finger, my
chest gleaming under a black shiny shirt, my car keys dangling from a gadget that could
open doors and beep and warm the driverâs seat despite the cold snow. I wanted a
gold chain around my neck and a well-dressedwoman with kohl under
her eyes, and a late-evening blow job that began in a big fancy car and ended on an
imported carpet with a motif of peacock tails fanning shades of purple against my hairy
Arab ass.
Instead, the owner went behind the bar and got me my drink himself,
calling me over with a nod as if signalling to one of his waiters. You stay here, he
muttered.
I sat on a bar stool in the corner, close to the kitchen, and twirled the
ice in my drink with a plastic straw. The soft music in the background, the dim
lighting, the glowing red from the lanterns, and the gold atmospheric ornaments made me
think of the story of the virgins who had lost their lives in the kingâs castle
before Scheherazade distracted him with her tales of jinn and fishermen. I wondered
whether, if I had happened to live back then (wearing a different outfit, naturally), I
could have saved any of those women. Maybe I could have been the
saqi
who
slipped a few poison drops from my ring into the kingâs wine. And as I watched him
writhe in agony from the spell in his stomach, right before he fumbled another innocent
girl, I could have stuck a dagger through his silky purple robe, opened his poisonous
entrails, and watched his eyes flicker in awe and disbelief as he anticipated the next
and final episode. The smell of food from the kitchen brought me back to the land of
forests and snow. And then all I wished was to crawl under the swinging door and hide
under the stove, licking the mildew, the dripping juice from the roast lamb, even the
hardened yogurt drops on the side of the garbage bin. With my pointy teeth, I thought, I
could scrape the white drips all the way under the floor.
When Reza was done playing, he came and sat with me.
We were both silent. He leaned on me and said, they are closing in another half-hour.
When I get paid, we leave. We watched the employees folding the tablecloths, sweeping up
glass, turning the chairs upside down on the tables, sucking the carpets with electric
hoses, and mopping the kitchen floor. All the crumbs, all the loose bits of food that
had jumped during the evening from the cookâs knives and tilted plates â all
that had flown and landed on the ground, all that had sizzled and escaped the rims of
giant pans, all that had been transported by gravity and chased by giant brooms and
battered by wet sweeping, all that had been expelled into the hollow of drains in thin,
calm waves of grease and water â now fell into underwaged fists and made me
sob.
The owner came out from behind the bar and silently took my glass from me,
opened the cash register, called over the musicians, and paid them one by one.
When that was done, I approached the owner with humility, my back hunched,
my hand below my chin and close to my chest. I said: Excuse me, sir. May I ask you
something?
He barely nodded, not looking at me.
Sir, I am looking for a job.
The owner automatically lifted his head at this, and looked me in the
eyes. Do you have any experience? he asked, and then bent his head back towards his
money.
Yes, I do. I can work as a waiter, I said.
I have waiters, he replied. Do you speak Farsi? Some of my customers want
to be served in Farsi here.
No, but I can work as a busboy. I am very good at it. Ihave the experience. Ask my friend Reza here. I worked in a fancy French restaurant
here in Montreal, Le Cafard, on Sherbrooke Street.
Reza was annoyed at me for saying that. I could see his raised eyebrows.
He stood up, turned his back, and walked towards the door with his instrument case,
zipping through the erect upside-down legs of the chairs on the tables.
Come back on Tuesday, said the