by Alex Miller
Bruno said pretty much the same thing every Tuesday when he came into the kitchen of the café. And whenever Sabiha paused at his stand at the market early on Friday mornings to exchange a greeting with him, as she invariably did, he was just as formal and always remarked that the day was sure to be fine or, if it was raining, that the rain would clear by lunchtime. And Sabiha always dutifully asked if his wife, Angela, was well, and he in his turn assured her that his wife was in fine health. This exchange, or some variant of it, had for three years been the extent of conversation between Bruno and Sabiha.
Bruno had arrived at the café one day three years ago peddling his hothouse tomatoes. He was accompanied that day by a teenage boy of startling beauty, almost a young man. Bruno had introduced the boy to John with pride as his eldest son. Bruno the second, as if father and son were the heirs of an ancient family. From time to time the son was with Bruno at the market, but on Tuesdays Bruno always came to the café alone.
This Tuesday there was something a little different, something a little unexpected, in Sabiha’s response to his greeting. She turned from the stove and considered him a moment before saying, ‘Good morning, Bruno.’ She seemed to examine him critically, almost as if she was going to question him. ‘The harira will be ready in two minutes. The tomatoes look beautiful.’ Before she turned back to her work at the stove, Sabiha’s gaze rested on Bruno a little longer than was customary.
Bruno wondered if there might be something amiss with his clothing and checked himself. He was a fraction under six feet tall, a man in his middle forties, a sturdy countryman with alert blue eyes, a slightly flattened nose, and the well-muscled arms and shoulders of a wrestler. He had boxed in his twenties as a cruiser weight, and had about him the calm self-confidence of all such men who have tested their physical strength and courage against their peers in their youth.
As he stepped past Sabiha on his way through the kitchen to the dining room a tangy waft of tomato smell hit her. ‘You bring the smell of the countryside to town with you every Tuesday, Bruno,’ she said, and she turned and looked directly into his mild blue eyes and smiled.
With one hand already raised to push aside the bead curtain, Bruno paused and returned her look gravely. He did not quite know how he might respond to this unusual comment. There was a silence between them, which could have extended into awkwardness if he had not said, ‘Thank you,’ and continued on through into the dining room, letting the dangling tails of the bead curtain fall behind him.
The men all looked up from their meals as Bruno came clattering through the bead curtain. It was Tuesday. The big Italian was here. They shrugged and went back to their conversations. Their voices, however, were a shade lower than before Bruno came into the dining room, the atmosphere now no longer quite as homey and relaxed as it had been before his arrival. They resented his presence among them, but he was John’s guest, so they tolerated him.
Bruno paused by his table, a hand on the back of the chair, and surveyed the room and its occupants, a smile in his eyes, an arrogance in his manner, looking them over as if they were a yard of cattle. He drew out the chair and sat. It was a position from which he was able to command the room. None of these men had ever been invited beyond the curtain.
John came out from behind the bar and greeted Bruno. He set a half-litre jug of red wine and a small basket of freshly cut bread on the table before him.
‘So is the price of tomatoes still up this week?’ he asked. ‘Are you still celebrating?’
Bruno broke off a piece of bread and put the portion in his mouth and chewed it. He did not look at John while he chewed, his gaze resting instead on the man at the nearest table. The man returned his look steadily.
‘They’ve slipped a bit this week,’ Bruno said, and laughed. ‘It’s the bloody Italians again. It’s always the same in the autumn.’
The tall man at the next table was Nejib, the oud player who accompanied Sabiha on Saturday nights. Nejib said, ‘They’re your own countrymen. So why do you complain about them?’
Nejib’s companion was looking at Bruno and listening to the exchange with interest. He lifted a hand and fingered his moustache. Something frantic danced in this man’s eyes. They were often together, these two, Nejib and the silent man with the exquisitely groomed moustache.
One or two of the other customers laughed and looked at Nejib and then at Bruno.
John stood by Bruno’s table.
Bruno reached and grasped the handle of the wine jug and he lifted it and poured wine into his glass, watching the ruby liquid run from the spout, his head on one side, admiring the light through the wine. When the tumbler was full he set the small brown jug aside and reached for the glass. He lifted it to his lips and drank a little of the wine, as if appraising its qualities.
‘Your wine’s not improving, John,’ he said regretfully. ‘I can get you a good deal with one of my countrymen for something superior.’ He smiled at Nejib. ‘My countrymen don’t only cultivate tomatoes.’ He raised his glass, saluting the other man with the wine, then with irony in his tone he said quietly, ‘Cursed by the Prophet, hey, Nejib?’
John left them to their veiled rivalries and went out to the kitchen. He said to Sabiha, ‘One of these days those two are going to find an excuse to settle whatever it is between them and Bruno. I just hope it doesn’t happen here. I wish Bruno would drop it.’
In the dining room Bruno drank deeply of the wine he had just that moment disparaged, and while he drank he did not take his eyes from the eyes of the other man. In the end it was Nejib who looked away. At this, Bruno said something. Perhaps it was not a word but was a sound denoting satisfaction, a kind of insolence in the tone of it. He set the glass on the table and wiped his lips with his fingers and spread his napkin in his lap.
He looked up as John approached his table, three deep bowls of steaming harira balanced expertly along the length of one arm, another in his free hand. John set the bowl of chickpea and lamb stew in front of Bruno, wishing him a good appetite, and moved to the next table and served Nejib and his silent companion.
Bruno leaned over the bowl and breathed the spicy smell of the stew, his eyes narrowed with pleasure. He crossed himself and took a piece of bread in one hand and his fork in the other and settled to the enjoyment of his Tuesday lunch. He might have been alone in his own kitchen at home, Nejib and his companion not so much ignored as dismissed.
An hour later Bruno was the only customer left. He sat with his legs stretched out under the table, his boots crossed at the ankles, alternately picking his teeth with a toothpick and sipping from his glass of wine. He belched and might have been the steward of some great estate in a former age, taking his ease, permitting himself a bonus of leisure while lesser men had been required by their masters to return to their labours. There was something complacent, and even a little timeless about Bruno Fiorentino’s fine figure as he sat alone in the modest dining room of Chez Dom, gazing vacantly before him, aware only of his daydreams, a quality of calm and inner wellbeing about him that other, less contented men might well have envied. That he might himself be vulnerable did not occur to Bruno.
He cleared his throat and set the toothpick in the ashtray, drank the last of the wine and pushed back his chair. He was about to get up from the table when Sabiha came out from behind the bead curtain. At the clattering of the beads Bruno turned. It was unusual to see Sabiha out of her kitchen at this hour on a Tuesday. In fact he could not remember ever having seen her come into the dining room. It was with a nervous anticipation of something novel that he settled his weight in the chair again and waited.
Despite their three-year acquaintance, Sabiha was unknown to him. She was a woman to be admired in secret. He was a little in awe of her and had often wondered how it must be for John to live with such a woman. What is marriage, what is a man’s life, Bruno had often asked himself, without a family to delight him at the end of his day’s work and to carry on his name after he is finished with this world? Brun
o did not expect Sabiha to be as other women were, but saw her as the representative almost of another species, the object of men’s fantasies rather than a modest wife and mother. And, of course, she was not a Christian. For Bruno, the devout Catholic, Sabiha was a woman apart; exotic, haughty, beautiful, deeply private and the cause of much conjecture and wonder to him over the years.
Sabiha came up to his table now and set a small blue and white dish in front of him. On the dish were two fragrant honey-dipped briouats. As she paused beside him her hip brushed lightly against his shoulder and she spoke softly. ‘Here is something sweet from Sabiha to Bruno,’ she said. After making this astonishing announcement she turned and walked away.
Bruno swung around in his chair, startled by her words, by the warm pressure of her hip against his shoulder. He could feel the glow of her touch coming into his cheeks. He was glad he was alone in the café and that Nejib and his sinister companion were not there to witness his confusion. He watched as Sabiha let
the bead curtain fall behind her. He remained turned in his seat, watching the curtain settle, the clicking of the beads in the silence, half expecting to see her come out again, to laugh at his confusion. After a minute he turned back to the table and looked at the sweet pastries on the dish in front of him.
A blade of pain flashed across his groin. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, and drew in his breath sharply. He stretched his arms and shoulders to ease the tension that was in him. He could smell the briouats, as if he smelled Sabiha herself. Layers of her golden filo wrapped around sweet almond paste and orange flower water, dipped in boiling honey while still hot from the oven. They lay before him on the dish. Her offering. The silence beat against his ears. He looked about him. There was no one to see him. He reached and took one of the pastries delicately between the first finger and thumb of his right hand, hearing in his agitated thoughts her softly spoken Something sweet from Sabiha to Bruno. He lifted the pastry to his mouth and bit into it. The pastry was still warm. Who could resist Sabiha’s sweets! He closed his eyes. It was the food of the gods.
Bruno ate both pastries, savouring each mouthful, closing his eyes, feeling the warm touch of Sabiha’s hip where she had leaned against him. There was a vivid tension in his thighs of a kind he had not felt since he and Angela were first married. He permitted himself a small groan. He did not know what to think. He licked the honey from his fingers and with one extended finger delicately pushed the empty dish away across the table, his lips compressed. Now he began to feel afraid …
He knew he was not going to mention this incident to Angela when they were sitting by the stove together this evening, but was going to keep it to himself. Knowing this made him feel guilty. Would he seem guarded, he wondered, as if he was holding something back from her? Neither ever kept anything from the other, but each delighted in sharing every incident of their day when they met in the evening. Would he mention the briouats to her inadvertently, perhaps later, when he had forgotten to worry about it? It was a troubling possibility. But how was he to explain himself to his wife innocently and calmly when there was nothing to explain? What troubled him was not what he had done, but that Sabiha’s touch and the confiding tone of her softly spoken words had aroused him. He was certain that if he as much as mentioned the briouats to her, Angela would know this at once. He could feel her certainty of his betrayal flash into her mind. The thought terrified him.
He got up and brushed at the sticky crumbs of pastry clinging to his trousers. He stood looking at the blue and white dish, hesitating, feeling with his tongue for the remnants of the filo, brushing at his lips with his fingers. He made up his mind then and leaned and picked up the dish and stepped across to the bead curtain. He pulled the curtain aside and looked into the kitchen. His mouth was suddenly dry.
‘Madame Patterner?’ he called. He did not know what he was going to say if she came into the kitchen and asked him what he wanted.
His box of Grosse Lisse was still sitting by the open doorway. Tolstoy was looking in at the tomatoes from the laneway, as if he was waiting for a mouse to jump out of the box. The dog looked up at him and gave a short warning bark.
‘It’s okay, Tolstoy,’ Bruno said. He felt like a thief. Tolstoy gave a low growl. There was no sign of Sabiha or John. A pot was steaming on the stove, the lid rattling. Bruno let the curtain fall and turned back into the dining room and set the dish on the table again. He nudged the dish with his finger, as if he still considered doing something with it and was reluctant to leave it. Then he turned away and walked over to the front door and let himself out into the street.
Bruno stood on the narrow footpath outside the café. Something had happened between himself and John Patterner’s wife. He was not sure what it was. But he was sure it was not nothing. He walked around the corner to where he had parked his van and opened the door and climbed into the cabin. To think such thoughts as were in his mind at this moment in the bright day was madness. He reached into the glove box and took out a tin of throat lozenges. They were blackberry flavoured. Angela always made sure he had some with him. He put one of the purple lozenges in his mouth and sucked it, the sweet blackberry flavour filling his mouth. He leaned on the wheel and looked along the alleyway, sucking fiercely on the lozenge and trying his best not to think of Sabiha’s hip. But the softly encouraging sound of her voice was in his head like a song, and he could not silence it. He did not want to silence it. He sucked hard and closed his eyes and thought of her hip against his shoulder.
He opened his eyes and swallowed the last sliver of lozenge. What had he done, he asked himself, to make John’s wife do this to him? He was certain he had never done or said anything that could have been taken by Sabiha as suggestive or improper. He had never given her any kind of secret sign. None at all. The very thought of it shocked him. Suppose Angela were to hear of this? It was unthinkable. Or was it all his own imagination? His own stupidity? Had Sabiha not meant anything at all by it? Had she been thinking of him sitting on his own in the dining room and just decided to give him a treat? Her hip touching his shoulder might have been an innocent accident. But she had not just let her hip touch his shoulder! No, he could feel it now; she had leaned her hip against him! There had been pressure there, a light pressure but real. She had known what she was doing. It had not been an accident. It had been a sign to him. A strong sign. But a sign of what, for God’s sake? The touch of her warm hip through the cotton fabric of his shirt had seduced him utterly. ‘Mary, Mother of God!’ he said and crossed himself. He reached for the key and started the motor.
He drove out of the alley and turned left. Passing the front of Chez Dom he ducked his head and looked in. John and Sabiha were not at their table. The dining room was empty. He did not toot his horn but drove on. Above the roaring of the van’s motor he shouted angrily, ‘She pressed her hip against me!’ Why had she done it? If not for that?
As Bruno made his way through the traffic, despite his resolve and his fear he found himself imagining Sabiha’s bare skin under her skirt where she had leaned against his shoulder. There was madness in this, to be sure, and his heart beat faster with it, but once he had begun to think of it he could not resist the thought of her nakedness and her intention. He parked the van and got out and walked around to the back and opened the doors. He stepped into the back of the van and walked down the front and pulled out a box of Black Russian and another of Father Tom. He set the Black Russian on top of the Father Tom and lifted the boxes in his arms, cradling them against the strong muscles of his stomach. He stepped down from the van and stood outside the grocery store with the two boxes of tomatoes in his arms. He had seen, suddenly, how difficult it was going to be for him when he walked into the kitchen this evening and kissed Angela. He could hear her saying, So, my darling, did anything interesting happen to you today in the big world out there? Would he be able to answer her confidently, No, my love. Nothing special. And how about you? Have the children been behaving themselves?
For the first
time in their married life he was going to lie to Angela! But that wasn’t all. Later, when they were lying in bed together and the children were asleep, she would turn to him and put her hand in his and say, What is it, my dearest man? Tell me! What happened today? What is troubling you? For she would know. Oh yes, Angela would know that something had happened. She would sense it in his voice, see it in his eyes, know it from the way of him. It was impossible to keep anything from Angela. She knew everything. He was sweating.
Bruno’s thoughts swerved about wildly and he stepped across the footpath and went through the open door of the shop. He hailed the owner of the store in a voice that was scarcely recognisable to him as his own. The shop was crowded and smelled strongly of oranges. He found a space and set the boxes of tomatoes down and straightened. He lifted his cap and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. The strange way Sabiha had looked at him when he arrived at the café that morning. Her unusual remark. The way she stood and looked directly into his eyes, as if she was going to ask him something. It was not an accident. It was not just his own imagination. It had happened. It was real!
He went back out into the street and stood with his hand to the handle of the van door. What was he to think? He knew what he felt, what his body felt. He could not mistake such a reaction as this. But what was he to think? What was he to do? He jerked the van door open and jumped in and slammed it behind him. He cursed and started the motor. He wanted to be safely at home having his dinner with Angela, the kids hanging off his shoulders and yelling at him.
