Brik looks like a compact, weathered man assembled from famine and masonry. His movements are economical until he smells fresh food, at which point his stillness becomes predatory and his head turns before the rest of him. His mouth is too wide for his face, with square gray teeth that overlap like roof tiles. When he laughs, which is rare, his jaw unhinges by a finger's breadth and a second row of tiny teeth becomes visible behind the first. He always carries a palm-sized roof slate tied to his wrist with tarred cord. The slate is polished nearly white where his thumb has rubbed it over years, while its edges remain black with soot. His unexpected contradiction is that his hands are exquisitely gentle, capable of tracing a child's name in dust without smudging it, despite the monstrous appetite behind his teeth.