The Old Man
After “Old Man Sleeping, Carmel” by Johan Hagemeyer

Meera arrived at the cafe off the piazza just before noon. She sat at one of the little metal tables in the terrace and looked around for a waiter, smoothing down her hair. Jack wasn’t there yet, but then she knew that he wouldn’t be. He was never early. 

    There was no one else outdoors, just an old man with a newspaper and a scruffy dog laying at his feet, tied to his chair with a length of rope. On his table, a bottle of wine in an ice-bucket pooled condensation and a cigarette trickled grey smoke from an ashtray. An air of loneliness hung around him like a distasteful odour. 

    A bell tinged as the door of the cafe opened and a waiter with curly black hair hurried towards her. Even under the shade of the canopy, she could feel the weight of the sun; little droplets of sweat were forming between her shoulder blades, descending down the contours of her back. The waiter handed her a menu and poured water into her glass from a silver carafe. 

    ‘Tu sei –,’

    ‘I’m waiting for someone,’ she said. 

    Her Italian was poor but the waiter seemed to understand and went back inside. The old man rustled his newspaper as a slight breeze kicked up dust in the square and carried a fragrance, musty almost, like flowers wilting in the heat. 

    Meera opened the menu but she didn’t look at it. She watched the people coming and going from the shops. An old woman with a wicker basket over her arm, a businessman in a grey suit with a mustard yellow tie – wading slowly through the bleached noonday light. She took a sip of the water which was tepid. Still, it felt delicious slipping down – it seemed to still the fluttery feeling inside of her – a feeling like a laugh caught in her throat. She felt it whenever she was with Jack, or even when she thought of him. When would he come? She rolled a small pebble around beneath the toe of her sandal, smiling to herself as she planned how they would spend the afternoon.

    After a little time, the old man got up. He snuffed out his cigarette and untied the dog, which stretched its front paws and looked up at the man with fondness.  He paused when he came to her table, smiling down at her in a constrained way, as a person might smile at a funeral. She worried he was going to ask to sit down. She could see his blotchy, wrinkled skin – the pastry crumbs caught in the course grey hairs of his beard. His body smelled stale, like something gone off.

    ‘You wait for someone?’

    ‘Yes, he’ll be here soon.’

    The old man bent down and patted his dog’s head. Then he sighed and reached inside his jacket, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to her, dabbing at his forehead with his sleeve. ‘He will not come,’ he said, and sighed again.

She looked up in surprise but the man was already moving away from her, crossing the square with his little dog, two dark shapes against the bright glare of the sun.

—Danielle Charles-Davies

Danielle Charles-Davies is a freelance writer and photographer from northern Michigan. Her work has been published in Taproot Magazine, Kindred Magazine, and The Simple Things, among others. She blogs about mood-inspired cooking at bluemoonkitchen.com.