Between Cups of Coffee

by Tajalli Keshavarz

  ‘I would say in many cases it is irrelevant. If someone doesn’t have a clue about microbes and animals’ physiology and responses, their interaction with each other and nature, the genes; if someone does not know about the structure of atoms and subatomic particles, about the stars and galaxies and the rules of nature, then he can talk about how a society must be run, what we should eat, how we should bring up our children, until the cows come home, but his views would be rudimentary, naïve and uninformed.’

  ‘So one needs to be a scientist to be a good parent, a good citizen? What you say is absolute arrogant trash! The scientists used to believe that planet earth was the centre of universe, that the sun rotated around the earth, that the earth was flat, that human beings were the ultimate creatures, that the moon was a piece of glass, should I continue?’

  ‘But then there were other scientists who found out that these weren’t correct …they moved science forward while ordinary people were baking potatoes!’

  ‘Yes, in your opinion scientists have moved things forward; you think they have created a civilised society! Hah, civilised! Is it civilised behaviour that we attack each other en masse and kill each other under the pretext of bringing civilisation to another country? Of course it is civilised to leave people to die from hunger, in spite of all the advances of science!’

  ‘Scientists are not all that rounded in their personalities but remember that other people implement the ideas. And there is a difference between scientists and politicians.’

  ‘Now you are hiding! Your argument leaves me cold.’

  ‘You can use science in your home to warm up.’

  ‘Yes, and what if I don’t have the means?’

  ‘You seem to me to be a miserable old martyr!’

  ‘Yes, but thankfully I am not a scientist!’

  I was getting into a serious quarrel with myself when there was a knock at the door. I wondered who it could be.

  ‘I am sorry to bother you like this.’

  It was Anita at the door.

  ‘Not at all, do come in. What a nice surprise. What is the problem?’

  It was Saturday midday and I expected the bistro to be busy.

  ‘It is not an urgent problem but I had a sudden feeling to get out of the bistro, the kitchen, everything.’

  ‘Who’s dealing with the customers?’

  ‘Oh, Hanna is there. I will go back soon. I just wanted to see a familiar face I could talk to. I know all the usual customers of course but I cannot talk to them, not like this.’

  ‘Sure, but what is bothering you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Hanna came back from school yesterday, she looked tired. I was tired too. I think we had both a long day. And today, I really didn’t want to get out of bed. I hadn’t felt like that since I was a teenager. I dragged myself out of bed.’

  ‘We all feel like that from time to time. You’ve had a hard time recently. Maybe you have a cold?’

  ‘No, I can’t remember having a cold ever! John used to make fun of me saying I am a robot! Working hard and not taking time off. But I am not sure what to do if I take time off. Anyway, I cannot take time off now. I felt so guilty today.’

  ‘I am sure you are going to do excellently. In no time you will be expanding your business,’ I said.

  ‘You think so? Sometimes I think about selling it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know... I’d better be going. It will be too busy for Hanna to handle things alone.’

  She left in a hurry. Carol came out of the bedroom. She had a towel around her head. Her wet hair showed from under the towel.

  ‘Who was that? Sounded like the bistro girl.’ She went to the kitchen. ‘We are getting too popular aren’t we?’

  ‘You have a one track mind. Can’t people have other issues?’

  ‘No! And believe me, I know.’

  ‘And obviously I don’t.’

  ‘Yes, your highness should confess that he is naïve about certain things.’

  ‘When it comes to women, all men are naïve. I can’t dispute that. Anyway, cup of coffee? Perhaps with some toast?’

  ‘Perhaps you prefer to have your lunch at the bistro? You’d better be hungry when going there.’

  ‘Maybe you can teach an eager naïve old man a thing or two over the coffee?’

  ‘I take your offer on-board.’

  ‘Delighted madam, one coffee coming up and toast will be with you in a minute!’

  We had a nice cup of coffee. We did not talk about women. Instead, we talked about the weather in Rio.

  26

  First thing on Monday I had some urgent work to do in the office. It was drizzling and I was in a hurry. As I arrived at the entrance to the building, there was a group of students and a few members of staff standing in front of the door facing anyone who wanted to go in. As I was going to pass them, a lecturer from another department approached me with a notebook and some pamphlets:

  ‘You are not going in are you?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen the flyers?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘They were everywhere, anyway, take one now.’

  He pushed a hand-out into my hand.

  ‘I don’t look at flyers very often. I suppose you are on strike then,’ I said.

  He looked at me angrily but with a controlled voice said:

  ‘Yes. And we hope you’ll support our case.’

  ‘Sorry, I am not into this sort of activity.’

  ‘Why not? What are you protecting? Your future? Your promotion? Don’t you know they have already made up their mind? We must not be passive. We must show them we have a voice. A united voice.’

  ‘I am not sure if I understand you. Now I have to go in,’ I said.

  ‘So you want to taint your name with us!’

  He became a bit aggressive I thought.

  He continued: ‘so if you have a problem, don’t rush to us for help.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, thanks!’ I said.

  As I was going in he shouted:

  ‘Responding like this, we will never have a change; people like you encourage the system.’

  I was already in the lobby of the building. I went to my office, made a strong coffee and sat down to work but heard noises coming from the street. I had a look out of the window; the students were carrying colourful flags. There was a knock at my door. It was Richard.

  ‘Yes, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I came to thank you for your help.’

  ‘That’s fine. It is my job.’

  ‘But nobody is in today. It is only you!’

  ‘And you,’ I said.

  ‘Yes but I don’t count!’

  ‘Why is that?’

  He ignored my comment.

  ‘So, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I wanted to ask your permission to put your name as a reference.’

  ‘Why do you want to use me for a reference?’

  ‘I hoped that you, as my tutor, would write a reference for me.’

  ‘Of course I can write a reference for you but are you sure you want my opinion?’

  ‘Yes! After all, it is just a reference.’

  ‘What do you mean, it is just a reference?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have bothered you if you weren’t my tutor.’

  ‘It is not necessary to have a reference from your tutor. You can get a reference from any of your lecturers who know you; perhaps you can get one from Michael.’

  ‘Oh, I have asked him. He is writing one for me.’

  ‘And you still want one from me?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Fine.’

  He didn’t say anything but stayed there.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good, now I have other things to do.’

  He left. I started to pull a document out. There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Yes, come in.’

  It was Richard
again. Sorry sir! When can I come to collect it?’

  ‘Collect what?’

  ‘The reference.’

  ‘I don’t give references out like that. Whoever wants it should write to me and I will respond to them directly.’

  ‘Dr. Michael is giving it to me. I will collect it from him later on today; other students have got their references from their tutors.’

  ‘I am not Dr. Michael or any other tutor.’

  ‘OK then,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ bye.’

  He left. I wondered why he got on my nerves so much. I had no answer. I wasn’t a ‘totally by the book’ person but he always wanted things that I couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Then I started to think about what I was like at his age. What I would do, how I would behave. I sat back and slowly it dawned on me that I was behaving like a grumpy old man. I thought I was quite a miserable man to have been affected by such a brat! Then I began to realise I was repeating things in my mind, repeating myself to myself, and that it was only the morning and if I kept on repeating myself to myself I’d better resort to an aquarium. Just a few minutes ago I had jumped the picket line to get to the office to clear some of the backlog. I had created a great image for myself passing through the picket line: one who was part of the system, one who jumped with the smallest whims of the system, a puppet, a selfish bastard! And after all that I had got to my office to be visited by the boy I didn’t like, to have him looking at me as if I was a hard, inflexible person who couldn’t understand people and their problems, one who could ruin someone’s life!

  Maybe I was over-interpreting a simple encounter, a non-event just because I liked to be noted, no matter in what capacity, but noted, counted. After all, why should I bother about people’s views about me? People think all sorts of things. Anyway, since when had the view of the masses become so important for me? I wasn’t like that before! We used to have long chats starting from the freedom of individual and slavery and finishing with the ads and subliminal suggestions in the media. Kate and I used to enjoy the debate. Could somebody’s death have such an effect? Such a negative effect? Who was I then? I had lost not only a friend but also part of my character! The part that I was happy about! I started thinking about her face, tried to remember her face. It shouldn’t have been so difficult! But I had a definition of her behaviour, her movements in me, not a picture. I am sure that had I been a painter, I would not have been able to draw her! There was an emptiness, a vague presence in me that I could not picture! I could guess and act all her words, sentences, I could remember her movements when she was lying next to me but her face was eluding me, evading me. And why was that? How important was she to me? Now, this was the first time I had started to think about a woman, assessing her importance in my life. No, I was not a bastard! One of those…! But I didn’t like to build a structure where a woman, any woman and I were the essential part of it. They were more like a river, passing by, moving. Perhaps Kate was the same. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t remember her face. But what about all those discussions? What about her diaries? Now, suddenly, I had arrived at something I had put away, ignored. Why did I keep her diary? What was my response to her words? Could I ignore them forever?

  I stood up. It wasn’t drizzling any more. I had managed not to do a single piece of work. I tried to console myself. I had filed so much rubbish while thinking. Now my office was tidy. I decided to go to the pub for a quick bite.

  It had to be Ian sitting there. I asked myself, why did I go to this pub? He was always there. He was the last person I wanted to see, the old man with his silly problems, his album of stamps and his wife. ‘What do I care?’ I asked myself. I was going to turn back but then I thought, why should I change my plan just because of this miserable man? I went up to the bar:

  ‘Half a pint of lager and a smoked ham on white,’ I said.

  ‘Mustard?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  I looked around and Ian was sitting nearby looking at me.

  ‘So you’ve been a bad boy,’ he said, ‘not very clever passing through them.’

  I sat next to him.

  ‘If you like, news travels fast,’ I said and remained silent, drinking slowly.

  ‘You look preoccupied,’ Ian said.

  ‘Not really, a bit tired,’ I said.

  ‘I decided not to cross through the gang standing there, didn’t have the energy to argue with them. If they wished to stay out, good for them. But they looked at you as if you were a criminal.’

  ‘It does not bother me,’ I said.

  ‘But it bothers me! There are things to be done.’ He adjusted his glasses, ‘I don’t want to be thought of as an outsider.’

  ‘But if you are not with them, then you are an outsider, surely!’

  ‘I suppose, but I don’t even know what they are talking about. OK, they want better education, they want more money, they want …what else?’ he asked.

  ‘Is there anything else? It is good for them to voice their views though, to vent it. We have a democracy.’

  I wasn’t sure if he could understand me. I didn’t care either. But I felt as if I was talking to Kate now.

  ‘I don’t believe in these sorts of activities; I think of them as a waste of time. Do you know, for some people it is a form of entertainment. They are bored. I remember when I was a student and we went on strike and staged sit-ins, there were groups who played poker all night in the occupied building, there were others who ended up playing football all day in the garden; and why not? As long as it didn’t get out of hand, it was good for everybody concerned. They would release their frustration and soon the strike was off. Now, things are a bit different but the main thing remains: boredom, excitement and, in extreme cases, martyrdom. As for me, I like my whisky,’ I said.

  ‘I wish I could be as indifferent as you are. I cannot tolerate it when they stand there with their self congratulating postures looking down at me.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they? After all you are, to them, a sucker for the system. They like to believe that. They enjoy it. Why do you want to deprive them of their moment of satisfaction?’

  ‘I am not in the business of satisfying people. There are special people and special places for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Now you are being too melodramatic. Just relax,’ I said.

  We started somehow to talk about stamps and that they don’t make stamps the way they did in the good old days. When I came out, I was craving for some coffee. I needed fresh air. I walked to my flat.

  The street was shining after the rain. I walked, slowly, thinking about myself. I started to compare my situation with that of Ian. I thought this was the first time I was comparing myself with others and I had no control over it. It seemed as if I was rolling down a steep slippery road. I had no logic for my comparison. I always mocked this man in my head and now, now I was thinking that his life wasn’t that bad, that miserable. He would go home to a wife who would nag at him because he wouldn’t pay enough attention to her. He was wanted. What a reassuring state to be in. I had my hand in my jacket pocket. I pressed it to my body to keep the breeze away. I would go home and cook some food, read something, go to bed until tomorrow to go back to the office and face, whom? Richard Farmbaker, or for that matter Michael who would lecture me on how to treat useless students who shouldn’t have been there to begin with. And then there would be another night. Yes, there was Carol with her temporary body, with her desire for a man and a life in Rio or anywhere else, there was Fiona with her daughter whom I hadn’t met. I thought about Fiona taking me to the train station. There was something about her that attracted me but I could easily forget. And of course, there was Anita whom I was going to see in a minute asking for coffee. And yes, the memory of the old coffees, which had stayed with me and would stay... but there was no Kate.

  I was close to the bistro. Suddenly I decided not to go in. I had no energy in me to listen to Anita and her problems; I couldn’t sit there with my coffee listening to her and he
r potential plans to sell the bistro and go back. I tried to imagine the bistro. What would happen to it? I suppose it would change hands quickly. Knowing the area, it would become a sandwich place, then another sandwich place, then it would remain empty for a while, then I would see some building activity. It might become a hairdresser’s or perhaps a health food shop. I would pass it by... remembering the bistro but gradually I would forget about it; forget that it even existed there. I would have another person deducted from the list of people I knew. Perhaps for a while I would get a postcard from her, saying how difficult she finds it adjusting back in her own town, then no card, no news. Then after a couple of years I would receive a card inviting me to her wedding, or perhaps a letter asking me to do something for her daughter who wants to come back and go to university to continue her studies.

  I put the key in the door and went in. Carol was in. She was sitting on the bed varnishing her toenails. She looked at me.

  ‘What has happened? You look like a dead man. Look at your face. Pale. You are like a 14-year-old fallen in love with her mother’s glamorous friend. Ah... did she touch your face?’

  ‘Good to see someone’s happy, and her toes happy too!’

  ‘Oh! My little toes are making themselves ready for a party. They can take you as well if you say no to your mother’s friend and take a hot bath.’

  ‘What is the party in aid of?’

  ‘The desperate, the idle, the lovely!’

  ‘I know which one I am, I don’t know about you.’

  ‘Count me as any of the above, but I know you know I am lovely!’ she said.

  I had to start to think seriously about my plenary talk. I still had plenty of time but it was in the back of my mind and was starting to become a permanent resident. Carol wanted me to go to the party with her; she wanted to be with someone. I didn’t care one way or another and actually I thought that it might be good for me with the state of mind I was in.

  27

  The party was on the second floor of a large block of flats. There was a large sitting-room joined to a dining room. We were the last ones to arrive. There were about 60 people moving about in a confined space. It was a party of young students of arts, marketing, advertising, that sort of people. A young man came over to Carol.