Aquarium

By Iosif Radek

Chloe is in trouble. Her mother has died, her father is a drunk who likes to shout at her, and she doesn't know what to do with her life. Meanwhile, Iosif Radek spends his time writing, reading books, studying the Kabbalah, and drinking coffee at the café where Chloe works. And the Mormon poet Bruno Marias is drinking coffee in secret so that the other Mormons won't see him. And Patrick is now a woman. And Andrew wants to kick Patrick's ass. And…

Iosif Radek's second book tells the story of various characters living in Oxford who are trying to find themselves and a way of escaping their problems. It also shows us how some of us can make a significant difference in someone's life just by being there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iosif Radek
• Release date: Aug 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201879945

Book preview

By Iosif Radek

This is a work of fiction. Get it? Fiction...

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places and events, is entirely coincidental.

Get it?

Coincidence...

Aquarium

1 – Civilised savages

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Pam: the life of a barista

I’m 47-years-old. I’ve being doing this job for 30 years now, running from table to table or standing by the counter, waiting for the people to arrive, serving coffee and cakes and sandwiches and whatever we serve at the café. Sometimes I call this place the cage because, on busy days, that’s how it feels like; a cage filled with civilised savages, savages with good positions or crappy jobs, savages with secrets, savages with fears and hopes and dreams, savages with no manners at all (and those are the real savages) or savages with manners (the real civilised savages).

Things have changed throughout the years, sometimes so fast, sometimes so dramatically, never slowly, and there are days when I wonder what people will actually serve one day at a café.

Nowadays coffee has so many names but I still don’t drink the stuff, not because I’m a Mormon like good old Bruno, the thin poet who comes here every Friday afternoon for lunch, but because I don’t really like coffee. I’ve tried it, of course, with and without milk, with sugar and without sugar (I prefer it with milk and sugar), but it was never my thing. I drink juice, sometimes tea, or just plain water. I’ve tried all these modern drinks, iced-coffee and whatever, but I don’t fancy any of it. Sometimes I might drink a hot chocolate, which is what Bruno drinks.

I’ve been working at this café for 10 years now. Before that, I used to work at a restaurant, or a café if you prefer, or cafeteria, and I worked there for 15 years, but then that place closed down because the competition increased and the owner couldn’t keep up with it. He was old school, too proud or too old to change his ways, and so he had to close his place down. He’s still working, driving a delivery truck for one of those big supermarkets, and he’s happier now as he has more time to spend with his family. What really blows my mind is that we used to serve great food in good portions at the restaurant where I used to work, and the food was good value for money, and in this café where I work now we only serve sandwiches, cakes, and a few other items, all overpriced, but this place does good business, which makes me wonder how smart people are nowadays when they rather spend more money on a sandwich and on a cup of overpriced coffee than on a meal. But I’m not complaining. I have a job and that’s all that matters.

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I’m the oldest barista at this café. Most of the other baristas are students who work here for a year or two and then move on. Then someone else takes their places and I have to teach them the ropes.

There’s this girl called Chloe who has been working here for over a year. She’s the second longest serving barista, behind me of course, since I’ve been here for 10 years, maybe more. I’ve already said that, haven’t I? Oh well, I’ll say it again. No harm in that. Like Iosif says, sometimes repetition is good.

The job is okay and the hours suit me just fine because I have the nights free and at night I like to have sex with my husband or watch television, or both –have sex and watch television, but not at the same time.

I serve all kinds of people at the café; arrogant and polite people, that’s the only two types of people there are, and you can say that there are more types of people, like snobs and fools, but those categories belong in the arrogant category, and then there are the good customers, the ones who are always patient, the ones who always greet you and smile, and those belong in the polite category.

There’s this man who comes here quite often who is on top of the list of the arrogant category. His name is Andrew Deacon and he is such an idiot, so arrogant and ignorant, ugly and pathetic, so in love with himself even though he’s so arrogant and loud, and none of the workers like him. He tends to come to the café around lunch time when the place is at its busiest, and while he’s waiting in the queue he puffs and shakes his head, and sometimes he turns to one of his work colleagues, sniggers, and says, Must be a hard job pouring a cup of coffee.  

And then he laughs loudly while one of his colleagues giggles nervously.

Andrew Deacon is a young man in his thirties and the reason why I know his name is because once he left his work pass behind, and we kept it for him behind the counter until he returned for it. Which he did. And he never thanked us for it.

There’s this other man, also in his thirties, Russian, a novelist with one book and a few short stories published, who also comes to the café, and he always drinks a flat white, and he’s on top of the polite category. His name is Iosif and he wrote a book called Every Love Story is a Sad Story, and when I read the tittle of his book I said, Depressing title.

Iosif said, The book is about an ex-girlfriend and her fight with depression.

And then he looked down, at his drink, and I wondered what happened to his girlfriend. I never asked. I’m curious but I’m not nosy.

I bought his book but I still haven’t read it as I’ve been too busy reading a series of novels written by a writer called Elena Ferrante. She writes about things that I would like to write about, but I don’t have the patience or the talent needed to write a short story, never mind a novel.

Whenever Iosif is at the café he tends to write or read, pausing in between to look out of the window, and when I look at him, he looks to be lost in his thoughts, probably wondering what to write about or maybe he’s thinking about what he’s writing. Most of the time he is alone, but sometimes he sits with Bruno and they have long conversations, long and intense by the looks of it, because they gesture a lot when they talk, and they puff and lean back on their seats, still puffing, their hands moving wildly in the air, looking as if they are holding invisible swords, and then Iosif swallows the coffee and Bruno swallows the hot chocolate, and they look at one another and keep on talking, less intensively, and then they lower their hands, and maybe they laugh or maybe they don’t. But this only happens once or twice a month, maybe more, maybe three or four times a month, because Iosif and Bruno tend to come to the café at different hours. Also, Bruno is a Mormon so on Sundays he’s at church while Iosif is here, and Iosif is Jewish so on Saturdays he’s at the synagogue while Bruno comes to the café early in the morning.

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I mentioned my colleague Chloe but only briefly so I think that I should say a bit more about her. She’s very pretty and thin, and very quiet, really quiet but intense, as if she has some kind of rage or fury (is it the same? is rage the same as fury?) burning inside of her, just dying to come out, just waiting to be released and take out everyone in front of her. Not me, I hope.

She quit her studies for a while, or at least that’s what she told me one day when I asked her what happened to her studies, and I wonder if she will go back to university. Once, when I asked her about it, she told me that she needed some time off, and then she gave a  terrible long sigh, and I didn’t ask her anything else about her studies.

We make choices and then we have to live with them, and I hope Chloe makes the right choices. But is it so terrible to be a barista or a waitress for the rest of one’s lives? I don’t know...

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All my life I have been working in this city, cycling or walking to work, or getting a lift from my husband, and I never had to worry about travelling that far to go to work. I see other people who supposedly have better jobs than me but they are always puffing and complaining about the lack of time to do something with their lives, and many of them, when they’re at the café, while they’re eating or drinking, they are still working, typing numbers and figures, glued to their laptops, or sending emails to other colleagues. These people don’t seem to enjoy their lives. Sometimes I hear one of them saying, I’ve been to California, or I’ve just returned from Dubai, and then he or she or them smile proudly, but later on I see them leaning forward on the table, hands on their heads, looking a bit lost, a bit tired, a bit sad, and I wonder if they’re really enjoying their lives.

Many of them have the need to boast about their success and trips –and they do it loudly- but I wonder if they are really that happy.

They spend their lives running around, always rushing from place to place, deadlines on their minds, always puffing and cursing, while I stand still in the same place, living my life as quietly as possible.

I travel too with my husband and our kids, and only last year we went to Spain, but I don’t have the need to brag about it to everyone. And if I’m quite honest about it, I would rather stand still at home, in my city, than travel a lot. I have everything that I need at home and when I travel I have to rush about and eat out almost every night instead of eating a homemade meal. And then there’s the waiting at airports, waiting on queues, traffic, chaos, etc., etc.

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I have never missed a days’ work in my entire life while this new generation of workers tend to be sick quite often, especially on weekends or on Mondays. They probably miss work just so they can go out on the weekends and get drunk and high on drugs, and then on Mondays they are too sick to come to work.

There was this girl who worked at the café for a year or so and she never managed to do a full weeks work during the entire year as she was always late or sick. She was useless, utterly useless, a bit of a dreamer, not to mention a bit of a lazy cow, a spoiled bitch who thought she was too good for this place. Her name’s Trisha and she was always looking down on me, and once she