The meeting at the cafe
As his voice took over my listening mind, my eyes watched well-wrapped ladies in winter coats and scarves filing through the door. Ladies, not women. Ladies who would have almost-feathers in their warm little hats, their delicate shadows following their delicate steps, three-inch make-up and wrinkled red lips, coming in from the cold for perhaps a coffee.
We were sheltered in the strange nook near the door, where the table threatened to flip hot liquid over us if we were careless. The man on the other side of the doorway saw my empty gaze and smiled. I was being seduced by words which trembled with truth but I awoke ever so slightly, and smiled in return.
Suddenly the old Chinese woman whom I'd walked past on the sidewalk half an hour earlier moved across the window, a tall sprig of sword lily in one hand. Half an hour later, I would walk past the shop where she had bought the flower for a dollar. She was sitting on a bench, staring into space, then pointedly at me. I couldn't remember if I'd said "Bonjour" or if I had tried to smile. Strange, because we might have shared the same mother tongue.
The last words trailed and evaporated along with the steam from my tea, I roused from a spell cast and broken. We heard the sirens from fire trucks miles before we saw them and continued hearing them for some miles afterwards, stopping the conversation abruptly each time one passed until it became practical to speak once more.
Posted by sniffles at October 30, 2002 02:51 AM