Far and Near

Old pair of scarved ducks adjacent offering from their plate of fried bananas. Excuse me. Excuse me, indicating with a shovel hand. Almost defies belief. Earlier a mid-seventies chap at that table after his meal rising to go to the counter enquired whether a drink might be welcome. Followed by this pair. Let us mark it down appropriately. Two quite unfamiliar faces late sixties, perhaps early seventies. Possibly they have seen this mat salleh regular hereabouts. Many unknowns here of course have done so, many who come only periodically from some distance. That their little hub has been chosen by the outsider, a scribe of some sort, well-disposed clearly, is perfectly evident. Possibly they witnessed a brief exchange with the dotty waiter here, chap a bit scrambled, a figure of a little fun for some of his work-mates occasionally. Possibly the small exchange witnessed. The one this side bearing the mark of some Chin ancestry back somewhere. Flask brought from home — a better drop likely than what they serve at these places. Cap shared for drinking between them. Like many others of their kind, forehead down on the table-top at some humour, the one this side especially, fully three times bending. Sisters or sisters-in-law; outside chance wives indeed. One has witnessed perfectly amiable wives sitting close together like this. Their positive joy and elation in company suggested something else. Shortly after on the phone Opposite pronounces kaka, older sister, whereupon the woman proceeds to hand the phone across to the other. Mystery thereby solved. The White outsider who keeps up his appearance, an amenable sort, gets an arm-chair ride, Indian and Indon friends have remarked. To be sure, to be sure. Najib and the other ratty types are not likely to be offered such grace and generosity. These will get alms and a purchase of their tissues now and then: not this over-flowing hospitality. Be that as it may however, nevertheless. Inevitably the thought arrives how much had been lost to dear Bab divorced from brother and sisters in the long years of the second half of her life in the far distant foreign land. U daleki bjeli svjet bez idje ikoga, in the far white world without anyone near. The far bjeli, white world was eventually assumed to derive from the phraseology of mountain peoples accustomed to prospects across great spaces where far distant places stood behind the furtherest veils of light. Living in the midst of a strongly established, deeply rooted community has given rise to a good deal of similar reflection. A substitute ancestry standing in place of one lost long before. Turned out the flask in fact held no more than plain hot water, twenty cents per cup the charge at these street eateries.