Between Cups of Coffee

by Tajalli Keshavarz

  I was caressing Carol’s hair as we were going to the other room. As if I was driving a car and I was getting close to a roundabout. Then, she turned around and asked me: ‘What was in that phone call? You are not yourself.’

  Of course she knew about Kate. Not that she knew her in any particular context. I suppose she was just a name to her. A name that was associated with me. But in any case, it was not relevant to her and I did not want to tell her about Kate, about what had happened. I felt strangely private about it. As if I was protecting Kate’s dignity. Did I consider disease as something to be ashamed of? I hadn’t told her about the cancer because this was not part of our mutual life. But now, having her in my arms, and her asking me about the telephone call, I was pushed into a corner. I had to defend Kate’s ‘dignity’. Her death was a secret between me and her. Funny thinking that, after all, I did not even go to the hospital to see her, even for a short visit. But it wasn’t about the period of the visit; it wasn’t something to do, to tick off. Now I was defending the relationship. I told her: ‘one of those things. It is boring. Do you want to know now?’ I looked at her while she was busy with her red shirt. It was the time for ignoring, for silence and forgetting.

  But silence is for the outside. Inside, are all the noises, the events happening and demanding explanation, justification, defence! I remembered, and I don’t know why, that Kate was setting up the table for dinner. She loved candles and I didn’t. I don’t think that she ever knew how much I disliked the flickering of the light as we sat for dinner. I thought it was a betrayal of the relationship with Kate, remembering my dislikes. Carol’s body started moving next to me and while I moved to adjust my movements with hers, I thought that it was a betrayal of this relationship too, remembering the dislikes while pretending I was interested in the movements. And perhaps it was a betrayal of myself as well thinking about both situations while I wasn’t interested in either of them.

  I suppose this is an accurate description of myself as an addicted man. I am addicted to guilt. To follow my desires has been a huge betrayal of people closest to me: my mother, my lovers, and who else? I cannot think, Oh yes, my colleagues. Here, I do not include my father. I always kept out of his way but had a sense of respect for him. This sense grew as I grew older so I became more and more distant from his views, his outlook to life which I found too rigid. He followed all the rules and regulations to the letter. For a large chunk of my life, he was my ideal hero. And then, it just sank into the sea. I cannot say why. There was no sudden discovery, no breakage of image. If anything, as time went by I found him to be more a man of principles and morals. The point is that I found that I had a different outlook to life. I noticed that we were two different persons, very different. And what about friends? Do I feel guilty towards them? I cannot answer. I have come across people, have had good times with them, but could never define or understand the word ‘friend’. They set premises and make conditions: ‘If you are a friend then you do not….’ or ‘friends never….’ I just don’t look that way at a relationship. So do I believe in such a thing called friend? Do I have friends? Have I ever considered friendship?

  Kate turns towards me as she is lying on the bed. Her long nightgown loose, part of her small breast with her nipples exposed. She says: ‘what time is it?’

  ‘9:30’ I say.

  ‘Oh.’

  I know she thinks she has overslept but she doesn’t say anything. She does not move. It is a Sunday. There is no need for awareness of time. But her time is trapped into boxes of responsibilities. This, I suppose, is the more serious one: a mother in hospital, alone. But we haven’t talked about it in any details. She mentioned it to me in passing. Not that she wants to keep a distance, but this is one of those boxes she does not see relevant to our relationship. And I am, of course, happy about it. I have always preferred, even tried, to keep myself in at a distance with regards to others’ personal circumstances.

  She is now showered, dressed, her long hair wrapped back. She stands by the door and next, she has gone. I stay in bed; I have the rest of the Sunday. I look out of the window. I can see the sky, a grey day. It is the start of autumn. My mind is empty, I can’t even think of the chores but I desire something, I don’t know what. I will go out for a coffee and a cake in the small bistro I like. It is full of people like me on Sundays. Hopefully, I will find a seat in the corner. I will flick through the newspapers. I will look at occasional couples, sleepy; some with a satisfied look, some anxious, some silent, pausing, preoccupied. Next, I shall dissolve in the streets to be found later in a pub for lunch. I hope it would be sunny by then.

  When I think about it, all my relationships have been snapshots with no coherence. Have I lost something? Have I been lucky? Passing by the events, the tragedies, the catastrophes, trying to maximise momentary pleasures? But this bothers me: a man sitting in the bistro waiting for his coffee reading a newspaper with nothing in his mind, nothing to worry about, nothing to look forward to.

  ‘Your hands are cold’, I said.

  She was silent. This wasn’t something new. She would go into these bouts of silence. I never asked what she was thinking about, where her mind was. She might have known about her cancer from the early days. Perhaps she was thinking about its effect on our relationship. We were sitting in this café where we used to go near the university; tables with flowery plastic covers, the waiter wiping them with wet towel, always coming close to you. Wiping the table next to you, as if he craved to hear a tantalizing dialogue, finding a secret! He would bring the coffee with an egg sandwich on brown. Now that I think about it, it is so stereotypical: a vegetarian librarian with a lecturer talking about Virginia Woolf to avoid becoming too personal. But I suppose it was personal for her. As for me, I wasn’t bothered I avoided things becoming personal; I think I have been successful in that. The waiter comes with the plate of sandwiches, a couple of pieces of drooping lettuce next to the brown bread.

  I take a bite; it is dry in my mouth. I think what was her last meal? Did she know that what she was eating was going to be her last? The taste of bread, water, a sweet piece, salt….as the piece melted in her mouth, thinking this was the last experience, time to say goodbye to it. What is there in the last glance? Is it the colour of the ceiling? An unceremonious end to a watchful eye! A librarian watching all those people every day with their questions, with their books hugged tightly next to their chests, taking books from the shelves, returning back to the shelves. People coming into the library in winter with their wet coats, umbrellas, shawls, scarves; paging through the books and then looking outside the window watching the snow eventually coming down after so many days of wet weather ….Now the last glance. Maybe it was a look at the pale skin of the nurse?

  3

  Coffee was sitting on the table. It was cold. Carol had finished hers.

  ‘So it is 10:30.’

  ‘Yes.’ I said

  She didn’t say more. I was thinking of how to get out of there. Imagined I was in my flat watering the couple of pots I had. I am a lousy gardener. I say gardener as if I have a couple of acres under my harrow! It is a joke. I walk by the fields in the countryside feeling as if I am walking through my own land, as if I have just come down from the combine harvester to rest my muscles. I am a joke, a bad one at that. The image that I have of myself! I am more and more alien from this character, David, sitting alone reminiscing events, stories that carry no weight and yet remain active, alive.

  Now I was picturing the small pots in my mind. I sat there facing Carol and thinking about the smell of the pot plants. I wanted to be alone, having nothing to do with the things around me, the people, the events surrounding me. How could I carry on the conversation with Carol until the waiter brings the bill? I thought she was a hard case. What did she want after all?

  The waiter smiles and leaves the bill on the table. It is inside a wooden box. What an absolute joke. This is supposed to be chic, respectful, stylish. For me it was pretentious fit for those nou
veau-rich city guys with their pin-striped smelly jackets. Carol is looking at the box. I say, ‘are you really sure you want to leave?’ She says, ‘what do you think?’

  OK, she wants to play it hard. There will be only a few words between us until I drop her at her flat. I think about tomorrow and the scene she would make in the airport. She, with her suitcases, fidgeting, talking about her life with the girl at the counter while people get restless behind her. Perhaps the best is to drop her quickly with no words to be said again.

  I had already started to imagine myself in the car returning from the airport. I was comfortable. I said ‘what time do you want me tomorrow?’ I thought she might say, ‘don’t you want to come in?’ She said, ‘I will need to be there two hours earlier, so elevenish?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, and I was happy to see myself alone in the street with the sound of my footsteps.

  This is a contradiction. I often thought there should always be someone next to me talking. A woman with intriguing dialogue more sophisticated than one with simple flirtatious sentences, clichés; someone that would challenge my ideas. But now, I was enjoying myself being alone.

  I go to the small coffee maker again. It is starting to rain outside. The mug warms my hands as I wrap them around it. On its side there is a colourful picture of a sailing boat; an activity totally foreign to me. I can’t even remember how it has come to the flat. I don’t like it but I clean it every time soon after I drink coffee. It seems that there is a resistance movement among the coffee particles. ‘You drink our people and we, the resistance will stay! We will stick to the walls of your beloved mug!’ My room smells of coffee, newly brewed hot coffee. Carol can drink it cold. She pours the coffee then leaves it there; you think she has forgotten all about it. Sometimes she even goes away to the corner shop and returns half an hour later and drinks it with pleasure as if it was poured a minute ago! I cannot understand this. Cold coffee? The whole idea is to extract the essence under hot water. Drink it hot and absorb the aroma. I think she likes to ignore the cup. She enjoys the feeling that something is waiting for her, and she loves it when she ignores it. But how can she enjoy it when it has lost its heat? She can go, do the shopping, come back, have a sip and still leave the rest of the coffee for later.

  4

  Carol was all ready to go with her big red suitcases, smaller yellow rolling suitcase, and the two handbags. Checking-in took a long time. I wondered how come so many children travel even during the term time. She seemed happy. She was engaged with a small boy in front of her talking about the book in the boy’s hand. Apparently she had read it! I thought I had never understood her. I could never imagine her sitting still reading a book, let alone a children’s book; magazines? Yes. Reading magazines was a ritual for her. She knew the day each one of the three magazines came out. I thought I was like her when I was a boy but I had only one magazine and was loyal to it even when other boys talked about the story in the rival magazine. I used to go out first thing in the morning to get it. I kept them neatly one over the other even though once I had read them I would hardly go back to them.

  The queue was moving slowly. She was still talking with the boy. I waited for her to go through the passport control. As she went through, she stopped briefly to look back with a smile. And then she was gone. I walked out. There was a breeze; I liked the freshness of the air.

  I had come down with a cold. I think it had all happened during the night while I was asleep but it had started to show itself now. It kept itself hidden for Carol to leave! I was tired with a blocked nose and heavy eyes before going to the airport. And now I was sitting in my office, straight from the airport and having missed two appointments.

  The phone rang. It was Elizabeth with her stern voice as usual. I imagined she had pink lipstick on her thin lips.

  ‘Hello David, I have been phoning you. Can I see you briefly?’

  ‘Sure, I suppose it is to do with next year’s reading-list?’

  ‘Not really, but it wouldn’t take much of your time.’

  ‘No problem, can you come over to my office?’

  ‘That’s excellent. See you a bit later?’

  ‘Yes. What about 4:30?’

  ‘Excellent!’

  I wondered what she wanted. I used to see her from time to time in meetings. Sharp at 4:30 there was a knock at the door. She came in.

  ‘I won’t take too much of your time. I know you are busy.’ She seemed rather embarrassed. She was talking in short sentences. ‘I know Kate was a friend. She was like a daughter to me… since she joined us two years ago; so dedicated, so responsible.’ She paused. ‘Of course I took care of her, I mean went to see her every day, when she got admitted. It was a shock for me, you know, I thought we were close, I mean, I thought we were close enough for me to know something about it. It came like a shock to me. She rarely talked; and her only relative, her brother, being miles away busy with his job…’

  ‘I didn’t know she had a brother.’

  ‘Oh, yes. She was fond of him too but you know she rarely talked about people or herself really. She was so involved with books and students. She did tell me though that you were a friend, she had great respect for you. I think she admired you for what you did in your work.’

  ‘Yes.’ I paused. ‘She loved books.’

  ‘And to see all that go so quickly…I was so shattered to see her declining. I did take some books for her but all I saw were several travel magazines…all opened but clearly unread. I wonder where her mind was. Of course she was very poorly...’

  Elizabeth didn’t ask me any questions. I was waiting for the inevitable one about how much I knew her. But no! She paused again and took out an envelope from her briefcase.

  ‘She asked me to give you this after…’

  She gave me the envelope. It was a white office envelope closed with my name in the centre, simply saying David.

  Elizabeth stood up.

  ‘It is funny how one misses people. We take things too much for granted. My office is so lonely these days.’

  ‘I am sorry, I know what you mean.’

  As she stood up, she looked around my office without concentrating.

  ‘I wish I were as tidy as you are.’

  I stayed silent. She paused and then quickly said goodbye and left the room.

  I worked well after she left. There was no interruption. I had the envelope on the desk in front of me but I didn’t want to open it. It was as if I was forced to concentrate to avoid opening it.

  The office was cold. It wasn’t a simple case of marking papers. I was looking at a student’s report. It was so badly handwritten I couldn’t decipher it. My throat was sore. I had a headache and I wanted to gather my energy to take myself to the flat. I thought of Kate lying on the hospital bed. Did she have too much pain? With her long hair unwashed for days, sweating, drying, dried sweat over cold skin, and an ache throughout her body, her bones. And losing weight, whatever weight that was left of her. And then I remembered her in a light summer dress, with big white circles on a red background. I had never seen her like that. So unusual for her to have her hair done, her neck and part of her shoulders showing, even a red lipstick. And the way she smiled, even laughed then. Later she told me that it was her mother’s dress. She rarely talked about her but then in a sudden burst of talking she told me her mother was too loud, wore bright colours and didn’t care if what she wore suited her age or not.

  Apart from those moments when we were engaged in our debates over coffee, she was normally silent and this is how I always remember her. But then it was so unusual of her wanting to go around the world. She had put on some weight. Her slim face had grown a bit puffy. I thought it was a whim. She was so serious about her job. She loved to help all those students going to her asking about the most obscure topics, patents, books, electronic articles. Now getting ready to go out to dinner she was telling me she wanted to take a year off to travel; if the personnel didn’t accept it, then she would resign. She was so s
olemnly serious about it. She was telling me this as if she was sharing a secret with me. And I was thinking that we were getting late for the restaurant, that she was too melodramatic; it didn’t occur to me that it was her last wish. She was now sitting at the kitchen table. I touched her face with the back of my fingers and we went out.

  She did not go on that world trip after all. Soon after that conversation she was admitted. But throughout our dinner that night she talked about her dreams for the trip. She had read about all sorts of things, about details of travelling in obscure countries with detailed itineraries. I listened to her as if she was talking about a third person. Someone she admired but I didn’t know. She did use, by the by, and only once, the word “we”; that we could get a flight to an obscure place, I can’t remember where, to start our journey. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I don’t even think I registered what she meant. I was thinking of having an early night, spend some time together and start an early day to finish the backlog.

  ‘Do you like travelling?’ she asked.

  Do I like travelling? I ask myself. Maybe life is too short to think about travelling. Students travel after their degree. But for me? Now? What is the attraction? People bring so many reasons for it. Some people start to travel the world when they find out that their time is soon to come. I am totally opposed to this. If you are to die, then you might as well concentrate on things close to you, not waste your precious little time on a train from one miserable town to another. You might go to your local café, sit inside if it is cold, see people passing by and remember your days had passed, live with your memories in your last days.