He noticed me looking around the cafe, and began to tell me about it. Hardly anything had changed here since the cafe first opened, he said. He mentioned the year, I don’t remember exactly when it was, but the place was almost two hundred years old. The tables, chairs, lamps, chandelier, paneling, even the wallpaper was the same color and pattern as two centuries ago. And the candles were lit at dusk just the same. This wasn’t only known from descriptions, he said, there were photographs, and a number of paintings of the interior. One artist had gathered all the famous personages who had come here over those two hundred years, as if they’d all come by and taken a table on a single day and at the same time. He mentioned some of them by name, though without telling me what they were famous for. He probably assumed I would know. But at that time none of the names meant anything to me.
At some of the names he lit up as if he used to meet with them here himself, though they’d lived fifty or a hundred years before, or even earlier. He knew a lot about them. In many cases he knew who used to sit at which table. And if they’d been alone or with someone. Whether they drank coffee or tea, or if they preferred wine, and what kind. Which cakes they most liked, or if they didn’t like cakes.
There’d also been someone who used to sit at the table we were at. It was the first time I’d heard the name. You knew him? So you know what work he did. That was the only name that stuck in my memory, of all the ones he mentioned. Maybe because, like you just said, he worked on dreams.
Later I bought a book about those dreams of his. We could find ourselves in there too. You, me. Anyone. Supposedly they were just his dreams, but really they were dreams about people. Apparently he would come to the cafe every day. And always at the same time. No more than a minute earlier or later. You could have set your watch by him. Actually, he’d always take out his pocket watch and check whether he’d arrived punctually. And everyone else in the cafe would take out their watches and check they were running right. Some days he’d drink coffee after coffee, especially when he was making notes on a paper napkin. Other times he’d only ask for a glass of water as he sat there lost in thought.
“Was he waiting for someone maybe?” I asked, trying to show I was listening.
Because you have to agree that when you don’t arrange to meet someone but you want to see them, then every day at the same time you’ll go to the place where you usually meet with them. As if the place itself were capable of making them appear. It’s a mistaken belief, that places are more constant than time and death.
“That I don’t know,” he said. “Waiting is a permanent condition within us. You know, often we don’t realize that from birth to death we live in a state of expectation. He’d probably grown attached to the cafe, this table. Those kinds of attachment are often stronger than to other people.”
I didn’t say anything. I simply didn’t understand that anyone could get attached to a cafe, let alone a table.
So when he came into the cafe and saw that his table was occupied, he’d leave right away, even if other tables were free. The proprietor would have to send him an apology and assure him it would never happen again. He was even capable of scolding whoever had taken the table. Once he struck the table with his cane. Two young people were sitting at it, it may have been the first time they’d been in the cafe and they had no idea it was his table. Besides, like all young people, the world still belonged to them, including some table in some cafe or other. So they refused to move to another table, why should they. Everyone knows that cafes are for everyone and that anyone can sit at any table they like. Whoever sits there first, it’s their table. And here someone was claiming they’d occupied his table. If I were them, I’d not have moved. Maybe if he’d asked politely, said that he couldn’t sit at any other table, because the coffee or tea would taste different. That I’d understand. But he evicted them from the table like he was throwing them out of his own apartment.
One time he slapped someone in the face with his glove because they’d had the temerity to sit at his table. It would surely have ended in a duel, because the other man responded by throwing down his own glove, which meant he was demanding satisfaction. Fortunately the proprietor of the cafe picked the glove up and somehow managed to smooth things over.
After that incident a card was stuck in the napkin holder saying the table was reserved. But he never came back.
Then suddenly the other man said something that made me think:
“The proprietor of the cafe died. His son took over the place. Then his son after him. But on that table, in the napkin holder, the whole time there was a card to say the table was reserved. Perhaps if he’d known it was reserved, that it was waiting for him … Then war broke out, and before it ended the cafe was taken over by soldiers. They didn’t care whose table was whose, if one of them was reserved or not, because all the tables were theirs. They sat wherever they flopped down, they’d even put their feet up on the tables.”
All at once he asked me if I’d like some cake.
“Gladly,” I said, though I avoided cakes, just like I wasn’t supposed to drink coffee. At that time I had a duodenal ulcer. He beckoned the waitress. She brought over a tray with various cakes, she smiled at him, she evidently knew him, because it wasn’t the usual smile you get from a waitress. He looked the tray over and said:
“You should take one of those. They don’t have them anywhere else.”
I nodded to say that was fine. He chose the same thing for himself. When the waitress took the tongs and was about to put the cake on his plate first, he directed her to my plate and only then let her serve him.
“Delicious, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, though I didn’t really like it, it had too much cream.
But what else can be said about a cake … So we both fell silent. It was my turn to say something. He’d told me all about the cafe, and I hadn’t spoken a word. But I didn’t know what to talk about. I wasn’t particularly disposed toward conversation. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the fact that after greeting each other by mistake on the street, now we were sitting together like old friends, but in fact we didn’t know one another. Besides, I was starting to feel a slight pain in my right side, below the ribs, which was a clear consequence of the coffee I’d had, and perhaps also of the cake. I was afraid that the pain would flare up for real, because if that happened I’d be in no state to come up with anything at all to say. Normally when the pain would get worse and worse, all I could ever do was remain silent. Though at moments like that even silence cost me dearly. True, I had my tablets with me, but I wasn’t going to start swallowing tablets in front of a stranger. He might ask what was wrong with me. And the conversation would move to duodenal ulcers. Then if he had some illness too, we’d spend the whole of the rest of the time talking about illnesses. Illnesses help out any conversation, as you know. But had we really greeted one another on the street by mistake just so we could talk about illnesses? He’d even claimed it wasn’t chance. I preferred not to say anything at all. I put in a word from time to time, but it was more to agree with what he was saying, like with the cake, when he said it was delicious and I said absolutely.