An Evening Meal in Paris
A light rain is falling on the canopy of an outdoor café as we sit with dozens of others gathered there. It is 10:00 p.m – a typical time for Parisians to dine. As we examine the menu, I am distracted by seeing a middle-aged man step under the canopy, lightly brush the rain from his shoulders, and gaze for a moment at the crowd as though he was looking for someone he might recognize. With a hesitating look, he glanced at us – and I wondered…do we look different?…or was he hearing a language that was familiar to him?…or perhaps foreign? He then sat down at a table for two, close by ours.
A waiter soon brought the menu; after a moment of discussion, he returned with a bottle of wine and a glass. The man poured the glass half full, swirled it about, passed it under his nose, and took a modest sip, followed by an unconscious slight nod of approval. He slouched back in his chair, fingers tapping a light rhythm on the tabletop, and stared off into the distance of the rainy night.
I was curious – was he also a tourist? Was he expecting someone to join him for dinner? As he again glanced our way, I thought, should we invite him to join us — is he lonesome in a foreign land?
His dinner order arrived, and he took his time eating, now and then enjoying his wine. Soon he finished the main course, the wine bottle was empty, and the dessert came along with a glass of wine.
The meal finished, he sat back for a moment of apparent satisfaction, hands clasped across his stomach. Upon standing, he reached in his pocket for coins, placed them on the table and stepped out into a misty rain, and merged into the sidewalk crowd.
As he disappeared from my sight, I still wondered – what were his thoughts as he sat there alone?
Did we miss an opportunity to be a friend to a lonely soul?
I guess I’ll never know.
Dick Thayer- August ’07
Comments
An Evening Meal in Paris — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>