Read Online Translated Accounts by James Kelman - Free Book Online Page B

close to them, why not miles apart, allowing more respite to them,
they wondered.
    My coffee was to spoil their morning. They had judged my value thus continuing to smoke their cigarettes. One now was talking, others listening, one nervous man ending his cigarette too soon,
seeing it in the ashtray, rubbing his chin and pulling on his ear, now chewing his fingernails, the others having much left to smoke and this was the last now, soon customers would come and none
could leave this place for three more hours, and all smoking would be outside in the alleyway, back entrance to the kitchen. I saw the brains in this man’s head, thumping on the shell, let me
out let me out, I cannot stay in this job, it is not a job, how can a man live like this, I am leaving, I am going to Germany, to Copenhagen, I am told Oslo is good, in Amsterdam people have
respect. Yes yes, go there. I go there. Why not Paris. Paris. Or London, Amereeca, New York, a fellow from our family’s village was leaving to New York, our grandfather’s friend, many
years ago, our grandfather gave him a present in farewell, his shirt, very fine shirt, our grandmother was impatient with him, she said, You have no shirts for other people, he has a ticket to
travel to America and you have nothing.
    And onwards the past, never-ending, what future, what life to come, there is nothing, continuation only, if there is that. And I was to relax, these nerves were my own, chewing my fingernails, I
had cigarettes, one now one later, money for cigarettes later, yes it would come, future was to come also. At this table I could not see to the harbour but to the side, and through the window there
was the alleyway, route as she would arrive safely by my side. Now the waiter, an older fellow, moving as though to approach my table but he did not, merely shifted one chair, returning to the
other waiters, not looking to myself, I did not exist for him. He was too old for such a job. He was the clever one among them. Yet his trousers were very shiny and the sleeves of his shirt, cuffs
of these with threads coming from them. He was always the waiter, not having progressed. This was his final opportunity. Even so he could not ever be good, not at a job such as this. No, he could
not even smile, he had not learned how this might be done. He tells his wife, I cannot even smile.
    But you must try.
    I try.
    No, you do not, you do not, if so, otherwise, then you would.
    This leaves him silent. He has no answer.
    And she continues. Oh you must try.
    I shall.
    You must. If it is the last thing.
    But it lies always beyond him, he cannot smile, not even that. And here now in the middle period of his days, watching the young men, hoping better for them, instilling in them questions, not to
accept, not to conform to such expectation, low-level. Who tells you, whose expectation, what authority, by whose authority. He tells the young men they must not look to him as an example, except
if as a bad example. Do not become like me, above all.
    And there is the story of his brother, or his uncle, what of his uncle, or wife’s father, that old man, now dead, long since, of his dreams. And the women, all of them, and their stories,
what of them, these people, could they take leave from my brain, go, please go.
    These waiters were not serving. These waiters who were not serving myself.
    What was the time, near to food, people arriving, as also the woman, when she would arrive if she was to arrive, not to arrive. What then, if she did not. I was to consider it, I had to, and
then further, all possibilities, if she did not arrive then, what I was to do, the bag at my feet, lying there. And these lives around me, all were there in my head, filling my brain, boys with
their great-grandfathers and girls and their mothers and ancestors, old old ladies, wizened and laughing, waiters and their wives, their dreams and clothes drying, sea wind. This waiter, this
elder, his face opened then hardening,