Meadowmuse
Member Elite
since 12-27-1999
Posts 3317
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0 posted 05-17-2000 11:54 PM
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"The Comfort of Tea"
There was a shabbiness about the man that made me comfortable. In my comfort, I noticed things.
It was not that he was unkempt. No, far from that. In fact, his eyes were the cleanest, brightest green that I could recall ever seeing on a human face. His hair, likely combed earlier in the day, now rested, rather scrambled, in small, soft folds upon his head. It was nearly golden, the colour of molten sorghum dripping, hot, down the long cooking trays of my father's mill.
I was still noticing his molasses hair when I realized that his eyes were searching my face, his hand extended in greeting.
"Claire?" he asked, more by way of saying hello than identifying me.
"Yes, hello Michael. We spoke on the phone, didn't we?" Of course, I knew that he knew that we had spoken, just that morning in fact, but what was one to say?
"Come in. Please, just ~ here, let me take those from you." And I was in his house, following him through the coolness into the large dining room. He walked slowly, talking, one arm cradling the maps that I had brought. A radio played somewhere, and I noticed the jingling sound of jazz tinkering through the open kitchen doorway. Piano in the early afternoon. This was a man I could get to like, I remember thinking.
"I've just put a kettle on, if you'd like, " he was saying. Funny how his voice sounded softer now, like Keith Jarrett's improv from the kitchen. Musical, light, English.
"Oh. Tea. I really can't." I noticed the immediate crook in his brow, just a moment's sleight, then gone.
"I've got an appointment. Another appointment, actually." I knew I was expected at a meeting shortly, though the exact details were not ready in my mind.
I noticed his hands, fingers still spread lightly on the tabletop. I wondered whether his hands were responsible for the large clay pots that stood near the wall by the hearth.
"Well, perhaps another time," he said, gesturing with those hands back toward the front of the grand old house, "when you are available to come help me translate all this into some sort of English that we both can understand."
He paused, and with the slightest of bows, issued me back out onto the large stone porch. As we parted company in the afternoon sun and I walked down the steps to the street where my car was parked, I remember thinking that yes, there would be the comfort of tea with this man, perhaps soon.
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