steam by peter edgell (big ebook reader txt) 📕

Sometimes life just takes you by the throat and flips you, like a coin. Which way you land is just fate. Or luck. This time I ended up spinning on the edge.


If this had been some big city I would have been in Chinatown, or close by, but this was only a large town so the badly lit string of restaurants, take-aways and small cafes just seemed kind of seedy. But the smells – ah! the Oriental armies invaded my nose and kidnapped my mind, stealing my thoughts away to mysterious lands.
The evening rain had fizzled out leaving the world damp as if at the end of a crying session when the handkerchief can’t soak up any more but the cheeks are still faintly smudged with dew. I was out walking, just walking with no intention of going for a meal, mulling over the job offer I’d received. The money and benefits were fine, excellent in fact, but the thought of upping sticks and moving abroad was the big question mark. No wife or other real family ties to stop me but, still, it would be a big step. I think that I’d already made up my mind when it started to drizzle again. That’s always worse than true rain because it leaves you stressed. Life itself seems uncertain.
I decided that a coffee would help and picked out a small cafe. It took a moment to step into its warmth because, as always, I pulled the door that was clearly marked “Push”, stood puzzled for an instant, then pushed. Always a way to quickly feel embarrassed, even if no-one is looking. The place was virtually bare of bodies, empty apart from a customer at the counter and an anonymous middle-aged woman. She looked up, her thick lips parting as if to speak then, seemingly disappointed, glanced at her watch and returned her gaze to the world beyond the window. Waiting for a man, I guessed, some grubby knight in rusty armour. I pushed the sarcasm away. After all, who made me an expert on other people’s inner dreams? I moved to the counter, stood behind the customer. He seemed to be having a problem about his money. A hundred pound note lay between them.
“I can’t change it” said the waiter, a squat kid who looked as if he had not even crept out of his teens
“But it’s all I’ve got!”
“Business has been slow tonight. Really slow. I can’t change it.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Can I owe you the money and come back later when you have got change?”
I’m usually good with accents but I simply couldn’t place his. It was thick, almost Eastern European and yet...
The waiter turned slightly and pointed to a hand written sign pinned to the wall behind him.
“No credit. See? It’s not me. I don’t own the business. I just work here”.
“That same old excuse!” the customer’s voice was slowly rising in pitch. “I just work here, I’m only following orders.”
I could still only see his back but, even through his coat, I felt the deep breath he took before really laying into the waiter. By then the cold wet air from outside had made its way into my stomach. Sure, I was warming up but this inner cold was slowing the process. I stepped forward, beside the man.
“Hey,” I said quietly to the customer, “Can I pay for this? It’s only a coffee, after all, no big deal.”
The man turned. He had sun-burned skin and his features were hawk-like; sharp nose, thin lips and black eyes that seemed to have endless depth. It was like looking into twin bottomless wells. But I held my gaze. My father had always told me to never look away first as it was a sign of weakness.
I smiled, said, “I’m only being selfish. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner I’ll get my own coffee”.
The pause was only momentary but at the time it felt like I could have written a symphony and still had time to spare.
“That is very kind, sir, very kind. I am in your debt.” He smiled then and his features changed, almost as if his face had decided to glow. It was eerie.
The waiter served us and, somehow, it seemed natural to sit together and chat. The coffee was real, not instant and so worth taking time over, relishing its flavour through the steam that drifted slowly above the cups like miniature clouds.
“Where are you from?” I prompted, opening the conversation.
“You noticed my accent then. Many people do and few seem to guess. I think it depends on how good your perception is. Do you find this? That most people are not as perceptive as they think they are? It fascinates me. How about you? Do find this to be often the case?”
We chatted on through another coffee, which I insisted on paying for and then, shaking hands in an almost formal old-fashioned manner, went our separate ways. It wasn’t until later that I realized he had not answered the question. In fact, as I thought back over the entire conversation I realized that, somehow, he had evaded every question. His sudden smile and crisp sense of humour and the melodic quality of his voice had obviously fooled me at the time. But what irked me the most was not the fact that he hadn’t answered any questions but the realization that I had told him all about myself. Almost as if the can of my life had been opened up and the contents readied for dinner.
A sudden burst of sheet lightning stripped the night of its moody quality. Thunder rolled majestic but with a threatening quality, as if I was standing on railway tracks and the train was close and closing fast. Like everyone around me I ran for shelter.


Two weeks later I was on the flight to Singapore. From there I flew on to Manila before the final hop to my destination in the Philippines. Having Googled the school I would teach at, the city, the weather and the people, I had taken a deep mental breath and decided to take the position, teaching English to foreign students.
Months passed and I settled in, as best I could. At first, the poverty was as heart-breaking as it is anywhere. At times, even the quality of my clothes made me feel almost guilty but I knew there was little, if anything, I could do. But it would catch me out, now and then, the sudden realization that I had stopped worrying about it; taken it as normality and then I would feel ashamed. Time and again, I tried to stop the kids I was teaching from treating me as an honoured guest but to no avail. When the adverts and soaps and beauty formulas were all geared towards making skin whiter, what chance did I have, a white European who stood a head above most men, of changing their outlook? Finally, the owner of the school, recognizing my discomfort, took me home for a meal with his family. As the fine and friendly evening progressed, this immensely wealthy man used his family to point out the intricate relationships, the strict protocols of seniority, of age, making the comparison with England in the nineteen fifties. As a reasonably intelligent man should have been able to do much earlier, I stepped out of my culture and surrendered to theirs.
One evening, Mark, another teacher, shy for an Australian, if that’s possible, wanted to get some cigarettes so I went with him for the short stroll across the street and a coffee afterwards. We were complaining about the parking outside the school.
“You’d think that with all the money they pour in to have their kids educated to western ways, the parents of these rich kids could at least invest in a car park”.
I laughed and pushed my belly out, making my body look bloated. “You can’t blame everyone else for your addiction to fast food”.
He grinned back as we nodded to the guards, as immaculate as ever in their black uniforms. Restaurants and even shopping malls, had armed security at the doors. It was just another surreal aspect of life in the city that we had come to accept.
We squeezed between bumpers and diced with death at the wheels of insane drivers, our breathing becoming stretched in the humidity. Air conditioning was a killer when you had to leave it and go out into the real world. You never had time to really get acclimatised. Suddenly, the air seemed to hiccup just before the weather pulled its usual trick. A few droplets of warning before the heavens opened and rain bucketed down. Mark ducked into the shop for cigarettes and, hunching up,trying to keep the rain from squeezing down between my shirt and shoulders, I called out,
“Coffee! Next door!”
He waved a hand to let me know that he had understood and I slipped into the cafe entrance. It took a moment to step into its warmth because, as always, I pulled the door that was clearly marked “Push”, stood puzzled for an instant, then pushed. Always a way to quickly feel embarrassed, even if no-one is looking. The place was virtually bare of bodies, empty apart from an anonymous middle-aged woman. She looked up, her thick lips parting as if to speak then, seemingly disappointed, glanced at her watch and returned her gaze to the world beyond the window. Waiting for a man, I guessed, some grubby knight in rusty armour. I pushed the sarcasm away. After all, who made me an expert on other people’s inner dreams?
I stopped dead, still as a rabbit hypnotized by ghostly headlights.
“Now that, I thought, is a really frightening dose of ‘Deja vu’.
Then slowly, like a glove puppet, I found myself turning. I stepped to the counter and fished out my wallet. It was empty of small notes. I laid a hundred dollar bill on the counter.
“I can’t change it” said the waiter, a squat kid who looked as if he had not even crept out of his teens
“But it’s all I’ve got!”
There was a soft chime of a bell as the street door opened. The waiter lifted his pig-like eyes and stared at me. As I turned away to ask Mark for some smaller money, the woman shifted her stare away from the window, to her watch and finally to me. Her tongue slid over her fleshy lips.
“Welcome,” she murmured, “welcome, my grubby knight in his rusting armour”.
I glanced down at my dark yellow T-shirt and crumpled brown shorts.
The room seemed to spin and suddenly it felt as if I had been struck with a giant hammer, a blow that had struck me dumb. My mouth was just opening and closing.
There was a soft cough behind but I knew, in one terrifying second, that it was not Mark who had entered the cafe. In an instant, sweat drenched my body like the rain outside, now a raging storm. I knew him before he moved to my side, before that hawk-like face came into view, before those endless eyes bored into mine and I knew that, this time, I would