Curry

The restaurant had been recommended by my colleague. Usually I do not like buffets, but the idea of three kinds of curry and unlimited nan for 600 yen ( about five dollars) sounded too good to be dismissed out of hand. It was after 2:00 when I got there and the lunch crowd must have already cleared out. The place was empty, except for the owner. He told me to sit anywhere I wanted, so I set the newspaper I had brought to read during lunch on a table and went to study the buffet. As promised there were three different curries bubbling away in the hot plates--vegetable, that lentil curry that I can never remember the name of and mutton. I decided to give the mutton a miss, but the other two did not look bad at all. I filled a plate with curry and nan. A slow afternoon of steaming food and reading my paper was spreading out before me.

When I got back to my table the owner was waiting for me. He was middle-aged, balding. He had a cauliflower shaped mole sprouting three hairs on his cheek and an odd rust colored dent in his head between the top of his nose and his eye-brow. I reminded myself to not think about his mole while I ate the vegetable curry. As I sat down he asked, "How did you hear about this place?"

"From my colleague," I told him.

"Is he American?"

"No he is British."

"But, you are American?" more of a statement than a question.

"Yes"

"Does he have a big nose?"

"Not so big, no."

"Is he short and very fat?"

"No. I guess he is about the same height as me."

"Does he limp?"

"Not that I noticed. No."

"Does he have a hump?"

"Hump?"

"You know on his back. A hump." He stooped and patted his back for emphasis.

"No. No hump." I had to wonder exactly what sort of foreign clientel frequented this place.

"Is he bald with glasses?

"Well, he is balding and yes he does wear glasses." Lucky guess I wondered or had he by chance stumbled upon some visual memory of Myles.

"The British like curry." Question, statement? I did not know.

"I have have heard so, Yes." Thinking that my own curry was getting cold.

"What kind of curry do they like?"

"I really have no idea. All kinds I guess." From what I had seen, just about any brand of curry would suit your average lad on his way home after a pub crawl.

I guess he thought that he had exhausted me as a source of information on the prospects of opening a curry house in England if this place failed. He walked away, but abrubtly returned with one of those yogurt drinks that I can never remember the names of.

He set it down. "Service," he said. "Is this your paper?" I had not opened it. I nodded, my mouth full of nan and curry. He picked it up, "May I borrow it?" he asked and walked into the kitchen opening it and scanning the headlines.

That was the last I saw of my paper.