14 A Short story The Vanishing Turkish Nosh Bar.
AN ORDINARY LIFE OF A SEVENTY-PERCENTER
Interlude: A Short story — Fringes Of War: The Vanishing Turkish Nosh Bar.
A Don Corbett story.
The Vanishing Turkish Nosh Bar.
‘I went to see Wagner’s Opera, The Flying Dutchman, when I was in London last month. The Dutchman is the captain of a phantom sailing ship that appears and disappears. Really weird.’ Anne said to everyone in general, then turning to Don, ‘I know there is no connection but it made me think of something. Africa is a place of mystery and magic — did you ever come across anything sort of weird or magical while adventuring round the Continent, Don?’
The glint in Anne’s hazel eyes made it plain to me it was just a leading question to draw Don out because we all knew that he had been in some very strange situations in the times when he would be away for months without a word to anyone. Don’s full, open face creased into a broad smile; clearly he was quite willing to tell us one of his stories. ‘Not in Africa,’ he said. ‘In London. There was a Nosh Bar there that came and went.’
He had our attention immediately. We were having a sandwich lunch at Don’s loft apartment in Cape Town. All of us were there, and by all of us, I mean the group of friends that often gathered round Don, and usually at one of his homes. He had several homes dotted round South Africa (and a couple in other parts of the world) — his hideaways, he called them. So there were myself and Anne, Daphne, Gillian, Fred — and Mavis of course. Mavis, our hostess at the lunch, was Don’s constant companion.
The dining area of his fifth-floor loft had double-doors opening onto a wide balcony, giving an unobstructed view of Robben Island and the harbour-mouth leading out to the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Did I ever mention that all of Don’s places have a view of the sea? I never did know why Don chose the coast, but I think that the view of the sea was the reason why the rest of us seemed to gravitate to his place rather than to anyone else’s. That was comforting to us Africans with origins in Europe, because Africa always seemed to be simmering, threatening to boil over at any time. The sea brushes past the continent but is not part of it — once you’re on it in a ship, you are free. We imagined, though no one ever said it out aloud, that if and when our turn came to go, we could just take ship — or Don’s ocean-going luxury yacht — and disappear over the horizon as so many Africans of all tribes and races had done over the last half-century.
‘Tell us about it!’ said Daphne, brushing her blonde hair back from her eyes.
Don replaced his coffee cup in it’s saucer, pushed his chair back a little from the table. ‘The war in Mozambique was going full tilt. The FNLA fighting RENAMO, the Soviet Bloc pumping weapons and landmines into FNLA armories, South Africa backing RENAMO, the ANC drawing support and arms from FNLA and who-knows-where, and America playing their cards close to their chest. The whole place was a mess; the once proud and pleasant city of Lorenco Marques shot to pieces. Coming and going in all directions were secret agents and dealers from America, South Africa, Russia, Cuba, China — a real Tower of Babel metaphorically speaking.’
‘And you were in it somewhere as well?’ Anne prompted.
‘In a manner of speaking, yes — but I was only on the fringes of the conflict. Anyone who wanted to do what was right could only make some intelligent guesses, because who were the good guys? I always hoped I was giving support to the chaps with the legitimate fight, but the sentiment kept on swinging. I had a deal forming with a group in the north of the country and had gone to London to meet up with an agent from America. He was known simply as Blackie and I was to contact him on a phone number given to me in Mozambique.
‘I phoned the number and Blackie said he would meet me on the steps of Eros in Picadilly. He recognised me straight away from the description I had given him. He was nothing like his nickname suggested — a blonde, with square-faced Nordic features, but obviously American from his accent. After we had exchanged some pleasantries, Blackie said: “This is too much in the public eye. We’ll have a sandwich at a place not far from here where we can talk privately.” He lead the way down a street and turned left at the first intersection. Not far from the corner was a sign reading ‘The Turkish Nosh Bar’. It looked unlikely as a place for a meal, but Blackie without any hesitation went up the two steps leading to an open door. I followed him into a small room with an old fashioned counter and a curtained doorway at one end of it. Opposite the counter was a shelf attached to the wall, and four barstools. On top of the counter was a glass display box containing some cuts of meat — roast pork, roast beef, silver-side. It was a seedy looking place and I was ready to walk straight out again, but the curtain was swept aside suddenly and a wizzened old man came behind the counter. Blackie and he seemd to exchange a slight nod of recognition, but I couldn’t be sure. “Yes,” the old man said, “what would you like?” Brusque and foreign.
‘I was caught in the middle so I pointed to the roast beef and said “Give me some of that and a cup of coffee, please.” Blackie said, “I’ll have the same, thanks.” The old codger pulled out a loaf of rye bread and a bread knife from under the counter, cut four thick slices and buttered them. He took the meat out from the cabinet and carved three or four slices for each sandwich; then he took cups and saucers off an open shelf behind him and poured coffee from an old, chipped, enamel coffee pot which was standing on a hotplate at one end of the counter.’
At this point in the story, Don gave a little grimace. “It all looked so unhygienic and unappetisng that I debated whether to eat it or just make a run for the door! But I took the sandwich and coffee and went with Blackie over to the shelf, sat on a bar-stool and took a bite. I tell you, never in my life have I eaten a roast beef sandwich so tasty! It was mouth-wateringly delicious and the coffee was good as well, really good. I ate slowly, savouring every mouthfull. In the meantime, the old man had disappeared behind the curtain again, and even when we eventually left he did not put in an appearance.’
‘Blackie and I had our meal, finished our discussions, and left the Nosh Bar. We parted from one another having arranged to meet up in a month’s time in Zambia where the goods would be delivered.
When there was a pause, Mavis said, ‘Any one for another sandwich?’ Don looked at her a bit sheepishly, but Mavis laughed. ‘I guess they are not as good as the Turkish Nosh Bar, hey Don?’ We all joined in and laughed with her.
‘Your’s are not bad, Sweetheart, I assure you!’ said Don, and continued with his story.
‘The next day I still had some time to kill in London so I went back for another go at a sandwich in the Turkish Nosh Bar. I had walked some distance down the side-street when I stopped. I had missed it somehow. I seemed to have walked right past it without seeing the place, so I retraced my steps but there was no sign of it! No signboard — nothing. There were some steps leading up to a shop more or less where the Nosh Bar should have been, judging by the distance from the corner, but that was a Ladies’ Dress Shop.
‘Did you have the wrong street?’ asked Daphne.
‘That’s the mystery,’ Don replied. ‘I didn’t find the Turkish Nosh Bar again. It was the right street, I’m certain of that. I even asked in a couple of the shops nearby, but no one had any knowledge of a Nosh Bar in the locality. The Ladies’ Dress Shop proprietor just laughed and said she had been there for ten years.
‘Strange!’ said Anne. ‘I wouldn’t think you were a person who would ‘see things’, Don? You’re much too wide awake for that.’
Don laughed. ‘I hope you’re right, Anne! But I began to doubt myself that time.’
Daphne was thoughtful for a while. She, of all of us, would like to believe in fairies and strange phenomena. ‘Did you ever have another look for the place, Don?’
‘Yes, Daphne. I had to leave London that day, but on every visit for some years after that, if I had time to spare, I looked for the place. I looked down every street one block away from the Circus in every direction, and even down every second street in case I had not noticed how far Blackie and I had gone the first time. I had a taste for another one of the old man’s sandwiches — it became almost an obsession. But I had to give up in the end. That Nosh Bar was simply not there.’
‘What did Blackie have to say about it? You did ask him when you met again in Zambia?’ Daphne asked.
Don gave an exasperated laugh. ‘Blackie didn’t arrive for the meeting in Zambia, neither did the goods! When I did eventually meet up with him years later in Bosnia, all he said when I asked him was “What meeting? What Nosh Bar?”
My curiosity aroused, I asked, “What happened to the goods, whatever they were, Don?’
Don looked at me a long time before replying. ‘I only twigged later that Blackie was a double agent. I believe the goods ended up in the hands of the enemy. I had been tricked into opening up a channel for the delivery from an Americam manufacturer. I told you the whole thing was a mess.’ He fell silent and sat like that for a long while nursing his own thoughts.
Mavis got up and refilled our coffee cups while we also silently watched a ship passing through the harbour mouth, heading for the vast blue Atlantic. The war in Mozambique was long since over, but now there were new troubles, this time in Zimbabwe again. I think we were all thinking about how much nicer it would be to be sitting chatting in a vanishing Nosh Bar in the safety of London — or elsewhere in Europe, for that matter — but just then news came over the radio playing somewhere in the background that a bomb had gone off in Germany!
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Copyright: 2002 H J Sutton, Cape Town, South Africa. Words =1840
