Turkish Coffee Spelled Backwards

A short man waddles by my table at El Fishawi's coffehouse in the Khan al-Khalili quarter of Cairo stopping just long enough to chant, "What is Turkish coffee spelled backwards?"

Twice.

Then he was away. A quick glance tells me he is not all there; unkept robes, uncombed hair, fanatical beard. I make a mental calculation regarding the length of time it would take a person to arrive in this condition in Cairo: 2 days. He could be from anywhere.

I turn my attention to my white porcelain espresso cup containing the dredges --a thick syrupy oozing dark-as-night liquid-- of my most recently ordered Turkish coffee. Though I do not want to upset my host I keep picturing roofing tar. Without finishing the contents, and ignoring the waiter's look of bewilderment, I order another, extra sugar.

I have spent the last 5 hours here at a small brass 3-legged table and even tinier chair watching adept and inept tourist come and go. Some, who took it as a duty to smoke shisha left red in the face, stumbling out the door to the amusement of the locals. Others ordered bottled water and would sneak pictures of veiled women as they strolled by. (nothing like understating the obvious) Occasionally a man would chastise the foreigner, in Arabic of course, but this had little effect. If anything, the camera-happy-tourist would mumble some unmistakably idiotic phrase which the shouting man would except as an apology and the episode would end with everyone feeling satisfied. I would keep my distance and if either party happened to glance my way I would shrug then pick up a copy of "Death on the Nile".

The reason I have spent all these hours at El Fishawi's is simple: I am here to meet a man about a job upstream in the Valley of the King's. Something termed as 'vast treasure' is all the cable mentioned when i received it at my hotel in Venice. That was enough to send me packing. It seems I had worn out my welcome with secret agent Lulu412 (see previous episode at:The Imaginary Adventures of Charles Dunn http://www.themadinnkeeper.com/dunndates1.htm )

It is true I allowed her to drive us from Vienna to Venice and she did make record time but it seems with all my considerable skills as a chef my crème brulee was not up to snuff, and in a series of unrelated episodes I found myself hiding once again in Stephanie's lingerie boutique (see http://themadinnkeeper.com/dunndates1.htm). That was when I said to myself one morning, "This is no way to live!"

At this point sources close to me discovered that Lulu412 had been pulled off my case, having been re-assigned to a remote town in northern Norway to apprehend the notorious Belgium bear-smuggler Bruno Barenski. Obviously her superiors were not pleased with her performance in Venice. I on the other hand, will miss those late night rendezvous in Ellia's kitchen overlooking a minor canal where we would argue 'til sun-up at times, the benefit or determent of mint sauce, the precise or imprecise way of caramelizing sugar, or -and this was my favorite- debating the Italian concept of opera and how it originated in Beijing 500 years earlier. Just the thought brings my eyes to the brink of tears.

The boat trip to Alexandria and the 3-hour train ride to Cairo were -if you can believe it- uneventful. I found this coffeehouse with no problem and am content on spending the rest of the evening here. But once every so often the image of that little man in unkept robes come to mind and I wonder profoundly: "What is Turkish Coffee Spelled Backwards?"

the mad innkeeper
site design by WebDeck.net