21.12.09. Coffee and hospitality, or, ‘Happy Birthday Dad!’
I thought I had left behind such confusion in Italy. “Just a regular coffee to go,” I said. “A latte, cappuccino, mocha?” the barista pressed. “No,” I said. “The house blend.” I saw the coffee in the pot; I pointed to help the man. He turned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t serve you that to go.”
It was Monday, my first afternoon in Dublin, and after months of sipping thimbles of Italian espresso I had found my beloved pot of coffee. At the Bewley’s Cafe, no less, the locale that my English friends and guidebooks of choice raved about. And this man refused to pour me a cup.
I was not denied my coffee in the end; across the street was a Starbucks, one of three I would find in the Dublin city center, and lovingly they served me their Christmas blend. “Would you like space?” my barista asked, in textbook lilting Irish. Never would I elect for “room,” but “space” was enticing. One can move about in space and fill it with things, things beyond milk. For space the Protestants went to America, for space the Irish proclaimed independence. Probably to find space I came to Italy. Still, on this day I took my coffee full. I received my red cup of snowflakes and turtledoves, paid with a five-euro note—a bizarre exchange; one buys Starbucks with dollars—and left.
I cannot but say that my Christmas blend put me in the happy direction, but I had been willing to wait a few more months for Starbucks. I wanted Irish coffee, which does not in fact include whiskey by default—though it’s true much of the population drinks like new sod. Bewley’s thus continued to tempt me, despite its intransigence. The cafe is on Grafton St., one of Dublin’s primary shopping districts and a corner kick from Trinity College—though perhaps this metaphor is in poor taste, given the recent and controversial failure of the Irish to reach the World Cup. One passes by on each visit to campus or to Butler’s chocolate shop—there a cookie hot chocolate and complimentary truffle stave off the gales of Dublinian winter—and the cursive writing on the Bewley’s display window beckons. Folks inside enjoy warm beverages and desserts and “scones,” which I’m pretty sure are just biscuits, and practice leisure. By Thursday, and after three stamps on my Butler’s drink card, I broke down and re-entered Bewley’s. The beast left me no choice but to enter its belly.
Immediately its caliber struck me as I attempted to sit at one of the few empty tables and was forestalled. “Wait a moment please,” the hostess said. She completed some bit of hostess minutiæ, then led me three steps to my table. When I had sat successfully, she left.
Indeed Bewley’s is the class of Dublin; the cafe’s premium “filter coffee” costs €2.50 for a small, and €4.50 for a large. I selected the small and a chocolate chip cookie, this with some gourmet twist that my server explained and I failed to understand. (I encountered more language problems than I expected while in Ireland. The accent, though strong enough to reinforce the stereotypes I held about Irish speech—interwoven plaintiveness and cheer founded on insistent vowels—the accent did not prevent my understanding. The vocabulary did. The male bathroom, for instance, is the “Jacks'.” My failure to cite other examples of the Irish lexicon is because I didn’t understand them well enough to repeat them here.)
When the coffee arrived, I understood why I was previously refused a cup to go. Bewley’s filter coffee, preëminent blend that it is, is served in a cafetière, or French press. The customer thus enjoys the privilege of self-pressing his coffee. I slowly and knowledgeably depressed the handle of the cafetière, waited an amount of time that seemed suitable, then poured my first cup of Bewley’s house coffee.
I ought to say at this point that I was sick. I was ignoring my illness with considerable success, as I have ignored it so far in this essay, but when I look back in my journal I see ‘Tuesday. 5:40. Maybe I am getting sick.’ ‘Wednesday. 10:40. I am surely sick.’ ‘Wednesday. 2:47. I’m exhausted.’ ‘Thursday. 12:01. I am truly sick.’ This last entry I made at Bewley’s while I wore my winter coat and scarf and cap and sipped my coffee.
So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when after my coffee and cookie I began to stop seeing things. Well-lit Bewley’s went dark. I had been holding on so well, taking imported Italian ibuprofen and ambling and sleeping lots; maybe it was the sudden caffeine, so pure in Bewley’s refined roast, which sent me tumbling. I stood and made for the Jack’s on the third floor, marching slowly upward. Except my muscles too lost power, and my climb became that of Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park, having lost his glasses and dino DNA capsules with a dilophosaurus on the loose, wanting only to return to the safety of his park jeep. All I wanted was to be in the Jacks'. Yet as the mud and rain and projectile-acid halt Nedry, so my body in revolt halted me. I struggled for hours, for seconds, then made an about-face and collapsed to a sitting position. Next I was aware, three Bewley’s employees hovered over me. “Are you all right?” “Would you like us to call an ambulance?” “You look pale.” I responded in a way that kept away ambulances and got me re-seated on the next floor in front of a carafe of water.
For the next hour or so I drank like new sod. I stared at the Bewley’s menu (“Olives may contain stones”), until one of my attendant waitresses walked by and lay it face-down, as if to scold me for my mental exertion. I stared at the cheesecakes in the dessert display and the bottles of wine lining the walls, mostly red, some stoppered. People around me ate and did a good job not staring at me. I caught no one, despite my apparent pastiness and full winter dress and team of three waiters.
Around the 450mL mark I did start to feel better, but I feared to stand. If I collapsed again they would surely call an ambulance, and that would surely impede my sight-seeing. I did feel okay, but I had felt okay when I came in, my journal entries notwithstanding. Maybe it was best to stand and collapse and go to the hospital; I’d never been to an Irish hospital. If it was anything like Bewley’s, it must have been quite nice.
When I finally stood my feet held, alas. Under my own power I went downstairs to pay and I smiled and assured everyone I was quite certain to pull through. They let me leave, which I had doubted, and I was allowed to continue my course through the city. I’m not sure that if I were in a cafe in Eugene or Pavia and fell unconscious the workers would not help me similarly, but Irish hospitality in my experience distinguished itself for its sincerity. They took care of me not as a customer of Bewley’s but as a guest in their home, they showed no annoyance despite the crowd of other customers, and one waiter even gave me a buck-up slug on the knee. I was not going to die on their watch, whatever my story was.
At other times during my trip I experienced similar instances of dogged hospitality. Beggars solicited with an amiable, “Can you spare any change, love?” (love!), several quite random Trinity students absorbed me into their groups on three separate evenings, and a certain gentleman Sean guided me to Kilmainham Gaol (jail) after seeing me pass by the same place twice and assuming correctly I was lost. We chatted during the five-minute walk, and afterward I thanked him for rescuing me. “You’re welcome,” said Sean. “You were one of the better ones. Sometimes I offer to show people the jail and they shake their heads and go on their way.” I’m not sure why that would be; the jail is somewhat hidden, and Sean is a non-threatening, roughly 60-year-old man. But what is clear is that Irish hospitality is an opt-out rather than opt-in system. Once in the country, you’re fair game for the beneficent populace.
What this means is that a city of a million and a half people starts to feel homey after only a few days, and that when lost, in sickness, and by night the Traveler need have no worry.
At five a.m. Saturday morning I waited on the curb for my airport shuttle, and I felt at ease amid the meandering late-night crowd. Had I need, I could have plucked any one of them from the sidewalk to help me—provided I chose one who retained motor function after the night’s partying. Or else one might seek me: and so it happened. As I sat wrapped in my coat, a young man about my age approached and bent to offer me something: a cardboard carton—the remains of his burger. My instinct was to accept it, but I managed to stop myself. “No thanks,” I said. “Just waiting for the bus.” This time I would opt out.◊