The cafe with five faces, p.38
The Café with Five Faces, page 38
“Where’s your bathroom?” asked the suddenly red-faced one.
“Same place it was last week.” I smiled, as the victim of being sent to Coventry made an unseemly and hasty exit.
NB: Matthew may well return with more information on Nada’s story, but, in the meantime, if you want to know more, please refer to her website: https://nadaalahdal.com/
A touch of winter entering Hebden Bridge, reflecting the prevailing sentiments between Mrs Tourist and her spouse.
2019: 59: Granada: Around the World in Sixteen or so Massages
Lois, not for the first time in her life, nor, indeed, in her recent past, was looking full of devilment. Or, at least, we can say her glass of mischievous intent was more than half-full. Matthew and Mark, having, to date, imbibed nothing more potent than a shared Chemex made with a newly acquired and particularly smooth Panamanian coffee I was marketing with above-average enthusiasm, were inevitably sober and, therefore, better prepared to deal with any muck-raking their long-time friend was plotting.
The female member of the trio had long fancied herself as a television interviewer or, failing that, a radio presenter. Having been frustrated in both ambitions, she was prone to interrogating her hapless friends concerning their experiences and opinions on a series of, by and large, very minor issues, while conducting her inquiries in the manner of one investigating the likelihood of civil war erupting in 2020 Great Britain.
When I term the areas as being of ‘minor’ import, I am referring to the greater scheme of things. All too often, her probing resulted in her victims being lured into spilling tales of their dubious pasts which were more than a little likely to lead to the sort of embarrassment Lois thrived upon in the way a Venus flytrap might be tempted by a passing arachnid. This, in my view, made her a very good interviewer, but only on condition you were viewing, as I usually had the pleasure of so doing, and not being stared at by those piercing eyes which suspected there might be something interesting lurking beneath an innocent facade. If the waters were still when Lois began her endeavours, the hidden depths were usually well-churned up by the end. Anything else was a source of disappointment for the Cruzcampo-swilling one, although, to be fair, she was only on her first pot of green tea at this particular time.
“So,” she began, with the familiar sentence-starter which gave her listeners almost half a second’s forewarning that a question or demand was in the offing, “tell me about your favourite and least favourite massages.” This lead-in seemed innocuous enough, I deemed, at least on the surface. Then, I cast my own mind back to some of the ‘massages’ I’d been treated to down the years and sighed in relief (hopefully not too noticeably) that I wasn’t the intended target.
Matthew and Mark took their time to respond, perhaps thinking about how to answer the question openly, and perhaps considering how to limit or mitigate any potential damage.
Mark was the first to produce an answer, and a very safe one it was. “I had a hot stone massage in The Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town. When it was more affordable, back in 2002. I didn’t understand the principles behind it then, and I still don’t, even though my usually better-informed ex-wife had one a few years later, but anything which involves lying face down on a bed, with soft, relaxing music playing in the background, and having someone carefully placing hot pebbles strategically on your back and legs, can’t be bad.”
“If I remember correctly,” Matthew interrupted, presumably in an attempt to be helpful, “they’re more like small rocks than pebbles. I don’t understand how it works either; I just know it can reduce stress and help you sleep, but, as far as I’m concerned, they’re very generic benefits of massages.”
“I suppose it must help with muscle pain,” hypothesised Lois, although one could detect a modicum of impatience as she realised the lack of potential in this version of the target art form.
“I think my best was in New Zealand,” said Matthew, determined to remain on the positive, non-threatening side of the fence for as long as he possibly could. “It was in the hot springs of Rotorua...” In a rather uncharacteristic way, he drifted off into dreamland and presented a momentarily blissful face to the watching world.
“Oi!” snapped Lois. “It’s the massages themselves which are supposed to send you to sleep, not the mere memory of one from your chequered history.”
Matthew looked annoyed to be brought back down to earth with such an unpleasant bump but quickly put it down to Lois-esque experience and resumed his recollection. “The thermal geysers are spectacular to look at, the mud pools rather less spectacular to sniff at and the springs supposedly very therapeutic to lie in. I decided against merely sitting in the water and relaxing but went instead for a rather expensive massage given by a poor woman who had to give treatment after treatment while being constantly showered by hot spring water.”
“So, she massaged you while you were in the shower?” asked Lois, eagerly scenting a whiff of scandal.
Matthew gave Lois a look which conveyed his complete understanding of her preferred direction for the conversation. “Your wish may be granted later, but not in this case,” he countered. “I was lying face down on a slab, with a fully-dressed and totally drenched woman standing over me, giving me a good massage in a warm and smelly thermal-water rain shower. If I’m honest, I remember the situation far more than the massage itself, but the whole rigmarole is to be highly recommended.”
Lois couldn’t hide her continuing disappointment at the innocent trajectory of the interaction to this point. It showed in the twitch of her mouth, causing Matthew to wink at Mark and the latter to grin in return. Lois noticed neither paralinguistic feature; it was as though her eyes were focused on a check-list of interview questions written on the inside of her lids, while her mind wondered which angle to pursue next. She decided subtlety wasn’t working. “Haven’t you ever had a massage which, erm, has taken an unexpected direction?”
“I had three different types of massage in Indonesia,” said Mark, and then returned to drinking his coffee with a pleasingly high degree of appreciation.
“Well, go on!” demanded Lois, betraying the frequent impatience which reduced the effectiveness of her role as an interviewer.
“Starting with the safest,” Mark began, “I went to one near my accommodation in Jakarta, which looked like a cross between a clinic and a torture chamber, but it was completely legit and ended with this diminutive Indonesian lady hanging from gymnasium-like bars screwed to the ceiling while doing a war dance on my back.” Matthew looked incredulous. “OK, so it was more like gentle pacing and probably very precisely located in terms of placement,” he admitted. “I was just trying to spice things up for Madame.”
“I prefer slightly exaggerated truth rather than tabloid sensationalism, thank you very much,” said Lois.
“OK, I’ll restrain myself accordingly,” acquiesced Mark. “I think I’ve told you about the dodgiest ones before, haven’t I? The ones in supposedly smart gyms, or rooms in decent hotels, which ended in offers of oral sex?”
Lois looked unsure, although I very strongly suspected this was feigned to encourage some elaboration. “If not,” I said, spotting a sale, “you can read about them in my 2018 book.” Mark looked aghast. “Names changed to protect the innocent,” I lied, unusually happy to find one of my customers who apparently had not read my tome.
“So, what about the one in between?” asked Lois, although you could tell her enthusiasm for the topic was on the wane.
“The third one was the stuff male dreams are made of,” said Mark, teasingly enough for Lois to perk up a little. “It was on the beach in Bali and involved me lying face down on a sheet or something while three women massaged different parts.” He and Matthew both sighed in deep contentment at the thought. “All innocent parts,” he added. “It was open air, after all, with other tourists hanging around.” Lois’s face fell. “Paranoid as only I can be, though, I couldn’t relax properly. I had to leave my bag slightly out of my line of vision, and inside it was my wallet and a very expensive SLR camera.”
“Ah,” sighed his two companions, one in recognition of the dilemma, the other in mild dismay at a story gone flat – I’ll let you work out which was which.
“I had variety in Thailand as well,” continued Mark, although it was hard to tell if Lois was still listening as she drained her pot of green tea. “At the bottom of the scale were the massages in my hotel room, all of which ended with offers of various sexual favours, some for cash, some seemingly not. Then there were the close shaves. I told you about the middle of the night drunken stroll in Patpong, dodging between the rats and the sex-for-sale fraternity, but even in broad daylight, I used to walk past massage parlours with rows of giggling young girls outside, trying to tempt you in. I remember one close to my hotel; there were four of them calling out to me in a rather playful manner, three no better than ordinary and one absolutely stunning. I honestly wasn’t interested; honestly,” he said emphatically, making sure Lois had noticed the word (although I don’t think she had as it didn’t take a great deal of imagination to see the pen in her brain scribbling notes of an embellished nature), “but I couldn’t stop myself from wondering whether I would have had my choice of masseuse had I ventured in, or whether I would have had one imposed upon me.”
“They’re not there just for your pleasure, you know,” said Lois admonishingly.
“Well,” said Mark, looking uncomfortable, “unfortunately, they are, which is one of the reasons I refrained.”
“What were the others?” asked Lois.
“The wife.”
Lois was derisory in her facial features but, remarkably, said nothing.
“Anyway,” continued Mark hastily, “at the other extreme was Wat Pho. This was infinitely more interesting and more respectable and gave far better massages, as they are intended to be given. It’s a traditional massage school and temple rolled into one. The first time I went was in 1997 when I had an eighteen-hour stopover on my way to Hong Kong and took a bus into the city. It was a painful day after an exhausting flight and I’m sure the massage was worth it.” He paused. “Except I slept through most of it.” He hid his slightly embarrassed face behind what I think was an empty coffee cup. “But I know it was good because I went back again ten years later,” he added. “Highly recommended.”
“Sounds like it,” said Lois, trying to sound keen, but unable to hide her increasing sense of despondency that her line of enquiry wasn’t producing the level of impropriety to which her expectations had aspired. “I can only remember having two massages in recent times,” she offered unexpectedly. “One was in the Hammam Al Andalus in Córdoba, which was ultra-nice, and the other, very surprisingly, in Dnipropetrovsk.”
“Where is that, when you can pronounce it?” asked Matthew, although I was pretty sure he knew and was merely intent on a momentary change of course in the questioning.
“Apparently, they’ve officially simplified the name to Dnipro,” said Lois, “but I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of saying it in its full and unadulterated form. It’s sort of south-east Ukraine and has this most amazing spa place called Tsunami where I had all sorts of healthy experiences from salt baths to Arabic massages to banyas and so on. Luxury!”
“Talking of banyas,” Matthew interjected, “I’ve had a few of those in Minsk, some of which have ended with me and a good lady friend beating the hell out of each other with a bunch of birch twigs.”
“Pervert,” commented Lois under her breath but sufficiently audible for the next table to hear. Had anyone been sitting there.
“Done properly, it’s supposed to be extremely beneficial,” countered Matthew defensively. “Although I can’t honestly say my friend and I did it properly,” he added as an honest afterthought.
“I bet she was blonde,” muttered Lois sarcastically.
Matthew sought redemption in his coffee cup before recalling further escapades as a diversionary tactic. “Going back to the Hammam you mentioned,” he went on, “I went to a very good one in Tbilisi in Georgia. The place reeked of sulphur but, otherwise, it was excellent, and the whole package was so special as the buildings have a real sense of history and, I suppose, royalty. It was booked for me as a treat and I had an entire section to myself. With a masseur. Of the male gender.” He clearly felt the need to express the latter thought as he knew Lois would never give up hope of stirring up some trouble from deep below an apparent veneer of respectability.
“And picking up from what Mark was saying,” he continued, before his adversary had an opportunity to express whatever thoughts might be lurking within, “not all South East Asian massage establishments, temples aside, should be seen as dodgy. I had some very good and remarkably cheap ones in Hanoi. And most of them from men,” he added pointedly. “Some quite painfully so.”
“No pain, no gain,” commented Lois, slightly gleefully.
“But I remember the most painful massage I’ve ever had.” Matthew winced at the recollection. “It was at one of the many thermal baths in Budapest and I really can’t remember which one. Maybe the Gellért or Széchenyi, I don’t know, but I really thought the guy was going to break my foot in half. I usually agree with you on that point, ‘no pain, no gain’, but in this case, no.”
“Aw, poor you,” commiserated Lois unsympathetically.
“That reminds me of the home reflexology session I had off a seventy-year-old, five-foot tall widow in Jakarta,” mused Mark. “Agony.” No further sympathy was forthcoming.
“But, I suppose, if you want a little titbit of embarrassment to conclude with,” Matthew said, reluctantly and tantalisingly and with scant regard for his friend’s interjection, “I could mention the morning at Király.”
Lois was suddenly so close to the edge of her seat, the back legs moved well away from the pavement on which they had hitherto been resting.
“Cruzcampo time?” Matthew decided the coffee phase of the day was over.
“Good idea,” declared Mark.
“Get on with it!” demanded Lois.
Matthew could discern I was going nowhere until the story had been told, regardless of the potential effect on my takings, so he sighed in a lengthy and rather teasing manner before deigning to tell all. “Well, to cut a long story short,” he began, although I think Lois would have preferred the unabridged version, “I hadn’t done my research thoroughly enough. I knew there were male days and female days, but I wasn’t aware of the impact this had on proceedings. I believe it’s changed these days, but, anyway, I’ll tell it as it was. I went on the male day, obviously, paid my way in and was given a towel to wear. Now, when I say towel, it was something the size of a pocket handkerchief you tied around your waist. I wondered which side you were supposed to cover up and which leave open for all the world to view, but eventually decided to follow the example of others and covered the front. Unfortunately, when you got in the pools and sat down, the ‘towel’, for want of a better word, floated to the surface, leaving everything below pretty well fully exposed.”
Lois was clearly finding this story the pinnacle of an otherwise under-achieving interview topic, as her bright, rarely blinking eyes indicated. “And how many men were in the bath with you?” she asked with the typical bluntness one often picks up living in Yorkshire.
“Not too many,” replied Matthew, with the picture seemingly etched into his mind, “but that didn’t mean we were all spread out evenly. Oh no. One man sat as close to me as he could, even though there was space for one every two or three metres.”
“Aw, how sweet,” said Lois. “You’d made a new friend!”
“Maybe,” concurred Matthew, “although had I bothered to think about it, there may have been a few linguistic barriers. Anyway, underneath the innocently floating towel, he was playing with himself while his eyes were firmly engaged with my towel and the crown jewels lurking beneath.”
Lois finally slipped off her chair, perhaps more at the idea of Matthew’s ‘crown jewels’ than the situation itself, who could tell, but she hastily righted herself at the expense of a few empty, rattling cups and saucers on the disturbed table.
“So, what did you do?” asked Mark, who had restricted himself to a barely perceptible giggle.
“Went to have a massage ASAP,” his friend responded. “Male. Tanned. Probably fake. Very tall. Some, no doubt, would say ‘hunky’.”
“No one bothered to tell you it was gay day, then?”
“Not until the day after.”
It doesn’t take a lot to make Lois laugh, but, as I left to pull three Cruzcampos, she had a delightedly reddened face which was illuminated by a very broad smile. It takes all sorts.
It has to be said that taking pictures whilst being massaged is not easy, so direct supporting evidence for the stories in this chapter is sadly not available. You’ll have to make do with the exterior of the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, purveyors of hot stone treatments. On the right is the distinctive outline of Lion’s Head.
2019: 60: Beirut: The Thrill of the Chase
I wasn’t used to seeing Misha alone. I was considerably more accustomed to seeing him with a bottle of pretty good Lebanese red, although I would have to confess the serving of a second of the self-same product at three o’clock in the afternoon came as a mild surprise. He didn’t seem to be enjoying it a great deal, which I deemed to be a mild affront to a fine Beqaa Valley vineyard, so I presumed the poor sod was lost in the tangled depths of a short-term depression, most likely brought on by the latest in a veritable production line of unpublicised break-ups. I make light of this, and refer to the likely limited duration of it, only because Misha, unlike the majority of the emotionally more fragile population, found an abundance of attractive fish in the sea, usually within a week. As per usual, his eyes, red or otherwise, were hidden behind his beloved shades, while his distressed jeans seemed to have suffered from even further anguish and were exposing a good deal of hairy flesh to anyone who happened to glance in that direction. I chose not to be one of such a number.
