The Coffee Lovers. Ilinda Markov

echo.

      Out in the street, a car door slammed, an engine revved, and then silence dotted by the soft drizzle of rain.

      A motorbike pulled up and Margherita’s chirpy voice bade her lover goodbye.

      The light went on, razor-sharp, dissecting my eyes.

      Margherita appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing on the floor? Where’s Dimm?”

      She knew.

      Wailing, she rushed to Nadya, shaking her awake.

      Nadya, swaying, full of sleeping pills, pulling her hair, crying, banging her head against the wall. In the other apartments, people stirring, talking in muted voices, lights off, doors locked, the sooty smell of burned coffee travelling through cracks and keyholes.

      I watched, water pouring out of my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my armpits soaked, water leaking from between my legs, leaving puddles under me.

      *

      I left Bulgaria on a rainy day in the early nineties. Black armoured jeeps cruised the streets of Sofia carrying the bosses of the underground world and their henchmen to yet another killing spree. The illegal markets in drugs and traffic of girls forced to prostitute on the streets of Amsterdam, Hamburg, Milan and Brussels were then repartitioned. Corruption scandals were ripping apart the new elite of politicians. The coveted democracy gained after the fall of the Berlin Wall was victimised, the ugly face of an economic collapse — an inflation over five hundred percent — was chasing people out of the country. I was alone with a university diploma in music journalism. It was time to leave and pursue a dream: Dimm’s dream to travel the world — a once forbidden sin — on a quest for the perfect cup of coffee.

      To drink it while roaming the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala; or in snowy Salzburg, down the steep street from Mozart’s house where the market is bursting with live Christmas trees and decorations, lights and golden garlands in the sparkling darkness; or while flying downhill on a bike along the Bolivian Death Road, a one lane dirt road with two-way traffic descending some three thousand three hundred metres vertical altitude with waterfalls and rock slides fighting for every chunk of the road, with no guard rail but a drop of thousands of metres; or share my coffee with a fatal man with a rose clamped between his teeth, a man that felt equally at home in brothels and in the Amazonian jungle, among prostitutes or among curaderos chanting healing prayers; or share it with a ghost in an old haunted English castle.

      The iron curtain had gone, the Berlin Wall had gone.

      It was time for my coffee pilgrimage.

      After three years of travelling in which “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” I reached Australia and settled in Brisbane, the capital of the sunshine state of Queensland — home of Australia deadliest creatures: the mighty saltwater crocodile, the long-tentacled box jellyfish, the bad-tempered Eastern brown snake, the merciless great white shark. I took on working in small cafes as I did so many times during my travelling. Full-time, part-time, filling-in. The notes I had started to write about the characters I met and chatted with while I prepared or shared a coffee shaped into a manuscript, which I entitled Coffee Lovers’ Portraits. I offered it to a publisher who turned out to be an ardent tea drinker. I remember the smile on her face when she saw me off with the words, “You’ll get a contract, Arnya if your manuscript converts me into a coffee lover”. She laughed profusely as if knowing already the outcome. Meanwhile, I published a text on coffee in music envisioning Bach’s Coffee Cantata, “Ah, how sweet coffee tastes — lovelier than a thousand kisses… ” And another article about the Iranian coffee house painting style. I was gaining confidence to the extent of thinking that I could open new horizons for people so they could perceive better their daily cup of the aromatic drink.

      In Brisbane’s cosmopolitan West End district, I felt at home. The people from the Babylon coffee shop asked me to help them advertise. I advised a sign across the window reading: Casanova, Einstein and Napoleon were religious about coffee. The sales took off, the owner George was happy with my job. People kept coming and hanging out for hours. A place to be seen. Everybody felt like rubbing glory off those iconic men. I needed the money.

      “Where’s George?” I asked one day surprised to see an unfamiliar man behind the counter at Babylon. I have taken up a part-time job in the nearby health shop and George continued to prepare my coffee exactly the way I liked it.

      “I’m Manoli,” answered the man. “What are you having?”

      “The usual,” I said sizing him up: tall, broad-shouldered, dark unruly hair curling down his temples, an overlapping tooth in the corner of his fat, sensual lips.

      “That would be?”

      “George knows.”

      “He’s back tomorrow.” Manoli’s stare was disturbing, so was his voice.

      “I can’t wait until tomorrow, can I?”

      The man in front of me squinted, his eyes two Arabica beans, smooth, dark roast.

      “Espresso,” I gave out a dramatic sigh. Then added, “Sorry.”

      He served the cup. A lace-intricate teaspoon beside it, like a woman in a Kama Sutra mood.

      Our eyes met.

      “Why are you staring at me, Manoli?”

      A Mediterranean seducer.

      A mortal Greek god.

      A bastard.

      The word sticking to my teeth like fine coffee grounds.

      I opened my purse to pay, but he said it’s on the house.

      “What would George say about this?”

      No answer, just waving his hand dismissingly

      From the Vietnamese restaurant next door, the smell of crab noodle soup and deep fried Phoenix balls trailed in. Hunger rumbled in my stomach. Manoli had chicken sandwiches, baklava, and feta salad. I ordered a sandwich. He opened the cool cabinet behind him and used tongs to take out the lavish meal: two pieces of triangle-sliced bread around ivory-coloured chicken breast and neatly layered tomato and egg wedges.

      Amused, he watched me voraciously devour the sandwich, a childhood rich in lack behind my greedy appetite. He brushed a crumb off my chin. I laughed.

      An abrupt screech of brakes along Boundary Street drew him to the window.

      The diamond needle screeching, skipping on a Duke Ellington song. Noises in my head loosen; nailed boots echoing through the stairwell, growls of pain.

      I swayed, closing my eyes to shut out the vertigo. The walls advancing, turning the cafe into a landing, a man is falling into the jaws of darkness. Dimitri, don’t go!

      “Arnya, are you all right?” Manoli was tapping me on the shoulder, then helped me to a table bringing a glass of water, another espresso.

      “How do you know my name?”

      No answer.

      “Einstein, Beethoven and Casanova were religious about coffee, too.” I fired at him. Panic attacks made me chatty. “Naples is a great place to drink it. So is Brisbane. And the floating casino of Macau.”

      He turned his back to me. There were customers coming in.

      In the evening, Babylon was full. Often there would be a poetry reading. Someone came to take over behind the bar.

      “Arnya, don’t go!” Manoli was standing behind me, his hand snugly on the nape of my neck. “Come home with me.”

      Seducer.

      Mortal.

      Bastard.

      We walked side-by-side back to the riverbank where a slice from the island of Rhodos with families fleeing hunger in post-war Greece had sailed across the oceans to anchor at Brisbane’s West End.

      Manoli’s house