The cafe with five faces, p.27
The Café with Five Faces, page 27
Jimmy was not alone. I was used to seeing him with various women in tow, but this one was new. The facts she was half his age and very pretty were to be expected, but that’s where the obvious similarities stopped.
“Are you going to introduce us?” I asked, rather reasonably.
“Obviously,” came the reply in dulcet northern English tones. “Nawel, this is my old mate, in every sense of the word, Chaelli.” Charm was never Jimmy’s greatest virtue when dealing with males of the species. “And Kal, this is Nawel, my gift.”
Handshakes were exchanged, although, for some reason, I wasn’t sure mine would be welcomed.
“That’s very sweet of you, calling someone ‘my gift’,” I remarked in some surprise, as Jimmy wasn’t known for being open with any feelings of romance.
“‘Nawel’ means ‘gift’,” Jimmy translated obligingly.
“Ah, even sweeter,” I responded, not being sure what else to say. Nawel, for her part, looked a little more concerned by the use of the possessive adjective ‘my’ in association with her name. “Erm, can I get you anything?”
“We just looked at the menu in the other room. Can we have an AeroPress with the El Salvadorian coffee and an Algerian mint tea with sugar?”
“Your wish is my command.” I left the room, curiosity regarding the silent visitor well and truly aroused. But we all know what curiosity did to the proverbial cat, so I used my time out to curtail my infamous nosiness.
I returned with the requested drinks to find the occupants of the two tables engaged in arms-length conversation, exchanging pleasantries and, to date, little of substance.
“What do you do?” Jen was asking.
“This and that,” came the not-very-informative response.
“Can you tell us what ‘this’ is and we’ll settle for ‘that’ later?” Jen’s retort forced me to stifle another laugh, although as this one was at Jimmy’s expense, I didn’t exert too much effort. Even Jimmy seemed to think the request was mildly amusing.
“I dabble.” I can’t honestly say this was any more helpful than his previous statement but, at least, this time he offered some elaboration. “I freelance in various capacities while trying to produce and present television programmes.”
The last five words had an almost electrifying effect on the hitherto mute Jimez, who may conceivably have missed the key words ‘trying to’. Anyone who dabbled in what he perceived as art and the arts was of immediate interest. This I could have predicted as safely as the winner of a one-horse race. His entire body language changed as if he felt that here, at last, was someone who might understand him.
Without wishing to hijack the conversation, I was far more interested in the newcomer. Jimmy’s exploits were old hat to me and, rather selfishly, perhaps, I turned to Nawel.
“And what do you do?” I asked, sounding more like an interlocuter in a language exam than a potential new acquaintance in a café.
“I’m a student,” replied Nawel, her accent betraying a French influence.
“Et êtes vous française?” I asked, my accent betraying outer Manchester. This minor humiliation served to break the ice between us, as what had been merely a friendly smile on Nawel’s face dissolved into fits of giggles.
“You’re such a flirt, Kal,” commented Jimmy, as though he had seen it all before. And, in all honesty, he probably had. “And your language ability, like mine, remains below basement level.”
“And you actually like this guy?” I questioned. The newcomer didn’t seem willing to admit to this at the current stage of the engagement and returned to the initial question.
“I’ve lived in France for a long time,” she answered, her manner of speaking becoming more alluring with every passing syllable, “but I’m from Algeria, like this tea. And you make it very well; très bien.” I blushed, much to Jimmy’s amusement.
Jen decided to be more direct. “And why are you here?” This sounded a little aggressive, as my raised eyebrow conveyed. “I don’t mean that in an anti-immigration way, I’m just curious.”
“I’m doing a masters in English at university here,” Nawel replied, her face back to a smile. “And most of my work is computer-based, so I’m staying with him for a few days.” She nonchalantly jerked her head towards Jimmy.
“And how did you meet?” At least Jen was asking all the questions I wanted answers to.
“He was my trainer a few years ago in Algiers.”
“You don’t look anything like I expect an Algerian to look like.” It was beginning to sound like an interrogation but at this point, it didn’t seem to be causing any offence to the recipient.
“What did you expect?” broke in Jimmy, in an attempt to divert attention, if only briefly.
“I thought it was a very Islamist country,” Jen began.
“Islamist is a term more often used to refer to fundamentalism,” Nawel pointed out. “It is a Muslim country, though, in general.”
“So, I assumed you would wear a hijab and neck-to-foot coverings,” pursued Jen, noting Nawel’s very western style of attire: open top, distressed jeans and trainers.
“We’re not all the same. I’m a Berber; my family is Muslim, but we are attached to our traditional and cultural values rather than to Islamic teachings and education. I wear the Berber traditional dress but never the Islamic one! No way!”
“I’ve got photographs of people bathing in burkinis in Algeria, you know, fully covered except face, hands and feet,” interrupted Jimmy, “and pictures of Nawel wearing the bare minimum in Europe, so there are very clear differences.”
“Can I see?” blurted out Jimez, obviously without thinking, as both he and Nawel turned pink in unison. “I mean, the contrast, not…” His sentence faded into nothingness as he retreated back into his shell.
“And there are some beaches in Algeria where you see both types of swimwear side by side,” said Nawel, hurriedly redirecting the interaction, much to Jimez’s relief. “The religious conservatives don’t like it, but it happens. It isn’t Saudi Arabia or Qatar, fortunately.”
“And aren’t there any problems for you going out with an English guy?” Jen posed the question most people would like to ask.
“You’re making quite an assumption!” I was getting the impression Nawel, gift or not, was of a very independent disposition. “Not at the moment. I don’t want to sound bad, but I’ve dated guys from a few different countries and I actually find it enriching and interesting. I certainly don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong.” She stopped to sip her tea. “I don’t think I’ve ever been really Muslim, anyway. For instance, going back to dress, I don’t believe a woman should hide her body or be ashamed of who she is. I always feel shocked when my friends or neighbours decide to cover their heads. For me, it’s just a symbol of a lack of women’s rights and I think that’s nonsense.”
Jimmy was clearly used to his friend’s outspoken manner and sat back, drinking his coffee, occasionally glancing at Jimez as one would a curio, which, in his own way, Jimez was. Jimez, on the other hand, kept glancing at Jimmy, as if desperate to ask more about his televisual exploits.
Jen obviously appreciated Nawel’s forthright manner of speaking and maintained eye contact as a means of encouraging her to continue without the need for further interrogation.
“I’m just like every woman who wants to live, be free, make decisions, choose what she wants to be, where she wants to be!”
“Hear, hear!” Jen had a new friend.
“I used to call her a black sheep,” said Jimmy. “I was so sure she was unique among people from her family and country, but I was quickly, and rather forcibly, talked out of that habit.”
“Algeria has this image of a Muslim country, but that’s not the whole truth.” Nawel drained her glass. “Mmm, that reminds me of home.” I was flattered.
“Ready to go?” asked Jimmy. They both stood up, hopefully not deterred by the barrage of probing questions.
“Are you staying around a bit this time?” I asked Jimmy, who spent far more time overseas than he did at what he liked to call ‘home’.
“Yeah, we’ll be here for a bit.”
“Looking forward to seeing you both again, then,” I said, following them out into the Cape Town room, fully aware of the explosion of well-intentioned gossip concerning inter-racial relationships and television producer-presenters which was about to erupt behind us.
Nawel’s unexpected appearance is a good excuse to show a, perhaps, equally unexpected picture from the botanical gardens in the city of Algiers. Claude Monet would have been impressed!
2019: 46: Cape Town: Life is a Roller Coaster
“Blimey!” pronounced Mike, almost throwing himself against the bar in Cape Town, as one might after a hard day at the office. “Who knows what will happen next?”
I suspect the broadcaster of uncertainty expected more of a response, or, at least, a question enquiring as to what the hell he was on about. Instead, silence. James and John had arrived five minutes earlier and seemed bewitched by my new pride and joy, aka a bar-top coffee roaster, which was currently doing its work on a small batch of Honduran beans. After a grimace of slight annoyance, Mike’s eye was also caught by the hypnotic movement inside the glass drum. I would have been quite flattered by the interest, had they actually bought anything. I coughed politely, wondering what anyone passing through would think of four grown men being so captivated by a piece of not-so-modern technology, however on-trend it might be in my establishment.
“Here’s some I made earlier,” I further hinted, sounding like a children’s television presenter from my childhood years. I waved a bag of freshly roasted beans (actually a few days old, as I had had to allow them time to de-gas) under the assembled noses. The reaction was akin to wafting smelling salts under the nostrils of a fainted one.
“Oh, wow!” exclaimed James and John together. “I think that demands an experiment,” continued James, now performing solo.
“What do you recommend, Kal?” asked Mike, with an equal dose of enthusiasm, indicated by a paradiddle on the bar.
“Well, you could have your usual V60, but I’d give a Chemex a go, if I were you,” I suggested.
“Whatever; you decide.” I love obliging customers.
The trio’s eyes moved from the roasting machine to the scales, timer, electric gooseneck kettle and Chemex glass which I assembled on the bar. I ground some of the beans and weighed out the requisite quantity of coffee, shaking it with tender loving care into a pre-washed filter paper specially designed for the Chemex method. I was getting slightly nervous at the attention I was being paid as I waited for the water to reach the desired ninety-four degrees.
“Care to look somewhere else?” I asked half-jokingly.
“No,” said John, although Mike did look away as I poured a small amount of hot water onto the grounds.
“Blooming,” I explained.
“Blooming what?” asked James.
I assumed this was ignorance rather than wit. “This process is called blooming.”
“Ah.” James reddened slightly, but it soon passed as he and his two friends appreciated the aromas being produced.
As I continued pouring the water into the wide top of the glass, using a clockwise circular motion to make sure every ground was contributing to the final product, Mike nudged his friends in the ribs, provoking an exaggerated wince from James, and jerked his head towards the bar’s only other customer, a middle-aged male who was leaning against a wine barrel reading The Guardian, while absent-mindedly picking his nose and flicking bogeys under the table.
“You all do that,” commented Jo, who was on her way to Beirut without bothering to order anything. She stopped to join the audience observing the poor, oblivious stranger as he mechanically wiped his finger around the lower zip area of his jeans. “The things you men scratch in public never cease to amaze me,” she sighed. “I’m not even interested in men, so if I notice, think what a turn-off it might be to a woman who does give a toss,” she added threateningly. “And you’re all in denial over it.” Having made her point in her typically blunt manner, she continued on her merry way.
“As if,” said James, hurriedly putting his hands in his jacket pockets and turning back to the bar. His friends huffed and puffed a little, proving Jo to be accurate in at least part of her analysis, and hastily did likewise.
“So, erm, is it ready yet?” asked John, saying anything to cover his potential embarrassment.
“Patience is a virtue,” I pointed out. It seemed more polite than saying ‘no’.
A well-drained filter soon brought the wait to an end, so I removed the paper, gave the glass a swirl and poured three cups of delicious-smelling coffee. “You might want to let it cool a little,” I opined.
Patience, however, did not seem to be a virtue of those present and slightly burned tongues were an inevitable consequence.
Mike decided to rewind the clock to his entrance. “Blimey! Who knows what will happen next?”
This time, James and John played along. “What might you be talking about?” asked the former in tones of fake sincerity.
“The damned Brexit,” came the expected response. “Well, on the positive side, at least we should be safely in the EU for a while longer.” James and John sat back in their metaphorical chairs (metaphorical because there are no chairs in Cape Town) and prepared for the early-evening rant, which was a regular feature of the threesome’s evenings together. “Shall we start with the hypocrite of the week award?”
“There can’t possibly be just one winner!” John protested. “The entire Brexit-loving rat-pack is littered with them!”
“True,” acknowledged the self-appointed award committee. “But this week, Mark Francois has to take the golden biscuit.”
“Did I miss something?” asked James, in a tone which implied he probably hadn’t done anything of the sort.
“You can’t have done,” retorted Mike. “No one could miss such a brazen example of total hypocrisy that it shone like a beacon from the shores of Neverland or whichever fantasy world he inhabits. He actually had the temerity to demand a second vote on May’s leadership because ‘things have changed’ since December! How dare he, how very dare he, then deny the British people a second chance of a Brexit vote when things have totally changed in three long years; you know, really important things, like the truth becoming known? Shameful! Utterly shameful!” Mike never left the listener in too much doubt as to how he felt.
“Sad but true,” sighed James.
“The other award for hypocrite of the week,” continued Mike, presumably about to award the silver biscuit, “in fact, for being one of the biggest hypocrites of all time, goes to Farridge, who still seems to believe he deserves a fat EU pension for doing everything he can to destroy Europe.”
James and John collectively shuddered at the mention of the ‘F’ word.
“He’s launched his new party this week.” Mike was clearly in the mood to announce old news as he would that of the breaking variety. “What a joke! And he’s got Rees-Mogg’s sister to stand as a candidate!” He shook his head in complete frustration at the lengths some people seemed determined to go to in order to ruin their country. “I suppose we should give her some credit, though,” he added reluctantly. “Deluded though she may be, she is at least honest enough to stand for the party she believes in, the FLP; I just wish she’d take her idiot brother and the rest of the ERG with her, because that’s where such extremists truly belong, not in a mainstream party.”
“What’s the FLP?” queried John, genuinely.
“The Farridge Losers’ Party,” growled Mike, as the others smirked. “And the bastard leader of the revolution is already resorting to typical extreme right-wing methods, issuing threats of bringing the wrath of Satan down on those who delayed Brexit, which, of course, incites the violent lunatic faction to take action while he sits on his throne, claiming innocence and blaming anyone trying to defend true democracy for bringing it on themselves.”
“I think what he actually said was ‘the fear of God’,” said James, trying his best to be fair, although one could tell it was a strain in the specific circumstances. Anything which gave a shred of credence to an utterance of Nigel Farage had to be avoided in this particular company. Or almost any decent, fair-minded company, come to think of it.
“He completely forgets that the initial referendum was a non-binding one, doesn’t he?” said John, clearly not intending this to be a question.
“A non-binding one whose result, once he ‘won’, had to be adhered to,” muttered Mike. “I mean, isn’t that something of a contradiction?”
“But that’s why no one can be prosecuted over it, isn’t it?” John was falling into Mike’s habit of asking the rhetorical.
“True,” responded the usurped king of rhetoric. “All those who lied, cheated and bought the Leave vote can’t be touched because it wasn’t a binding result…”
“Even though the government treats it as set in stone,” James finished obligingly.
“They’re all taking the piss,” grumbled Mike, with a marked lack of subtlety and ambiguity. “Boris Johnson gets paid stupid amounts of money for writing tripe in The Telegraph; he uses it to make unfounded claims which he intends to be taken seriously, and even the pro-Brexit newspaper has to apologise for him and call his columns non-serious pieces of writing!”
“Well, Ukraine’s new president seems likely to be a professional comedian,” commented James. “The way Britain’s going, we might end up electing an amateur one!”
