tracks. The nurse had been watching a game show on an old flat-screen TV hanging on the wall when the show was interrupted by a news alert.
“Nuclear Explosion Levels Quebec City,” flashed in red letters across the screen. “Thousands Feared Dead
.
”
June 11, 2039:
Saturday finally came, and with it Rollie’s birthday party and the invasion of their house by half a dozen eight-year olds. There was no question of playing any games in the back yard, despite the warmth of the spring day. The kids sat around the living-room Vid-bot, their avatars chasing each other through a 4-D forest full of friendly animals, living out age-appropriate puzzles and adventures. There would be no violent games for the children, Terry had decreed, and Rollie had agreed only after finding that his father would not be backing him up this time. Janus had promised Terry that he would avoid turning every aspect of the party into an argument.
At one point Joe told the kids he had some “truly magic” card tricks to show them. Grinning like an eight year-old himself, he sat down among them and pulled out a deck of cards that looked as old as Janus. The kids toggled off the video console, curious to see this low-tech game, and Joe began shuffling. In the kitchen Janus was grilling a batch of burgers (the bag boasted “100% real beef-flavour!”) when Joe called out to him, “Allen, please get the camera from my room. We must record this special day for Rollie.”
Janus turned in protest to Terry, but she had her “please do this for my sake” look and he remembered to hold his tongue. He let her take over at the grill, and went up to get the camera. He entered Joe’s room and found that it smelled of the lemony cologne that Joe bathed himself in on special occasions. Finding the thin plastic box on the night table, Janus opened it and slipped the recording monocle over one eye.