The cafe with five faces, p.6
The Café with Five Faces, page 6
“My host very kindly invited me to leave the hotel and visit him in his home.” Mark and Lois assumed this was a kind gesture in order to look after a foreign invalid. “His home was in Islamabad, about 400 kilometres away.” Mark and Lois changed their minds. “Even in that state, I couldn’t resist the adventure and accepted.” Mark and Lois exchanged glances which implied ‘idiot’ in no uncertain terms.
“So, the following morning, my host and his driver turned up in a nice car and packed me and my luggage in, my luggage possibly having more life about it than its owner. Following a brunch stop during which I couldn’t eat a thing, we hit the highway, which went on. And on. And on, interrupted by a couple of, erm, required stops. And let me tell you, motorway service stations in Pakistan make British ones look like the Four Seasons Hotel, and to a sick man, they look like the end of a not very private world.
“Due to these regular and all too often fruitless stops, we were still driving after dark. Unfortunately, I was still sick and at one point, told the driver I simply had to, erm, make use of the verge. I could detect anxiety even in my enfeebled condition, but they stopped by the side of the pitch-black road anyway and allowed me a few minutes while I tried in vain to puke. Eventually, they persuaded me back into the car and we drove on until we arrived at my host’s home, which had the potential to be a very nice house but, at the time, scarcely had any furniture. All that mattered to me, though, was a bed, no matter if it only had one sheet, and the sheer welcome luxury of my own bathroom.
“All I even vaguely remember of the night was a series of sweaty dreams and hallucinations. I woke up many hours later, barely knowing who I was, let alone where I was, but at least feeling like a piece of toast. I mean I wanted to eat a piece of toast, not I felt like…” He tailed off rather pathetically.
“So why was this frightening?” Mark had clearly been expecting more drama outside of the bathroom of a motorway service station.
“I asked my host the same thing. I’m not sure why the word ‘Afghanistan’ came into the conversation because I’ve checked since and we were nowhere near at all, but apparently we were in bandit country and the chances of being attacked when stopping on the open road at night were rather too high for a couple of locals, let alone a couple of locals with a vomiting Brit in tow.”
“Ah,” said Lois and Mark together, suddenly seeing the potential gravity of the situation.
“Anyway, all’s well that ends well,” concluded Matthew. “Later the same day, without seeing anything of Islamabad at all, the driver took me on a joyfully event-free return trip back to Lahore Airport.” Finally draining his coffee cup, which had lasted an age, he added, “Beer o’clock?”
I’m going to cheat a little here as Matthew’s photos from his shorter than anticipated visit to Lahore were about as hazy as his food-damaged memories. Here, in their place, is one he took years later from the restaurant of his five-star hotel in Karachi, some 1280 kilometres to the south-west. He can’t actually remember if the two cities are similar or not!
2018: 13: Budapest: Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Let’s be bluntly honest and brutally frank about this, if there is any difference between those two expressions, or maybe it’s just one of my annoying examples of tautology, but Jimez was not only sexually frustrated, with Jen or any other member of the female gender with whom he co-occupied physical space, but also artistically frustrated. He was desperate to be perceived of as a bohemian artist, or even more as a successful bohemian artist (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms), but somehow, he seemed destined to both interim and ultimate failure. This was doing my dreams of making my Budapest room a den of artistic achievement no good whatsoever, but there was an element of the tongue in cheek about this verdict, lest anyone judge me too harshly.
Another day and another visit from Jimez and Jen, Jimez once again clutching a Sainsbury’s bag which might have contained a few rashers of bacon and slices of black pudding or, just perhaps, a work of artistic merit. Jen was straight into the menu and the Hungarian cake specials, plumping unusually quickly for a slice, maybe more, of meggyes rétes, aka cherry strudel. Jimez is a creature of habit, a rather non-bohemian trait it has to be said, although I was polite enough to wait for him to utter the word ‘Eszterházy’.
“Can we try some of that posh coffee today?” Jen enquired.
“Posh?” I was confused. Nothing in my café was posh as far as I was concerned.
“You know, that black stuff you serve in a glass jar.”
“You may mean a Chemex,” I suggested, trying hard to hide a passing moment of despair.
“Yeah, go on,” Jen agreed.
“Might I suggest a Colombian roast?”
“Aye, that’ll do.” The response lacked a certain passion.
I was leaving the room when the words, “With milk” were added.
I swallowed hard. “It’s a little unusual,” I pointed out.
“So are we,” said Jen.
There was no argument there, so I left and proceeded with their order. I remember the reaction when, some years ago in the days of my relative ignorance regarding speciality coffee and varying related brews, I asked for cream at one of London’s Workshop Coffee shops. It was a very polite answer in the negative ending with the word ‘sir’. Odd, nevertheless, because only the previous day, the staff in another of their branches had acceded without a question or a sign of a grimace. I realised there had been a day when I also wanted to whiten ‘posh’ coffee so I buried my momentary bout of coffee snobbery behind a smile and continued apace.
When I returned to Budapest, the room, Jimez was rummaging in his bag of mystery. The black pudding guess was clearly wide of the mark as a small wad of papers emerged without any smell or sighting of meat or dried blood.
“Tell me,” said Jimez, with an almost stunning lack of reticence. “What do you think of this?”
Jen took the proffered paper with more than an element of surprise and I didn’t attempt to hide my curiosity behind accidentally being in the right place at the right time but moved swiftly to look over Jen’s shoulder. Jimez didn’t flinch, which was something of a first at having an audience greater than one.
Standing in the fortress of his mind
The opinions that make him blind
Will never change
Pictures look as plain as black and white
He sees the colours of the night
In shades of grey
And so-called prophets have their hopes to try
To stop this man live his deadliest lie
They’ll open up his own mind’s eye
And make him realise then cry
That their dreams never die
Dreams never die
Voices, in his mind behind locked doors
Are prisoners more and more
Of his façade
On trial, he hears the voice and violins
Echoes of his unknown sins
Of days gone by
Like visions in a hall of mirrors
Reflect these lives of suffering heroes
They put their pride before a fall
And carry on to show them all
That their dreams never die
Dreams never die
They say the camera never lies
But the picture only shows outside
One belief doesn’t make a man
One man shouldn’t have to carry the can
Misconceived by all his race
Preconceived for his public face
Who knows what inner grace
Might hide behind his thin black lace
Faceless men sit in judgement on their peers
Disregard the one who hears
Who’s right, who’s wrong
Who’s right or wrong
He sees his foes with plastic smiles
All lined up it seems for miles
To make example of his style
Call him guilty and close his file
But his dreams never die
Dreams never die
Dreams never die
Dreams never die
“Poetry?” Jen asked.
“What if it is?” Jimez almost seemed to be teasing her, which was not the way around one was used to.
“Not bad.”
“Song lyrics.”
“Ah.” Jen descended into thought. “Yeah, not bad to pretty good, I’d say.”
“What’s it about?” I never was any good at understanding the meaning of poetry or song lyrics unless they were spelt out in black and white.
“Communism in Eastern Europe,” replied Jimez, without a flicker of hesitation. “In the 1980s,” he added, spotting a potential question about the current-day relevance of the nominated topic. Some nerves were starting to show.
“Yeah, yeah, I see that,” I said, nodding intelligently, even though I really didn’t have a clue.
“A bit dated then,” Jen said. “What made you write these now?”
“I didn’t,” whispered an increasingly agitated Jimez, seeing his momentary kudos slipping away without much inner or outer grace.
“So, they’re not yours?” My confusion was growing.
“No, no, I wrote them.” Jimez paused and we sort of knew it was not for dramatic effect. “In 1985.”
As usual, at the end of one of Jimez’s anecdotes, sighs were audible and not concealed.
“So, they’ve just sat in your drawers” – the double entendre was intended, I’m sure – “for the past thirty-three years?” Jen was never one to be tactful. “Even in the angst of your twenties, you didn’t know what to do with them?”
“I did have them recorded, actually.” Jimez blushed a little. “That was when the problems started. I had no idea what to do next. I really couldn’t sell water to a man lost in the desert with a bag of gold.” Sadly, we were unable to disagree with this.
“I still have most of the records at home, rotting.” There was something sad about this, so we made no comment, not wishing to rub salt into what seemed to be a deeply emotional, and presumably financial, wound.
Andy Warhol, who I knew was some kind of hero to Jimez, once said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” I reflected, with more than an ounce of sympathy, that ‘Dreams Never Die’ was probably a spectacular fifteen minutes of non-fame for Jimez. It was true, however, that his dreams never had died, and for that, I, at least, respected him. And drew some strength from, no matter how much I hid it behind my prized northern-British sarcasm.
I surreptitiously slipped another piece of Eszterházy onto the table, shrugging at Jen when she gestured as if to say, ‘Where’s mine?’
One piece of free cake a day is one too many. At least it was the small slice from the end.
I had been saving that for myself.
An atmospheric picture of the Danube taken from Margit híd (Margaret Bridge) in Budapest to accompany Jimez’s moody lyrics.
2018: 14: Hebden Bridge: Fish Without Chips
I popped into Hebden Bridge one day to savour a cup of one of my own brews, taking a seat at a table adjoining that of Mr and Mrs Regular. Unlike her television counterpart, this Nora, or whatever her real name indeed was, whispered as though she had taken up permanent residence in a library.
I finally decided to employ some of my rarely used customer service techniques, which some, unkindly, say were learned at the Basil Fawlty School of Hospitality Etiquette. “How’s the tea?” I had worked hard to persuade the couple into trying a Darjeeling loose-leaf tea. Mr Regular, so his wife informed me in no uncertain terms, liked his tea made from a bag.
“I like it,” she replied. “But, I’m not sure it’s his cup of tea really.” She nodded towards her husband and then chortled to herself; I took a while to get the joke and smiled in return.
“You’ve got some flashy stuff on your menu, young man,” she went on. I was warming to her; anyone who called me ‘young man’ improved their customer rating considerably, even if they tempered it with the word ‘flashy’. “What’s that Man Ouch you’re advertising?” I felt and obviously looked puzzled. “It’s on the board outside,” she offered by way of explanation.
Realisation dawned slower than the sun rising over Manchester. “Oh, you mean the manouche? It’s Lebanese, pronounced ‘man-oo-shi’; it’s a flatbread.” The explanation obviously didn’t help. “The most popular one is made with zaatar.” This clearly didn’t help the situation either. “Zaatar is made with thyme, sesame seeds and some other herbs, like sumac.” The last word was a mistake. “Sumac is a kind of spice with a lemon flavour.” I was beginning to doubt I had ever been a half-decent English language teacher.
Mrs Regular seemed to have lost patience with the idea of manouche. “What else have you got, Mr, er…?”
“Chaelli.”
“Is that Mr Chaelli, or Chaelli something?” Clearly my name was as much to her taste as my Darjeeling loose-leaf was to her husband.
“Just Chaelli.”
“Oh, like that Lovejoy antique dealer?” she asked. Her television tastes also belonged to a bygone era.
“I’m not sure I can remember,” I mumbled dishonestly, although the wrinkles around my eyes doubtlessly gave the game away.
“Poseur.” The word was scarcely audible, but there was little doubt it was the first word I had heard being emitted from the lips of one Mr Regular. I was a little taken aback. His wife, as often seemed to be the case, ploughed on as if he wasn’t there.
“So, what else have you got then which is more Yorkshire?” She resumed her initial line of enquiry.
“We have fish.” I was still staring at Mr Regular, wondering if he really had just said what my ears had perceived.
“With chips?” Mrs Regular brightened considerably, only for me to dampen her enthusiasm within a second.
“I’m afraid not.” My eye contact was restored to the more audible partner.
“Everyone else does chips.”
“That’s one of the reasons I don’t.”
“I love a chip butty. What’s wrong with a good old chip butty?” There was no room for argument in the way this was said and indeed, I had no wish to argue. Had my waistline allowed for such things, I would have been only too happy to join her in one. Perhaps not in my café, though; past experience suggested the smell never went away and my kitchen was too small for greasy aromas.
“Smashed avocado?” I tentatively suggested. The withering look I received by way of reply prompted my excuses to be suddenly elsewhere for fear of being told exactly where I could stick said avocado.
I love fish and chips, often without the chips. This is one of my favourites, surtido de pescado frito (fried mixed fish) from El Pescaíto de Carmela in Granada.
2018: 15: Cape Town: Damn the Lunatic Fringe
Mike, James and John were propping up one of the wine barrels one evening after two or four bottles of South African craft beer, or maybe the wine barrel was propping them up; it was rather hard to spot the difference. The pleasantries had been exchanged long before and some mild abuse concerning football preferences, team selection and the like had passed in fairly light-hearted banter, the banter perhaps getting less fairly light-hearted as it continued over one of the latter beers (assuming ‘one of the latter’ can actually apply had only two been consumed – which it can’t). The next beer signalled a shift in the focus of the conversation onto the usual mid-evening rant stage.
“You know, some people say you should never discuss religion or politics; have you ever thought why?” This was clearly one of Mike’s locally infamous rhetorical questions as he, not for the first, or even hundredth time, continued without bothering to wait for a response. “I think there’s a really good reason for that and it’s all down to people getting extremist about it. If you’re an atheist, you can say, ‘Religion? You can take it or leave it, and I’ve left it’; if you’re not an atheist, then religion should be seen as something beautiful. And it is beautiful, whether it’s Christianity, Islam or whatever. But what makes it turn unpleasant, or even ugly, is when people go to extremes and try to impose their view of religion on someone else’s.” James and John weren’t sure they should speak. “The world is full of examples,” he continued, without bothering to provide any.
“And it’s the same with politics really.” Mike had been silent for a generous five seconds. “Just look at the UK! There’s every possibility of moderate Conservatives, moderate Socialists, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party having a really healthy debate with no problem whatsoever – well, perhaps some problems but nothing too bad – but as soon as you bring in the lunatic fringes, like the European Reform Group, UKIP or Momentum, then the debate is no longer healthy because those groups have no interest in debate; they just want to impose what they think on others and they’re not interested in listening to opposing viewpoints.”
After a few moments of silence while James, John and anyone else within earshot, which was potentially most of the café and its immediate environs, digested this, Mike added, “Feel free to argue; I’m not a lunatic fringe!” No one did. No one really dared. In reality, those in the inner circle could see no reason to argue with any of the points raised.
Beer was savoured while James and John wondered if the rant had finished. Apparently, it hadn’t.
