During the Tokugawa Period in Japan (1600-1868) the word "ukiyo" came to describe the meaningless pleasure and ennui that was the lifestyle for many people in the cities, particularly Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. "Floating world" is the English translation.
It is said that the geisha, or courtesan, occupied a separate reality known as "karyukai", or the "flower and willow world". The geisha entertained their customers with the tea ceremony, and with a cultured presentation of music, dance, and conversation.
***
It was Adam's first day in a new office, a five block walk from the bus stop. He knew he couldn't function without a morning cup of coffee, but this end of town was new to him, not familiar at all. So he checked out both sides of the street as he walked along, looking for a typical city block café, hoping that the barista would be good, and the distance from the office just right.
Was this the best there was? The Cambridge Street Café? An unimaginative but honest trading name. Christ, red chequered table cloths and sepia photographs of Paris. Fucking Monday and he's cynical already, the café is a cliché. A bell jangled when he pushed the door open, but the counter was deserted.
"Sorry, I was out back in the kitchen, what will you have?"
You, he thought, caught instantly by her grace and shy smile.
"A medium latte, take away, please."
"OK, my pleasure," she replied, turning to the espresso machine; her hands busy, her long hair twisting outwards with the turn of her body.
No, mine, Adam thought, as he watched her precise movements, her slim fingers reaching for a paper cup then gripping the tamper, pressing down the coffee, flicking the tap. As the steam rushed into the milk, her hands became still as she held the stainless steel jug, both hands around its body, judging the temperature. Perfection. The woman became a moment in time in front of him, and Adam gazed upon her. The second hand on the wall clock froze, tick but no tock. The ceremony had begun.
Adam watched the woman as she concentrated on serving him, her hands slow, her eyes ever so slightly narrowed in a small frown and her lips ever so slightly parted. She was slender, narrow hipped with a slim waist, her breasts barely shaping the front of her waitress tunic. Her hair was long, coiled black falling down her back, falling to the line of her hips. Adam imagined that silken black hair wrapping over his arm, if he could take her by the waist and escort her to a dance floor.
Feeling herself observed, the woman turned to her customer. "I have not seen you here before, have I?"
Her accent was foreign; Hong Kong Chinese, Adam thought, English not her native language.
"No. Today is my first day in a new job. I'm going to the headquarters building a block down."
"Oh yes, I know it."
She snapped a plastic lid onto the paper cup.
"There. Coffee for you." Her words had a slight upwards lilt, as if the statement was also a question.
Adam passed her the right money, touching her fingers as he did so. Her fingers were warm. The woman smiled at his touch. That was an answer.
"Thank you." Adam's voice softened, and he too smiled.
The door jangled behind him as he went out to the street. The decor of the café didn't matter, thought Adam, the woman was a lovely start to his day, a delicacy. Her coffee was good, too.
The next day was the same, Adam's gaze, her quiet serenity. This time he picked up a loyalty card, which she stamped with a smiley face in one little box. Her words were the same: "there, coffee for you."
Adam gave her a bank note, and she brushed his fingers with hers as she gave back the change. Her fingers were warm. The coffee was hot.
The next day, she smiled as Adam entered the café, and turned immediately to the espresso machine to prepare his order. This time he gave her the right money, and their little touch in the morning was a simple human contact between a man and a woman. It was only a small thing, but became everything in the moment between the tick of the clock and the tock.
Over the days their ritual was the same, and it became a small ceremony between them. They were both formal with it, and the sun slowly shifted its light on the stone tiled floor as the season lengthened and a little friendship was made in the mornings. The shadow of a decorative branch by the door marked the passage of time. Some days the shadow was dark and etched on the floor, the sun bright outside; other days the shadow was gone, and it rained.
Over the days, Adam told her of his children who he loved; and she told him of her mother in Shanghai who was old, and she worried. Out back in the kitchen, her husband would look through the serving hatch and nod his greeting. Adam wondered what the quiet cook thought of this man who looked upon his wife with affection, whose fingers always traced hers as his money was given.
It was a subtle, lingering movement. Adam's palm would be turned up, the coins resting in the cup of his fingers. She would lightly slide her fingers over the top of his, covering the coin in the shadow of her hand, and their hands would turn together so that her palm received his offering. Adam would slide his fingers from hers, his payment made. "Coffee for you," she would say, but they both knew the payment wasn't for the coffee.
Even on the tenth days, when there was no money between them (the little smiley faced stamp keeping its record of the passing days), she would return the card to Adam's palm, her fingers long and fine against his, caressed and slow.
At first, their hands would only lightly touch, eyes looking down at the movement of their fingers, but over the days they learned each other's touch and they looked up to each other's face. Adam saw her pupils go wide and dark with his caress, and she controlled the intake of her breath. After she shut the cash drawer of the till, her fingers would go each day to the same place on her throat to feel the heat of her rising flush. Adam felt his own deeper pulse, and her lips reddened. But their fingers never held, only lingered.
After many days, Adam told her that his time in the building down the block was ending, he was going somewhere else. She in turn explained that she and her husband were selling the café and returning to China, for her mother was ill. So the little love between their fingers would be parted, and their hearts would beat a little slower.
On the afternoon of Adam's last Friday, he went into the café just before it closed for the day.
"Hello, I've come to say goodbye. It's my last day today, so I thought I would drop by to see you, before I go."
"Oh, that is sad. But we close next week anyway, and we'll be gone, too."
Her husband came from the kitchen out back and stood, waiting. She came from behind the counter and surprised Adam, coming right up to embrace him, holding him tight. She was slender and fragile in his arms, and Adam held her. She lay her cheek on his shoulder and he held her close. He looked up, and saw her husband looking at him. The man nodded a greeting, to acknowledge this man in his woman's quiet mornings.
Adam kissed her hair and her hand pressed back against his arm, this first time held for them both to remember. As they parted, he ran his fingers down the long length of her hair to the top of her hip, and pressed his hand there, where her hair ended. If they had danced, he would have pulled her body close to his, his hand sliding from her hip to her small waist. But they weren't dancing, only their fingers had danced.
Adam left the delicate woman and turned to her husband, offering his hand in a last greeting and a thanks. They shook hands, strangers in a café, men bonded because of a woman.
Adam turned back to the woman and touched his fingers to her cheek. He mouthed the word, goodbye. Her fingers touched his lips, and the clock stopped.
"There. No more coffee for you."Her voice was soft and low, her eyes bright.
"No, no more coffee for me. Thank you for all of them, they were just right. Lovely."
You're lovely, Adam thought, standing there in your purple waitress' uniform, your long hair falling, twisting. Longing for her, he turned and went out the door, turning left down the footpath. A rich, slightly acrid scent of her lingered in his senses.
It wasn't until he was on the bus that Adam realised why the pungency of her scent was so familiar. It was on her fingers, a last payment for him, the hem of her dress lifted and her fingers dipped. So quick, while Adam was shaking her husband's hand.
***
With his new job Adam found another café, this one on a corner facing east, the morning sun hot as the days grew longer. His order was always the same, a latte. It gave him familiarity and constancy, the small ceremony a meditation, stopping the world for a moment. Adam sometimes wondered if life was just a collection of moments, with living the long spaces in between.
This girl's movements were slow and unrushed. There was rarely a queue in the corner café, and the barista filled the space with her own time. Adam would sit, and his long gaze went behind the counter. The girl was curvier than the Chinese woman, and younger. Adam didn't mind her youth nor her curves, both were delectable.
She kept the milk in a fridge behind the counter, and would bend at the waist to reach for it; her thighs tight and her ass nicely rounded in black jeans, the crisp rectangle of a phone in her back pocket. The girl was Arabic, and Adam imagined a curling thickness of black hair along her lips as she bent. She pulled hair back from her face, and a fine down of blackness was there too, on the nape of her neck.
