The Bitter Wine Memento
Bonne Soirée
The hour is quite late, and most diners are already in bed. The flames on the candles that are sitting atop the grand piano tremble in the wind I let in. At first I think they will fall over, tumble down the thick candle wax stick and be caught in fire when they impact with the linseed oil that is coating the piano. But they quickly recover and in a second they return to their rhythmic swaying. Nothing has ever demanded me - nor have I ever cared - to know why it is that when many flames burn together, they cause a dim glow that surrounds them and makes them into a whole; a hot, winter breath-like whole that ripples the air and can warm your inside from many metres away. These candles are casting such a glow on the shining surface of the grand piano, and their heat is even causing the little man that plays it to perspire. He looks like he could need a break, perhaps, though his hands are diligently tapping the keys, I can tell he has been doing so for much to long. As I stand here, in the course of a second, they are the thoughts manage to occupy me. It occurs to me then that my mind can far too easily be breached. I wish I could send for reinforcements.
The restaurant door closes with a snap behind me, excluding the cold of the London evening rain. Instead the inviting warmth of Bonne Soirée wraps around me like the mothering plume of a hen. The droplets of rain still clinging to my wool coat I whip off with the back of my hand while waiting for being noticed. Slightly bothered by the time its taking, I wobble up and down on my feet, from time to time flicking another drop from my clothes. Should it take such a long time to be noticed? Granted, I stand in the dark on the furthermost step to the little restaurant, doing nothing but wobbling, whipping and sometimes allowing myself a pitying gaze at the stout, but brave, piano player. But the room is small and the servants plenty, gathered about the wine pitchers and cutlery batch in the back, there should be no trouble noticing me. For what must be ten seconds I ponder on if I have suddenly become invisible since stepping into the little hall. The chance of it being so is small, but of late, essentially more possible. I decide at last, as one of the younger waiters is approaching me with an excusing smile, clutching his hands together as if trying to shake his own hand, that at the moment at least I am slightly visible.
"Have my greatest excuses, sir, but the light is poor and I hardly saw you. How long have you been waiting? Oh, let’s never mind. Just to find you a table; come with me, please."
The man, of boy should I say, is speaking with an accent I can’t locate. He speaks it with a perfectly fine grammar, but the tone is inflicted slightly by some foreign language, French or maybe Italian. I wouldn’t go as south as Greek or Spanish, nor as east as Romanian, but it is no common English. I follow the handsomely built waiter past some occupied and some empty tables. Most of the diners are in couples, or occasionally threesomes and are middle-aged foreigners. Black hair that shines in the feeble lights above their heads and gleams like an alternative light source is everywhere. Here and there a kiss exchanges lips and food plates arrive and depart on the arms of slick, almost unnoticeable waiters. The boy with the strange accent eventually stops by a table in the back. If I had found my place by the coat hangers and the door a shady place, my table lies in complete darkness. Accompanied by one chair, one candle-less candlestick and a sooty ashtray, my table is a thing where light, on a simply moral basis, ought never to shine. It is simply perfect for me. As he offers me the chair, hands me a stained menu that carries the restaurant’s name and leaves with a small bow, I wonder how the boy could know.
§
Suddenly, a kind of down-weighing feeling disrupts me. I shouldn’t say disrupt, for I’m sure it has been with me since I woke this morning, or since earlier, but it became in a short while so much heavier. Without looking further than the restaurant title, I put the menu on the worn table cloth. With a sigh I place my head to rest in the cup of my hands, close my tired lids for a moment and let my mind wander off into a blistering hot haze.
The restaurant door closes with a snap behind me, excluding the cold of the London evening rain. Instead the inviting warmth of Bonne Soirée wraps around me like the mothering plume of a hen. The droplets of rain still clinging to my wool coat I whip off with the back of my hand while waiting for being noticed. Slightly bothered by the time its taking, I wobble up and down on my feet, from time to time flicking another drop from my clothes. Should it take such a long time to be noticed? Granted, I stand in the dark on the furthermost step to the little restaurant, doing nothing but wobbling, whipping and sometimes allowing myself a pitying gaze at the stout, but brave, piano player. But the room is small and the servants plenty, gathered about the wine pitchers and cutlery batch in the back, there should be no trouble noticing me. For what must be ten seconds I ponder on if I have suddenly become invisible since stepping into the little hall. The chance of it being so is small, but of late, essentially more possible. I decide at last, as one of the younger waiters is approaching me with an excusing smile, clutching his hands together as if trying to shake his own hand, that at the moment at least I am slightly visible.
"Have my greatest excuses, sir, but the light is poor and I hardly saw you. How long have you been waiting? Oh, let’s never mind. Just to find you a table; come with me, please."
The man, of boy should I say, is speaking with an accent I can’t locate. He speaks it with a perfectly fine grammar, but the tone is inflicted slightly by some foreign language, French or maybe Italian. I wouldn’t go as south as Greek or Spanish, nor as east as Romanian, but it is no common English. I follow the handsomely built waiter past some occupied and some empty tables. Most of the diners are in couples, or occasionally threesomes and are middle-aged foreigners. Black hair that shines in the feeble lights above their heads and gleams like an alternative light source is everywhere. Here and there a kiss exchanges lips and food plates arrive and depart on the arms of slick, almost unnoticeable waiters. The boy with the strange accent eventually stops by a table in the back. If I had found my place by the coat hangers and the door a shady place, my table lies in complete darkness. Accompanied by one chair, one candle-less candlestick and a sooty ashtray, my table is a thing where light, on a simply moral basis, ought never to shine. It is simply perfect for me. As he offers me the chair, hands me a stained menu that carries the restaurant’s name and leaves with a small bow, I wonder how the boy could know.
§
Suddenly, a kind of down-weighing feeling disrupts me. I shouldn’t say disrupt, for I’m sure it has been with me since I woke this morning, or since earlier, but it became in a short while so much heavier. Without looking further than the restaurant title, I put the menu on the worn table cloth. With a sigh I place my head to rest in the cup of my hands, close my tired lids for a moment and let my mind wander off into a blistering hot haze.