The cafe with five faces, p.26
The Café with Five Faces, page 26
“And parallel to this,” broke in Mark, anxious not to be left out, “Trump was launching another of his ‘climate change is bollocks’ campaigns.”
“Well, if anyone knows about bollocks, it’s him,” grunted Matthew, clearly not appreciating the introduction of the bollock-pronouncer to the dialogue. “He rarely says anything which doesn’t fit that particular description.” He sighed, as many often do. “And then, a couple of weeks later, parts of England were facing flood devastation. And it was still pouring in Beirut. I was trapped in a café by rain in Lebanon while Lois was trapped in her flat by rain in our green and pleasant valley!”
Collective attention was then focused on the Siphon, which was happily gurgling its way to a conclusion. I arranged three glasses on the table, reluctantly depriving myself, lovingly swirled the coffee around in the lower bowl and poured it into the three waiting receptacles. Lois still seemed transfixed.
“It’s best left a couple of minutes just to cool down,” I told her, hoping the message would penetrate the mental fog. In the meantime, I was eager for more stories from one of my second homes. “Anything else new in Beirut?”
“Well, we had a moment of einstürzende altbaten,” said Matthew. Lois shook herself awake and looked confused, which as a non-German speaker, was hardly surprising. Matthew felt a brief explanation was called for. “I used to love that German band, Einstürzende Neubaten, which translates as Collapsing New Buildings, but as this was an old building, I’m assuming I can replace ‘neu’ with ‘alt’.”
Mark coughed in the manner of one attracting attention or prompting correction. “I don’t think you ever actually listened to that band; you just liked the name because it was trendy!”
Matthew looked fleetingly, and jokingly, annoyed but did not deny the accusation. “Whatever,” was the best response he could muster, whatever that indeed means. “Anyway, this building not far from where we were staying just collapsed,” he resumed, on the assumption the story was more engaging than his love or otherwise of experimental German music. “It must have been expected, as cameras were there and no one was injured, although we were initially told it had just fallen down.”
“Without wishing ill on the residents, that isn’t the most exciting conclusion to a story I’ve ever heard,” Lois remarked, returning her attention to the coffee glass in front of her and thinking it was time to take a sip or two. Her facial features expressed the message, ‘Still too hot’.
“The roads gave us more cause for amusement,” said Mark, changing the direction of the conversation as he knew how quickly Lois could become intolerant. “We were thinking of one or two friends when we were crossing the road near the school we were visiting. It’s a really, really busy road,” he continued, setting the context for his anecdote, by which I arrived at the inevitable conclusion it carried an awful lot of traffic. “There’s a flashing green man to help you across the first half of the road. And then…”
“You’re on your own,” finished Matthew. “A step into the unknown.”
“The easiest method if you’re insecure and a newbie to the wonders of Lebanese pedestrianism is latching yourself onto a pensioner and crossing with them; they seem less likely to get run over.” I think Mark was trying to be helpful.
“But then you get dangerously used to it,” said Matthew, nodding in fake sagacity. “One of my friend’s husbands saw me crossing the road to meet them once and apparently remarked, ‘Oh my God, he’s becoming so Lebanese!’” He paused to reflect. “I think it was a compliment. But, sometimes, you are aware there is more than one vehicle moving at thirty mph within twelve or twenty-four inches on both sides of you when you’re crossing the road and yet, for some bloomin’ strange reason, you actually feel safe.”
Lois obviously thought this conclusion unlikely but, ridiculous as it sounds, there is more than a note of truth in it. Until it all goes pear-shaped.
“Like so many things Lebanese, for us, anyway,” Mark went on, “you acquire habits when you live in the place long enough, and I think it’s fair to say British drivers do not appreciate the way I have learned to cross the road in places like Lebanon or Vietnam.”
“And imagine what happens when you go to a place like Germany, or some other parts of Central Europe, where you can get fined for crossing on a red light or, if not fined, you get looks of serious reproval for setting a bad example to children who may, or may not, be present to witness your transgression.” Matthew shook his head sadly, seemingly sending out the message that, in his opinion, everyone should be despatched to Lebanon forthwith to learn how to cross the road. Despite my affection for the said Eastern Mediterranean state, I staunchly believed otherwise.
“I remember crossing the road once in Katowice,” said Mark, referring to another much-loved city of his close acquaintance. “It was one o’clock in the morning and there was no one around at all, so I, and the two people I was with, crossed the road. I think half the road had a green light and the second half a red. When we got to the other side, two policemen sidled out of Gliwicka” – the name of a street for the 99.99% of readers who, no doubt, count as the uninitiated – “and accused us of crossing on red, just to earn a hundred złoty or so from gullible, uninformed foreigners. There was no way they could have seen the lights from where they were standing and they soon gave up when my friend told them so in Polish!”
Three glasses of coffee were raised to lips simultaneously and I stood awaiting their verdict as might the defendant in the dock.
“On a par with The High Llama, I think,” said Matthew approvingly, with Mark’s thumbs-up presumably indicative of endorsement. Attention moved to the female presence, where the smacking of lips seemed to count for more than words.
Matthew returned, mentally, to Lebanon, as though Katowice and Yirgacheffe had not interrupted. “I usually walk on the road in Beirut, anyway. On the road, you sort of know what to expect, what’s coming. On the pavement, you can never be sure!” Lois seemed to share her friend’s lack of certainty, although I imagine in a different way. “Well, for example, apart from the parked cars which actually force you to walk in the road, and the occasional moped or other motorised vehicles which endanger pedestrian safety, it’s a marketing technique, away from the smart, expensive shops, to make you fall over goods on the footpath. Everyday common or garden grocery shops just pile their wares on the pavement, so you have to make a conscious effort to negotiate passage.”
“It definitely makes you notice them,” Mark offered in praise of the Lebanese retail industry.
“It’s strange how you become oblivious to things which annoy you at home,” Matthew said with a degree of nostalgia. “People who pip horns at home, I tend to look at in disdain, and I hardly ever, if ever, do it myself, but it’s part of the music of Beiruti street life.”
“It still makes you despair on occasion, though.” Mark was, perhaps, a little less tolerant. “You know, as soon as traffic lights turn green, or even when a green light is predicted, someone who is like six or seven back in the queue starts beeping as though the person at the front might not have noticed.”
Lois, who had never been to Lebanon, looked as though its omission from her bucket list was not in danger of remedial action. Matthew seemed determined to redress the negativity, at least a little.
“You just have to understand the unwritten rules of driving and crossing the road – I’m not really sure you can put the reality into words.” This did little to convince Lois, who, I was happy to report, seemed far more into the Siphon-brewed Yirgacheffe. “You know how in language,” Matthew continued, trying to personalise his argument to an area Lois would more easily identify with, “we have prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. For example, prescriptive grammar, how the language should be used, dictates that ‘If I were you’ is correct, while descriptive grammar, how the language is used, allows ‘If I was you’. Well, I’ve been assured that Lebanon does have laws of the road, meaning prescriptively, but the rules of what happens in reality, in other words, descriptively, are totally different but everyone seems to know them.”
Lois could be seen and heard, almost literally, trying to process this information and assess its relevance to the argument. Lost for words, an unusual event in itself, she shook her head.
Matthew decided to shock her back to reality. He turned to Mark and winked, indicating a wind-up was in the pipeline. “Have you ever had a hookah?” The effect was instantaneous; this was the type of conversation Lois loved and she awaited the answer, agog with anticipation.
Mark, aware of the wink, was tempted to play along but limited this to a few seconds of deep thought before answering the question honestly. “No,” he said, and Lois was almost palpably disappointed. “I don’t smoke.” The female target of the joke returned to a state of confusion. Mark decided to put her out of her misery, although not quite straight away. “A hookah is just another word for argileh or shisha,” he teased, waiting a few more seconds for the brow to furrow further. “Or hubble bubble!”
“Ah,” said Lois in final recognition.
“But I fell into the same trap when it was first mentioned to me,” admitted Matthew. “I wondered why the director of the school was offering me a hooker.” He laughed at the recollection, without divulging how he had responded.
“There’s no connection here,” said Mark, indicating a major shift of direction, “but I was just wondering if you could shed light on something I’ve been wondering about. When you go to kiss Lebanese women on the target cheeks, why do they turn their mouths so far away, you end up kissing their ears?”
Lois assumed this was the first line of a joke and sat awaiting the punchline. Apparently, it was a genuine question.
“Maybe that’s just you!” Matthew, not for the first time, laughed at his own joke, however bad it was, and then, noting Mark’s annoyance, jocular though it may have been, and the three empty coffee glasses in front of them, realised a change of subject, and drink, was in order. “Cruzcampo time?”
Walking towards Monachil and the Sierra Nevada near Granada – no need for any rules of the road here!
2019: 45: Budapest: The Gift
Budapest is my room for aspirations. Just as its customers aspire to some kind of artistic success, so I aspire to mounting a plaque on the wall, proudly stating that blah-blah composed some notable work or whatever within the confines of these four walls with its two polished marble tables and reproduction Biedermeier chairs standing on dark-stained wooden flooring and surrounded by inspiring wood-panelled walls, dark mirrors and reproduction artwork.
OK, dream on. Reproduction seems to be the name of my game.
Despite my café being situated in an area known for its artistic creativity, my would-be artists to date have numbered one. And that one is Jimez. And, with all due respect, the plaque-makers of the north of England can put their order books away. Jimez is a failed writer and a failed lover who drinks wine he can’t afford, none of which prevents him from being a lovely guy, who his long-suffering friend, Jen, and I do our best to encourage, however futile and despairing a task this all too frequently becomes.
Jen is clearly fond of Jimez but long since decided his clumsy flirtations with her were an act of desperation rather than longing and, even if there ever was a flicker of interest, which I sincerely doubt, it had been well and truly snuffed out by his hapless overtures. I actually know very little about Jen, other than that she is an environmentalist with appalling timekeeping skills, has the gall to put milk in a carefully crafted Chemex-brewed coffee, and is the major purchaser of my Hungarian cakes, a fact which shows abundantly around her waistline, not that anyone would dare tell her so.
On this particular afternoon, Jimez, who had ended the previous year in a very upbeat mood, much to everyone’s surprise, given yet another twelve months of non-production, was sitting alone on a Biedermeier, rocking back and forth. I seriously doubted the legs would tolerate such actions for much longer, as Jimez was not a lightweight. His basset-hound visage, oft referred to in 2018, was freshly restored, with a few additional grey hairs to add to the melancholy. And whereas one might be tempted on sight to throw one’s arms around a cute basset, such an eventuality was unlikely verging on the impossible in the case of Jimez.
He ordered a cappuccino, which I made rather more hurriedly and a little cooler than I would have liked, just to focus his mind on something other than his apparent mission to reduce my chair count.
“Here you go,” I said pleasantly. The to-and-fro motion continued as inexorably as a pendulum. “Erm, you want to be careful,” I ventured. “You might fall off if you lean back too far.” I phrased my suggestion to his benefit, rather than my pocket’s, but its impact was not immediate. I began to wonder if there was life on the Biedermeier. I slightly rudely wafted the coffee under his nose and this, finally, had the desired effect.
Jimez was displeased. “I was having an idea,” he protested, and who knows, it might have been true.
“Tell me,” I demanded, hoping to placate the frustrated self-styled bohemian by demonstrating interest.
“Shan’t,” he responded in the manner of a truculent six-year-old. “It was something about a talking Trabant, but I need to think some more.”
I suppressed my laughter under the guise of a cough and was about to exit stage left when Jen squeezed herself through the door. This is, I admit, a slight exaggeration, for which I humbly apologise (should she ever read these pages).
“Sorry I’m late,” she began predictably.
“What for?” asked Jimez. “Nothing’s happening.”
“One of those days, eh?”
“He was having an idea,” I explained. Jen nodded her understanding and ordered a Chemex and the cake menu to change the subject. “Milk?” I queried. The look of mild exasperation, induced by my persistent ‘nagging’ on the pointlessness of dairy produce, indicated the affirmative.
Having left Jimez in the safe but unloving arms of Jen, I spent the appropriate amount of time carefully brewing her Chemex, even though it was to be adulterated with lactose. I took the opportunity to make one for myself as well, choosing an unwashed Ethiopian for us both. Jen never specified origin, leaving it up to me to decide; unfortunately, this freedom of choice did not extend to additives.
I returned several minutes later to find two occupied Biedermeiers with eight legs firmly and happily on the floor.
“No need for the menu,” Jen said, perhaps having noted I hadn’t brought it. “Two slices of Eszterházy, please. If that won’t cheer him up, nowt will!” Despite being referred to in the third person, Jimez was still physically present.
I came back with three and, not to appear too presumptuous, sat at the other table, relishing a black Chemex and some of my favourite Hungarian cake. It remained difficult, however, not to be distracted by their wandering dialogue.
“My band was only a studio band,” Jimez was saying in a complaining tone, although this, to me, seemed a perfectly acceptable alternative to spending one’s life on the road in a tour bus. “I think the last time I performed live was at a kids’ summer camp in Rožnov in the Czech Republic.”
“Very glam,” replied Jen, doing her best to sound sincere.
“Oh yeah,” said the downbeat one. “We were playing, and I use the term as loosely as it can be used, ‘Anarchy in the UK’, with the camp director lip syncing to Johnny Rotten, and me and my friend thrashing broomsticks for guitars.”
Talking to Jimez made one well-versed in the art form of disguising laughter, although I often thought he was inviting friendly derision and almost testing our ability to contain ourselves. Self-deprecation is a favourite of many, from those fishing for compliments through to those crying for help, and it was difficult to know where Jimez stood on this lengthy continuum. He was never in the same place for long enough to be confident.
“Can I have a Tempranillo?” I wasn’t sure if Jimez was making a request or asking for permission. As the latter seemed unlikely, given my role as a café owner, I left the room to oblige, taking the remnants of my coffee with me. The cake had been devoured with unseemly haste and love.
I returned to find both tables occupied and a familiar face settling into my recently vacated seat. Jimmy, unfortunately sharing a moniker similar to two other regulars, as if I didn’t struggle enough with names already, was a very old friend, by which I mean he was middle-aged and I had known him for too long to mention. He had been away for a while and I hadn’t been expecting him, so we greeted each other with a loud, “Hey,” shook hands very firmly and then exchanged the cursory hugs typical of Brits who have spent a lot of time in more tactile cultures but still feel embarrassed embracing one of the same gender.
Budapest was a good choice of room for one such as Jimmy. He also fancied himself as an artist and bohemian, and would probably consider Jimez a kindred spirit, albeit on a different plane. He was tall and slightly emaciated due to drinking more than he ate, wore a bandana which covered his whole head, considerably more than his hair did, with a pair of sunglasses perched awkwardly, and coolly (his words, not mine), on top. He was frequently given to stroking his designer stubble (also his words) as if deep in thought, or possibly lost in self-admiration. It should be noted that his stubble was hair which was merely allowed to grow naturally when he couldn’t be bothered to shave for a couple of weeks; cultured and groomed it most certainly was not.
