Stories from A Quiet Café

The café is quiet and poorly attended. Its tables are covered with white linen and decorated with plastic chrysanthemums. At a table by a window, a dead man nurses a cream tea and waits for a lady. He would once have been considered well dressed, in waistcoat, wing collar and cravat. He glances from time to time at a silver pocket watch, although were he honest with himself he would realize that time had little meaning in this place.
The lady, when she arrives at last, is a strange sort of indefinable beauty. One of romantic bent could compose sonnets and sestinas in their hundreds about her eyes alone. They would, however, be hard pressed to recall what colour they were. She orders Christmas cake and cheese, and takes her seat opposite the gentleman.

"You're late"

"I am that. Does it matter?"

"I've been waiting"

"Had you anything else to do?"

"I confess that I did not."

"Well then." She smiles, and takes a forkful of cake.

"How have you been?"

"Since last we met? I have been a singer and a countess, although neither guise suited me entirely. Yourself?"

"A doctor, a prince, a thousand other things I can barely recall."

"Doesn't it worry you, wearing so many faces, day to day?"

"It was always my practice. I took to this path more willingly than you did, my lady."

"Oh I assure you I knew just what I was letting myself in for."

"Really? I had always rather assumed you were a victim of circumstance."

"Victim? No. He and I both knew entirely what we were about. It was difficult, of course, but it was what we chose."

"An unusual choice, if I may say so."

"Coming from you? Your own lifestyle was hardly what one would call conventional." "I had my reasons."

"I daresay you did, but never the less." Another forkful of cake. Half a smile. "Have you met any of them since? Here, I mean."

"I saw Elizabeth here once, and Catherine passes by from time to time. But I had nothing to say to either of them, they had nothing to say to me."

"No? No explanation, no apology?"

"What would it matter? I do not feel I have any case to answer. I could explain to her my reasons, but I doubt she would thank me for the courtesy."

"And once more I am forced to wonder why I continue to keep your company."

"Because we are two of a kind, my dear. We two followed the call of our nature to its very hilt. We are archetypes, you and I, dealt from the Tarot into this little world, and here we abide for a while, and all about us men and women are drawn into our shadows. We cannot help what we are my dear."

"I cannot help what you may be, but I am just a woman, and he was just a man."

"Just a man? Is he really so low in your estimations? He was great, after all. One of the greats, you might say."

"Not to me."

"You disliked his music?"

"He was not his music. We are not all so defined by our works as you are."

"Ah, but my works were so singular. None that have followed have had my following, my influence. None of the others have echoed as I have. Look around you. Are any of the others in this place, any of those who followed me?"

"No, no you're quite the individual."

"You mock me?"

"I wouldn't dare."

"Come now, you think I'd hurt you?"

"You couldn't. Not here. I know that as well as you. None the less you're a dangerous man."

"I was a dangerous man. Now I am neither."

"Either way, you understand that I do not trust you."

"Oh of course. You'd be a fool if you did."

"How much do you remember?"

"About what I did?"

"No. About the rest."

"The rest?"

"Your life, your family, who you were."

"I am an archetype, one of the major arcana. I am Death in all its glory. I am a primal power, a force out of history, out of mythology."

"Do you even remember your name?"

"Of course. My name has echoed through the last hundred years."

"No. Not that name. Your real name."

"What is a real name? You are your deeds, you are your actions. My deeds have a name, and so that name is my name. Does it matter if I was a doctor or a fish porter? Does it even matter if I was a man or a woman? Death is death. Faceless, merciless. Kings and commoners alike broken under the hooves of my steed."

"You give yourself too many airs."

"As do you. At least I admit what I am. Do you remember any more than I?"

"I remember him."

"One man, one man and his music and his letters. Is that all there is to you?"

"There is more than that to me."

"Really? Then tell me your name."

"I am not just a name."

"You don't know, do you? You don't know any more than I do. You sit there so coy and so quiet and you can't admit that you aren't you any more. You belong to the ages, better or worse, right or wrong. That's why you come here."

"And why do you come here?"

"Precisely the same reason as you. Here is where I am now. It is, or so I understand, amongst the better options for those in our condition. Besides they serve passable tea here."

"And it doesn't bother you? Just being a. an idea? No memories, no past, no future just. tea with what's left of me for the rest of eternity."

"Considering how it could have been, I think I've done rather well. Besides, what does it matter who I was? I know who I am, or what I am, if you prefer. Have we. have we had this conversation before?"

"Every time I think. You see my problem."

"I still feel that there could be worse fates."

"You've finished your tea"

"You've finished your cake."

"Then I think it's time that I should go."

"Perhaps you should. I'll see you next time?"

"Yes. Of course."