Cafe Babanussa (21 page)

“
Fräulein
, we go get drink at another bar?” The restaurant was closing.

She nodded and emptied her glass, unable, as usual, to resist distraction. Unable to resist any man's interest in her. Crossing the street, Ruby turned to look up tentatively at the hotel windows behind her. Inside the new bar, the air was murky with smoke. The customers, mainly men, stared at them as they passed by. An hour later, back at the hotel, they rode the elevator to the top floor and stepped out, arm in arm. Hans unlocked the door to the restaurant and fumbled with a boom box behind the bar. Ruby's body jerked as Europop bounced off the walls and lights flooded the room, hurling throbbing streaks of red, blue and green around her head. Hans grabbed her hand and pulled her across the floor. She moved reluctantly at first, pushing the sounds away. Slowly she let go. They began circling each other. Ruby was losing herself to the music, but kept breaking the grip of his arms
trying to direct her on the floor. The circles grew tighter and tighter, her body feeling freer, more fluid, more giving.

Ruby was downstairs in full regalia, standing in front of a crowd of her parents' friends. “Okay, Ruby, sing it!” yelled her dad, and the room became quiet.

With eyes closed, she listened to Louis blow his magic horn. Sweet, sweet horn. She stepped into the middle of the living room, puckered her mouth and started to growl, “Well, hello, Dolly . . .”

The grown-ups broke out into hoots and howls. When she finished singing, she took a deep bow and then ran over and dove into her father's lap. She buried her flushed cheeks into his chest. The world spun around her as she heard the people clapping. Her father hugged her with his big arms and planted a slobbery kiss on her forehead. “You were wonderful, honeybunch. You sounded just like Satchmo.”

A door slammed. A tall, imposing shadow stormed over to where Ruby lay entangled with her lover.

“Get up off that floor, girl!”

A large brown hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. Hans melted swiftly into oblivion. Curse that old bear paw, she thought to herself, not yet daring to look into her father's eyes. She heard him shout: “Goddammit, there you go again!”

He pulled her into the elevator, and Ruby stared numbly at the numbers on the panel.

Back in the room, she found her mother in a distraught state. Ruby pressed her cheek into her mother's lily-white face and they hugged each other fiercely. “I tried to stop him,” she whispered. “He couldn't reach you by phone at home, so went to look around the hotel for you in case you were still here.”

Then she turned to her husband and said, “How dare you stalk your daughter like that. Surely it would have come to no harm. She's twenty-four years old. She has a right to have a life. What on earth were you thinking?”

Ruby decided it was time to go home. She said goodbye to her mom and ignored her father, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, his eyes on the floor. Ruby didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But already she envisioned sharing this story with her sister and enjoying the bittersweet mirth it would cause. She knew she would laugh, and then nod knowingly. Only Dad could pull off such a thing.

The next few days saw Ruby escorting her parents to various tourist attractions around town. Their mood was tense, and Ruby didn't speak much with her dad. On the weekend they went to the zoo and then wandered through the Tiergarten till they came upon the flea market, where Ruby wanted to look around. As the people crowded around the stalls, Ruby noticed a familiar figure a few steps ahead. She tried to turn around and shuffle her parents along another lane, but it was too late.

“Ruby, stop. Come here.” Werner approached Ruby and
her parents. “I'm glad to see you again. But I must tell you your daughter has been awful to me. She refuses to even speak with me.”

“Werner, you should know by now that Ruby has a mind of her own,” said her mom. “There's no point trying to force her to do anything.”

“Maybe we could go for coffee somewhere and talk a little more,” said Werner.

Ruby turned to him to speak but her father beat her to it. “Young man, we only have a few days to spend here and I'd rather spend them with my daughter. Thank you for all you've done for her in the past. It was nice seeing you, but we have to go.”

“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciated that,” said Ruby.

But as the Edwards clan walked back towards downtown, Ruby realized that maybe her parents weren't so wrong after all. Ruby had come to Berlin to find herself, but instead she had lost herself in the process.

A
FTER
D
OM'S DEATH,
M
EAN'S REPUTATION AS A
haven for hard-drug users got it closed down quickly. Emma, Jack, Smithie and the gang needed a new place to go to. Tucked away in a far-flung corner of Moabit, yet still within walking distance of their flats, was Café Babanussa. The best falafel in town, and plenty of joints and parties that lasted till dawn. Emma persuaded Ruby to come along one Thursday night. “You'll meet the best guys in town here,” she had gushed, brushing wisps of hair back from her face. “Just your type.”

They met on the subway platform at Turmstrasse. Emma's long legs covered in fishnet stockings thrust out from under a miniskirt that hugged her ass, visible under the worn leather jacket. The jacket hung open, revealing a lacy corset and a gap of soft pink-white flesh between it and her skirt.

Ruby looked down at her loose-flowing pantaloons upon which black Egyptian hieroglyphics were scattered over shiny, lemon-yellow cloth. She had topped them with a black silk
blouse she'd found at the flea market a few weeks earlier. The silk had lost its sheen, but Ruby was attracted to the elegance of the high collar and the small, round buttons of carved ebony that ran up the front of the blouse. It seemed to wink out at her from a heap of old clothes, and she wondered who it had belonged to.

She had spent hours getting ready, mixing and matching practically every piece of clothing she owned. She had toyed with putting on something daring, knowing the way Emma dressed, but letting her breasts hang freely underneath the silk blouse was as risqué as she would get. Still, “You're looking bloody all right, aren't ya now!” her friend had said, and this cheered her up.

Chattering aimlessly, they strolled past shops and sports bars, past snack stands that boasted bratwurst with curry ketchup, with schnapps or beer to chase down the inevitable grease, and headed into the café. A young guy was working the bar. Thin, dark dreadlocks fell around his face, and a red-and-white kaffiyeh draped his shoulders. As he argued with some men at the bar, his voice fought to compete with Dissidenten's “Sahara Elektrik” blasting from the stereo behind the bar. The men seemed impatient with him as they stood shaking their heads.

“
Ciao, bella
,” he had said to Ruby when she came in that first night. He had one of the sexiest smiles she'd ever seen. “Emma, Emma, Emma!” he called out as they drifted by. “Who's your friend?”

Ruby looked him up and down. “My name's Ruby. And you?”

“Hey, I'm the barman,” he said.

“Yeah, I kinda guessed that.”

He grinned. “My name's Issam. What are you drinking?”

Ruby and Emma looked at each other.

“You got enough money?”

“Yeah, I'm okay.”

“Weizenbier,”
they said in chorus.

Issam turned to get the bottles. Ruby and Emma wandered over to the back room and sat down at a small, round table. Issam brought over two tall, narrow glasses with a thick, frothy head on them and plunked them down on the table. Then he sat down with them.

“Na, Emma,
wie geht's dir
? How've you been?”

“Okay. Yourself?”

“Pretty busy. Ali should be here soon, then I'll get a break.”

“Ali owns the place,” Emma informed Ruby.

“You'll meet him soon. He always comes around to talk to everybody.”

“Where are you from, anyway?” Issam asked Ruby.

“Canada,” she replied matter-of-factly.

Issam eyeballed her and said, “
Echt?
Really? How come you speak such good German?”

“You think Canadians only speak English?”

“Well, yeah. English and French, I guess.”

“Well, you're wrong.” Ruby looked at his wide-open eyes
and relented. “I've been here for two years now, and I lived with a German guy for a while.”

“That'll do it. Well, if you stick around long enough, you can catch some late-night fun here.”

Ruby looked at Emma, her eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “Sometimes they lock the doors around two or three, bring out the joints, and everybody who's left in the place gets pretty tight.”

Ruby didn't smoke much dope but was thinking that a puff might not be so bad. Blow those thoughts of Werner to kingdom come.

Issam stood up and excused himself. A couple of customers had been trying to catch his attention. “Gotta get back to the bar. See ya.”

Ruby's gaze followed his lithe form as he left the room, and then she looked at Emma. “He seems nice enough.”

Emma laughed and said, “Watch out for Issam!”

“Oh, piss off, would ya!” Ruby snapped. “I'm supposed to be enjoying myself, aren't I?”

Within a short time, the café had filled up. Ruby glanced around and noted that there were a lot of Africans milling around. “Do you know any of these people?” she asked Emma.

“A couple. A lot of the guys are from Ghana, Sudan and Ethiopia. Plus the whole Turkish and Arabic crowd. And the Germans, of course. Then there's us lot of strays from everywhere else. Makes for a good mix.”

“I'll say,” agreed Ruby.

Two German guys had just finished a raucous rendition
of part of Brecht's
Threepenny Opera
at the piano, and people were still clapping their hands and laughing when the sounds of Om Kalthoum came over the speakers in the front. The voice of Egypt's famous songstress flooded the room, and for a moment the café seemed almost quiet. Ruby wiggled her shoulders and grinned mischievously at Emma and Lina, who had just joined them at their table. Ruby stood up and beckoned to them, saying, “Hey, it's time to practise those new moves.”

Ruby was thoroughly pissed and stoned. Emma shook her head, but Lina got up to follow Ruby to the front room. The two of them had been taking belly-dancing lessons on Friday afternoons for a month or two. Ali and Issam were busy handing plates of falafel over the counter, doling out cups of coffee and selling booze.

Ruby stood still for a moment, eyes closed, waiting to tune in to the rhythms at the right moment. Slowly she began to swivel her hips, marking wide figure-eights in the air around her. As she worked her body into the momentum of the music, she added a little shimmy, shaking her ass quickly while her hips still swirled in slow circles. She kept her eyes closed; if she opened them too soon, she felt she might get shaken by the burning gazes of the men watching her and lose control. She heard Issam whooping from behind the counter and opened her eyes; she saw Lina sensuously twisting her svelte arms and wrists in different directions, drawing hands up over her face and out, as if to unveil it.

Issam whipped his kaffiyeh over the counter to Ruby,
who caught it and pulled it tightly between her two hands. She slipped her right foot in front of her left, heel up off the ground, leaned backwards and began shimmying her whole body very quickly from side to side. Issam had now jumped from behind the counter to join the two women, gyrating up to both of them in turn while the others in the room clapped them on. When the song was over, the three of them fell into each other's arms, laughing and panting.

Two hours later Ruby and Issam stumbled out into the grey light of the early autumn morning, leaving only Ali and a few desperate hangers-on to close up the place. Ruby wanted to trace with her fingers the capacious smile that brightened Issam's face. She was taken by his funky, artsy look and she loved the air of light that he had about him. She was aching to be with a black man again and wondered what would develop out of this encounter.

They headed towards the all-night bus stop down the road and hopped onto a bus packed with late-night partiers. At each stop, more people pushed their way onto the steps leading up to the second deck when there was no more sitting or standing space below. The bus driver drove carelessly, seeming as drunk as the passengers. At each turn, Ruby and Issam careened into each other with the swaying of the bus.

Half an hour later, they hurried down the street towards Ruby's flat, with only the footsteps of a few people starting off to work disturbing the stillness of the morning. Every few steps they stopped, enveloping each other, exploring each other's mouths, slowly mimicking the whirling dance of a few
hours earlier, crushed so close that they could inhale the scent of the sex billowing up between them.

They stayed in bed for three days. Each morning, Ruby called in sick, going out only to buy börek and kebabs. They sat naked on the floor and ate greedily, licking crumbs from the other's chins, Ruby giggling wildly, slapping frantically at Issam's hand as his fingers roamed deep inside her. Their sex was heady, fogged up by the endless joints they smoked before and after. He liked to make love side by side; he would let his hands wash over her body, describing colour and shapes as he savoured the silky skin beneath his fingers.

“You are my canvas,” he would whisper.

When they weren't making love, he talked of how men had to discover the female within them, of how he wanted to express this in his painting, for that was what he did when he wasn't working at Babanussa.

They continued to see each other regularly. In the following months their best times were spent dancing late at night at Satchmo's, a discotheque across the street from Babanussa. There the dance floor became their playground, where they twirled and teased, dancing to the sounds of Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone, oblivious to the people around them. When they were too enervated to dance any longer, they would slink back to Babanussa and sip coffee, talking to Ali until their bodies begged for the sweet release that only sex and sleep would bring.

Ruby became a regular at Babanussa, ducking into the kitchen to watch how Ali used a couscousière and made ful
and falafel. For each plate of ful, they would mash cooked fava beans with garlic, onion, tahini and olive oil, adding cumin, coriander, cardamom and lemon juice to taste. The beans would be spread out on a plate and then topped with finely chopped tomato, feta cheese and parsley and drizzled with more oil. It was served with Turkish bread, much thicker than a pita. They would rip off pieces of bread and dip it into the ful. It was simple but sublime. The cooked chickpeas that they used to make falafel were ground up in a meat grinder along with onions, garlic and lots of parsley. Then Ali added cumin, baking soda and an egg before frying them. They were never too oily—crunchy on the outside, soft and flavourful on the inside. He made a sauce with yogurt, tahini and lemon juice to serve on top. One thing was for sure: you would never go hungry at Babanussa.

Issam's voice rang out from her phone almost every day, wanting to do things and go places. But Ruby liked having time on her own and with her friends, without a man around, and Issam let her breathe in and breathe out. He let her move where she wanted, when she wanted, catching her only when she was ready to return. They took in movies at the repertory cinemas as often as they could. He talked to her about the greats of African cinema, taught her about people she had never heard of before. She had never been this comfortable with a man.

Then one day he told her that he was married. “I have a German wife but we don't live together anymore. Most importantly, I have a son, Magdi.”

Ruby was floored. “What do you mean, you're
married
? Where is she? How long have you been apart?”

Issam explained that they had met in Portugal and had come to Berlin to get married four years ago. His son was three and a half years old. He said they just didn't get along anymore, that he couldn't stand living with her and so he left.

Ruby was not impressed. “You mean you left her alone with your child? Where is he? Where are they?”

He said that they were in Berlin, and that he visited his son frequently. “In fact, I'd like to know if I can bring him to your place sometime soon. Maybe he could stay there with us for a while. What do you think?”

Ruby stuttered her agreement, but in truth she didn't like the questions that were beginning to surge. She felt caught in turmoil, because she knew she was falling in love with Issam. She wondered at her reaction, and this new-found love of hers gave her a little more understanding of Werner and his misgivings.

Issam would often play tricks on her at night, constructing grotesque creatures out of brooms, hats and pillows that would leer out of a corner of the darkened bathroom, forcing her to shriek when she went in to wash off the sticky milk that still clung to her thighs hours after their lovemaking. Late at night when there were no more games to play, no more stories to tell, no more smiles spreading over the horizon that was his face, she watched him secretly. She recognized the weariness that spilled out of him. She lay listening to this wind breathe its tired barcarole over her bones, calling to her.

Ruby and Issam raced each other from the subway to Café Babanussa. Laughing and out of breath, they flung open the doors and stepped into what had become a little corner of Africa for Ruby. They were hungry and ready to order lunch. It wasn't often that they found themselves there midday, and the place was almost empty. Ali was behind the counter, wisps of grey hair framing his face. On the other side sat a man on a stool. Plump, with trousers that were slightly frayed at the bottom and a plain, beige cardigan, he looked to be in his mid-fifties. Listening to his accent, Ruby thought he might be South African, but was unsure. He stopped talking and took his fill of her, his muddy brown eyes gazing up and down. Issam went to the counter to order some falafel, and Ruby sat down at a nearby table. She didn't like eating sitting on a stool.

Ali introduced Issam and Ruby to his friend. “This is Winston, Winston Mbeki, an old friend. We studied together in Moscow.”

Winston looked point-blank at Ruby and asked, “Eh, where are you from?”