Café Boris – The missing man

One morning Dmitri sat in Café Boris, eating an early lunch and reading a book he had been sent by one of his former students, a self-published collection of poetry. The poetry ranged from dense and thick as a Crimean forest to simply impenetrable.

The letter he was writing to the student lay empty, a blank page, waiting for the right words to arrive, seemingly abandoned, like a long-forgotten customer waiting for Boris to serve him.

A woman entered and, out of the corner of his eye, Dmitri noticed her carefully scanning the inhabitants of the café, before marching up to Boris at the counter.

“I would like a bulgar wheat salad and a coffee, please,” she said.

Boris scribbled down her order and took her money with minimal fuss. It was a quiet day in the café for once and, without an audience, Boris seemingly toned down his dislike of customers.

“I am looking for my husband,” the woman said. “I am told he used to drink here.

Boris shrugged his shoulders.

“All customers look the same to me,” he said, “I never ask their names. Try Dmitri here, he knows everybody.”

The woman sat down at Dmitri’s table. “Sorry to disturb you,” she said, “my name is Olyna Savarin.  My husband went missing four days ago. I have visited all of his haunts, but nobody has seen him.”

Dmitri recognised the name. “Vasyl Savarin Yes, he used to come here. We’ve shared a table when the café’s been full. You live in the Lenins’kyi district, yes?”

“That’s right,” the woman said. “When was he last here? Did he say anything about going away?” She paused, gritted her teeth, and continued, “Was he ever here with a woman?”

Dmitri shook his head. “No, he was always alone. On match days he would sometimes come with a few friends for a good-luck vodka before the game, but otherwise always alone, and never with a woman. As for when he was last in - Mykhaylo,” he shouted across the café, “you know Vasyl, you always talk football with him, when was he last here?”

The man in the corner shrugged, seemingly unwilling to respond further. However, when the woman glared at him he decided to speak.

“ A week, two weeks. Not in the last four days that’s for sure.”

“I’m sorry madam,” Dmitri said, “he has not been here, and did not mention going away.”

Olyna’s coffee and salad arrived. She sipped the coffee, but didn’t touch the food. “He disappeared, didn’t come home one night, never said anything. I don’t know what to think, is he dead, is he on the run, or has he left me?”

Dmitri sadly shook his head. “I have heard nothing. What do the police say?”

The woman spat the words of her reply angrily. “The police, they do nothing, I have no money to pay a bribe so they are not interested. They say come back when you know where he is.”

“There’s an inspector who sometimes comes here,” Dmitri said, “Viktor.  He’s a good man, he’s been known to work without a bribe. I’ll ask him. Come here tomorrow and you can meet him, tell him about your husband and he’ll do what he can.”

“Thank you.” The woman said, getting up to leave, without so much as attempting her food. “What time?”

In the afternoon, Viktor always has a late lunch, say about three?

“And no bribe?” she asked, as if not really believing.

“No bribe. Vasyl was a regular here so we will do what we can to help out, no charge. Bring a photo, if you have one, something Viktor can use to show people.”

As if inspired by the distraction from poetry, Dmitri began to write the letter to his former student, finding words that carefully avoided describing what he actually thought of the poetry. He paid particular attention to praising the binding and general quality of the book, ‘It is rare to find a self-published work of such high quality,’ he wrote, referring to the binding and the paper, seemingly unaware that his student would believe he was referring to the poems.

The next day Olyna returned to the café at the appointed time to find Dmitri sitting at his usual table, with a smartly dressed policeman in his mid-50s.

She sat down, failing to order food or coffee, as Boris was out in the kitchen arguing with Stephan. Their voices were so loud she had to raise her voice to be heard by Dmitri and the inspector.

“This is Viktor,” Dmitri said.

Viktor went straight to the point. “So, why are you asking for police help? Men leave their wives every day. You want us to waste our resources in finding his new girlfriend. People hire private investigators for that work.”

“I don’t think he left me, Inspector, not in that way. There has never been any hint of another woman and, well, without me he is useless, can’t tie his own tie, forgetting to eat. He hasn’t been to work, hasn’t been to this café, any other café or bar, hasn’t seen any of his friends.”

“So what do you think has happened? Did he have enemies?”

“None that I know inspector, but you know as well as I do …” she struggled to find the words. “The criminals these days. They don’t need a reason. A dispute over a loan, a wager, a price, an argument from ten years ago, people get killed for nothing.”

“You think he’s been murdered?”

“I don’t think anything. What am I supposed to think, murdered, ran away to escape a threat, eloped with a woman, it could be any of these, it could be none.”

“I’ll do what I can,” the inspector said, “ask at the hospitals and mortuaries. You have a photo?”

She handed over a brown envelope. “There are three photos there. None of them are ideal, one is twenty years old, one is only a rear view and one is from a fancy dress party.”

“A fancy dress party?”

“It was a retro party, celebrating the days of the Soviet Union. He went as Stalin. Usually he has no facial hair, I don’t allow hair on faces in my house, but for that one day only he wore a moustache.”

Viktor, himself handsomely clean shaven, nodded silent approval at this rule.

“I can try, but if I can’t find a body I can do no more. If he’s run away, through fear or through lust, then we may never know. I am a humble policeman, not a god.”

“Thank you,” she said, “and you don’t need any money for this service?”

Viktor shook his head. “The police pay me, sometimes at least. I get by without bribes from those that can’t afford them.”

In the silence the shouting match between Boris and Stephan could be heard clearly.

“What is that all about?” she asked.

“It is Boris,” Dmitri said, “he hates having so many customers so he posts bad reviews about the café on internet sites. Today he said it had the worst food and the worst chef in Ukraine.”

The woman laughed and the three of them listened to Boris and Stephan, while they each decided what they might say next.

“The worst chef in Ukraine, you call me, you put it in print where my mother can read it, and her mother, and the souls of my ancestors. You shame me in front of my family.”

“It’s for your good Stephan, we have too many customers why they come here I don’t know? I try to stop them, so that we both can live happy, peaceful lives.”

Stephan took off his apron and threw it to the floor.

“I don’t come here to be called the worst chef in the world.”

“Where do you go then?”

“Anywhere, anywhere else in the world where my cooking is respected.”

Boris and Stephan argued every day, just one of over a hundred standing arguments Boris kept up. He had running disputes with people from 37 different ethnic origins in 18 different languages. Every few days Stephan would storm out, claiming he had had enough, but he had always come back, just as Boris’ customers came back to haunt him and to taunt him. If there were more cafés like Boris’ in the world there would never be any more wars, all anger and aggression would simply be channelled at Boris instead.

With the sideshow over, eventually Olyna spoke.

“It’s like I’m a goddess,” she said.

Dmitri and Viktor looked at each other, both confused by her statement.

“See this,” she gestured to the ring on her finger, “I am like a Roman goddess, married to the air.”

Ah. Dmitri nodded his understanding.

“How long?” she asked.

“Come back on Friday,” Vicktor said. “If there is anything to know I shall know it then.”

After she had left Dmitri said to Viktor “What do you think?”

“A feisty woman, I would like to have known her when she was younger, but five, ten years too old for me.”

“No, you fool,” Dmitri said, “what do you think your chances are of finding her husband?”

Viktor scanned the photos of Stalin, the back of a balding head and a young man who could have become anybody. “Not good,” he said, “not good.”

xxx

On Friday the woman returned. The café was in chaos, Stephan had failed to return and Boris was struggling to deal with the mass of customers.

She eventually found her way to the front and ordered coffee. Boris took her money but made no sign of doing anything with her order.

In spite of the crowd, or rather because of it, Dmitri and Viktor had gone to great lengths to reserve a seat for her, and it took over a minute to remove various coats, hats and bags from the chair.

No further time was wasted.

“Well?” she asked.

Viktor shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve asked at police stations, hospitals, newspapers, even my contacts in the underworld. A few people recognised Stalin, but beyond that, nothing.”

“So what should I do?”

“Live your life. Wherever your husband is, dead or alive, you are free of him now. Enjoy your future.”

It was good advice. Seemingly relieved at being given permission to give up her search, the woman suddenly burst into tears.

Dmitri and Viktor sat awkwardly, surrounded as they were by tourists, hastily-moved coats and hats, and a tearful woman.

Eventually Olyna recovered herself and, realising her coffee hadn’t arrived, marched up to Boris at the counter.

“Where’s my coffee?” she demanded.

Boris shrugged.

“I am without a chef. He leave me, everybody let me down, my chef by leaving, my customers by turning up. It is a mad, crazy world.”

“You don’t need a chef to make coffee, get off your helpless backside you lump.”

“I didn’t ask you to come to Café Boris.”

“It’s the last place in the world I’d want to come. I’m only here to look for my useless husband. At least make my visit tolerable with a good, strong coffee.”

“You have taste, you wouldn’t come here if you didn’t have to. I respect that. For you I will make the finest coffee ever served in Café Boris.”

“See, this woman is sensible,” he announced to his customers, “she hates it here, she wouldn’t step foot in my door if she wasn’t seeking her husband. This woman I respect, I will make her proper coffee, strong and hot, not like the awful coffee I make the rest you.”

It annoyed Boris that every time he insulted his customers in this way it was greeted with cheering and applause. He couldn’t understand that people came to his café just to hear his insults, but it was exactly this confusion that made his customers laugh so every time he hurled abuse at them.

The coffee, when it finally arrived, was adequate, meaning that Boris was true to his word.

xxx

For the next few months Olyna would turn up at the café every week or so for news of her husband, but nothing was seen nor heard from him again.

This was an anarchic period for the café, during which time Boris hired and fired chefs at an insane rate, often two or three per day. The queues and complaints reached record levels, yet, such was the nature of his clientele, he never lost any customers through it. If anything, there were more people than ever before.

The anarchy ended one day in June where, tired of stretching her pension and the continued absence of the air to which she was married, Olyna turned up to start work as the new chef. Anarchy was quickly shown to the door.