11. Show me your Smile!
A short bedtime story for the little ones.
In 2020 the boys and I were breathing freely in the Rocky Mountains in SW Montana. In 2021 we were all back in Japan, and it was my first summer with the mask. In the muggy, stifling heat, your mask became heavy and wet with the humid air, your hot exhalations, and the sweat on your face. In my misery I wrote this story in protest.
Show me your Smile!
High in the Andes of Peru, where once the Incas ruled, there was a little town on the edge of a cliff, called Monte Bello, which means beautiful mountain. And in this town there was a little boy named Francisco. His father was the town doctor, whose first name was Alejandro, but out of respect everyone called him Señor Belmonte, which also means beautiful mountain. In Spanish there are many ways to say 'beautiful mountain'. Señor Belmonte's father had also been the town doctor, as had his father before him, and on and on going back to the old times, when the doctor was called the medicine man. The legend in town is that the Belmonte bloodline goes all the way back to the Healer of the Emperor, that is to say the doctor for the King of the Incas! With such splendid lineage, and with generations of medical knowledge passed through the family, Señor Belmonte was a truly skilled doctor, the best in the region, and he expected that Francisco would grow up to practice medicine too.
Francisco hadn't thought much about what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he liked lingering around his father´s clinic and watching people come in for checkups and examinations. Sr. Belmonte would say, “Francisco, you may stay here around the clinic if you are polite to the patients who come in.” He taught Francisco how to introduce himself properly. A patient would come to the door, and if Sr. Belmonte was busy in the examination room or laboratory, Francisco would open the door and say, “Good Morning, my name is Francisco Belmonte. I am 5 years old. Pleasure to meet you!” This always charmed the person waiting at the door, and they couldn't help but smile at the spirited little boy, and Francisco always smiled in return. Then he would hold his hand out and offer a handshake with a grip as strong as he could muster. This pleased the guests even more and they would sometimes let out a burst of merry laughter. Francisco got to be very good at making people smile and laugh. He took his charmer skills with him into the streets of Monte Bello, and on the way to buy bread or milk for his mother, or mail a letter for his father, or buy oranges for his grandfather, he would introduce himself to random pedestrians and see if he could make them smile or better yet laugh. He'd use the same words he used introducing himself at the clinic. Or if he already knew someone in the street, he would simply say, “Good afternoon. Nice to see you again.” Sometimes he didn't need to say anything, and the passerby would smile. How could they not, as this charming little boy with the big toothy smile (with one tooth missing) approached them.
One day Sr. Belmonte announced he had to travel down the valley into the big city, to buy a machine for his clinic. Francisco said, “Papa! Can I come?”
Alejandro Belmonte paused for a moment, then said, “If you are polite you can come.”
Francisco had been to the city before, to see his aunt. He liked all the hustle and bustle of the big city; the huge stores; the buses and streetcars, the lights, the signs, the restaurants and cafe's. Everything was new and shiny and exciting. And the people moved about so quickly; it seemed they were always in a hurry to get somewhere. It wasn't like Monte Bello, where you couldn't go anywhere without stopping to talk to someone you knew. But just like in his little town, Francisco had no trouble getting people to smile with his little tricks.
Francisco fell asleep on the two-hour drive into town. When his father woke him up they were already in the parking garage. “Come on, Francisco, I'll take you the plaza first, and you can see the fountain.”
“Can we get an ice cream?”
“Maybe when we finish with business. Work before pleasure!”
“But we're going to the plaza first. Is that work or pleasure?”
“OK, clever boy. Pleasure, then work, then pleasure!”
Francisco loved the plaza, and he thought to himself, “I will be able to make a lot of people smile here!”
But something very strange happened when they got out of the car park. Francisco looked up and down the street. There were people walking to and fro everywhere, but as Francisco looked frantically from one person to the next, he saw that they all had masks on! They were just like the mask his father sometimes wore at the clinic, but he'd never seen people wearing a mask in the street! It was like everyone was a doctor or nurse coming from their own clinic, but they'd forgotten to take the mask off. Or it was like everyone was getting ready to rob a bank and needed a mask like a bank robber.
Francisco looked at his father. His father didn't seem to notice. “Papa, look! Everyone is wearing a mask!”
“Yes, I know.”
“But why? Why do they wear a mask? Are they doctors, like you?”
“Heh. No, Francisco. They are afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“A sickness.”
“What sickness?”
“Well, it's has kind of a strange name. It's called La Corona (the Crown), and it is something like the influenza, and they are worried they will catch it and become very sick.”
“Like grandfather last year, who was in bed for a week from the influenza?”
“Yes, like that. But they think it's worse. They think they might die.”
“And will they?”
“No, Francisco. They won't. Not if they are healthy.”
“Will it hurt us, papa- La Corona?”
“No Francisco. I have already seen many patients with the influenza, and I'm almost sure I've already had it this year. In your case, you're fine because this particular influenza doesn't touch children.”
“So I am safe?”
“Completely. Don't worry.”
“But papa. Everyone is wearing a mask, even the children!”
“Yes, but you don't need one. Relax.”
They walked on toward the plaza, and indeed, everyone did have the mask on. It was very strange. You couldn't tell what people looked like anymore. All you could see was the eyes, but the rest of the face was covered. To Francisco, many people looked just like people he knew from Monte Bello. He was sure he saw Sr. Ordoñez, the barber, with the bushy eyebrows. But a few minutes later, he thought he saw Sr. Ordoñez again, when another man with bushy eyebrows walked by.
Even in the park, by the fountain, everyone had a mask on. When Francisco was finished looking at ducks in the pond and chasing pigeons around the plaza (and thinking, “I'm glad they aren't wearing masks”), they headed back out into the street to go to the place where Sr. Belmonte would buy the machine for the clinic. Francisco looked at the people again. It was very weird not seeing anyone's face. Suddenly a thought jumped into his head, “How can I play my game and make people smile if I don't know if they're smiling?” His next thought worried him a little. “I won't see anyone's face today, and I won't see anyone's smile.”
Francisco kept close to his father and held his hand a little tighter.
“Papa. Why doesn't anybody wear these masks in our town? Is there no La Corona in Monte Bello?”
“Oh, there is. But we don't wear the mask because the mask doesn't stop La Corona, and everyone knows it.”
“How do they know it?”
“Because I told them so.”
“Why don't you tell these people? And then they can take their mask off? (“and play the smile game,” thought Francisco.)”
“Because they won't believe me.
“Why won't they?”
“I don't know. It has something to do with the television, but there is more to it than that.”
“Why not just try and tell them.”
“I have.”
“Here, in this town?”
“Yes, it doesn't work. Some of them get angry.”
Francisco gripped his father's hand a bit tighter still. When they stopped at an intersection to wait for a light, Francisco stood face to face, well, face to mask that is, with a girl just a little older than him.
The girl was looking at Francisco with a intense stare, but Francisco didn't know what the rest of her face was doing, and he stared back at her. The light didn't change for a long time. Suddenly the girl's mother looked down and pulled her daughter away from Francisco. “Amelia!” Then she looked at Mr. Belmonte with an intense glare of her own. Señor Belmonte understood why the lady seemed angry. She didn't want Francisco so close to her daughter. He said, “I'm sorry. My son likes to play a little game with people he meets.”
The lady didn't say anything but her daughter Amelia said, “What kind of game?”
“It's simple. He tries to make you smile.”
Amelia laughed at that and Francisco smiled at her. Then they stood staring at each other for a moment, and the light changed and her mother pulled her away toward the crosswalk. As Francisco and his father walked behind them, Amelia kept looking back. At the corner, the ladies continued straight. When Amelia saw that Francisco and his father were turning on the sidewalk to the right, she quickly pulled her mask down from her face and flashed Francisco a big smile. Then they both waved at each other and went their separate ways.
“Hey, that was good!”
“What?” said Francisco.
“You not only got her to smile. You got her to take her mask off!”
“Well, she had to take her mask off for us to see if she was smiling!” said Francisco.
“You're right about that!” said Alejandro Belmonte.
And now Francisco had a new game for himself. Not only making people smile, but proving they were smiling by pulling the mask down. It was a challenge, but it was fun. Francisco tried a bunch of different ways to see people's faces. Sometimes he'd point to his own smile. If it was another child, he'd pretend he was taking his own mask off, and try to get them to do the same. Once he made a funny face at a young couple and waited. When they looked back at him with a questioning stare, Francisco said, “Did I make you smile?”
“Yes.”
“Then show me.”
And they did.
Once instead of trying to be funny, Francisco just said to another boy, “Show me your smile.”
It worked!
Once he just stared at a lady for a long time. Confused, the lady looked toward Sr. Belmonte. “He's playing a game where he tries to get you to smile.”
With that the lady got a kick out of the sport of it and showed Francisco her face, which was very beautiful indeed.
“You're doing very well, Don Juan!” said his father.
“Who is Don Juan?” said Francisco.
“He is a man who can charm the ladies!” laughed his father. Francisco laughed too.
This little game went on and on, even inside the medical supplies store where Sr. Belmonte had to pick up his machine.
After a stop at the ice cream shop, Francisco tried his charms on a few more people on the way back to the car but by the time they got to the car park, he was tired of the game. And he was tired of seeing people he thought looked familiar but couldn't say for sure. He even saw another man that looked like Sr. Ordoñez, with the bushy eyebrows!
On the way home he said, “Papa, that was fun making people take the mask off, but I don't want to play the game anymore.”
“Well, you won't have the chance anyway, because we'll be back in Monte Bello soon, and nobody wears the mask.”
“Good, but I don't want to come back and play here. I do want to come back, but not play that game.”
“You don't have to.”
“I just want to look at people again.”
“You will.”
“Next time we come? Then people will just show their regular face?”
“I hope so.”
“I hope so too.”
Then Francisco fell asleep and didn't wake up until they were back in Monte Bello, the little town where nobody wears a mask, and the town where, despite all the charms and excitement of the big city, Francisco liked most to be.
photos:
Terraces along Colca Canyon. Thank you, Leonora (Ellie) Enking Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
girl in mask- public domain