It’s not that I mind the five Euro plate. I like a cafeteria where you choose exactly what and how much you want. Here you hand your ticket over and a plate comes back with your meat, and its unlimited return for the vegetables! I like seeing other’s plates piled absurdly high and sprinkled at the last with fries. What I mind, I realize, is having to eat it with all the others who are reduced to this circumstance.
I understand that money is the exchange for respite from these realities. At 47 I can admit that I couldn’t bear this sentence forever - to be attendant on all this misery. Call it what you want – a pessimistic bent, PMS – the hordes here are not easily swallowed.
I could even live on the two Euro plate in solitude. But here I notice the immigrant daughter, slightly risen from the terms of employment of her father, who sits across from her with adoring eyes, covered in plaster dust with his knee pads still on; the fat Muslim mamas swallowed in their robes, pushing wailing children with their trays atop the strollers. I can’t help interpreting the lives eating next to me. That’s my job.I focus on the misshapen head of the boy eating alone in his stained polo shirt. I want to howl. But I am here too.
I can’t be a pessimist. I believe in eternal life, the loving turning of the cosmos, the interconnectedness of all beings, the power of the spirit, romance, even in magic. I’m one of the good guys.
Three quarters through my plate of fried fish, overcooked spinach and oily potatoes I start to notice again the good cheer of the other people in the crowded underground room. The non-stop jabbering in sing-song syllabic French no longer makes me want to run myself through with a knife. I forget again that the décor is that of a cheap Vegas motel. The heat is still stifling, but I see the lovely creases underneath the older men’s eyes. There is bravery and tenacity here. The old ladies’ ice cream sundaes are processed across the carpeted floor like jewels.
Could it be that my ill will was the result of an empty stomach? Was I only hungry?
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