Читать книгу Of Great Character - Joseph A. Byrne - Страница 3

The man sat in the Old Prussia House, renowned as one of Europe’s finest restaurants, in its finest city. It was Milan’s favourite spot, except for the Old Duluth, which had made a brief appearance in Rouyn, Quebec, while he was there.

He had ordered two small beers, which had come quickly. The food never came, but he didn’t seem to notice it. He sat there, dignified, intense, and waited.

Finally, after he had again sat there for a long period of time, the waitress came over. Politely, she explained she was just starting her shift and would be taking over his table.

“What would you like, sir?” she asked.

A silence set in—the type that is hard to explain. Everyone pretends not to notice it; no one interrupts it. Finally, he looked at her, “I would like sweet peas--only sweet peas.”

Perplexed, the waitress made her way back among the Napoleon cakes, the ones now only made in Europe, past the fine linen and pastry. She bypassed the order table and now made her way into the kitchen, the forbidden area, forbidden certainly to wait staff. She ignored the rules and made her way toward the head chef.

“He wants sweet peas, only sweet peas,” she told him.

As the waitress was back there, an older lady, dignified, sitting across from him, straightened up. She quickly glanced to where the waitress had been, but she had by now disappeared behind the swinging doors that led into the kitchen. She looked at the man sitting across from her. Obviously intrigued, she spoke.

“Sir, might I say that I have been around the world many times. Some would say that I know Africa better than I know the back of my own hand. They would say I’ve seen it all, but you intrigue me. I don’t know about sweet peas. Tell me about ‘sweet peas’.”

The man lowered his gaze. He looked at her. “What could possibly interest you about sweet peas?” he asked her. Then, he started to tell her about it.

“It was an honest time,” he said. “There was an honesty there that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. You got up at 3 a.m. and you went to the pea field. You worked until 3 a.m. and then you slept, if at all, until you started to work again, perhaps at 3 a.m. They’re nondescript, those men there. Yet, out there, I met some of the greatest men I’ve ever known. One of these men, I call ‘Sweet Peas’. He thinks he’s no one special. It was the Brezhnev era. The Cold War was really on. It was before the time of detente.”