CAFE: more English descriptions

[VILVA@VIIKKI21.HELSINKI.FI]

%
%                     _THE OUTSIDER_
%
%       by Veijo Vilva  <vilva@viikki21.helsinki.fi>
%
%
%       An addition to the Cafe Jbolanzu descriptions
%
%       Minimal LaTeX format.
%
%       Delete the few control lines if you don't have LaTeX
%       at your disposal.
%
\documentstyle[12pt]{article}
\textheight=21.5cm
\textwidth=16cm
%\documentstyle{article}
%\textheight=14.5cm
%\textwidth=8.8cm
\topmargin=-20mm
\oddsidemargin=-2mm
\hfuzz=3pt
\widowpenalty=4000
\title{The Outsider}
\author{Veijo Vilva}%\\ \tt <vilva@viikki21.helsinki.fi>}
\date{27 Sep 1992}
\begin{document}
\maketitle

This is a description of la xiron, the first co-worker at
la jbolanzu --- Cafe Jbolanzu. No one knew his real name and the
name he had picked for himself after learning Lojban was a kind
of pun --- if you bothered to play games with names. I don't tell
much about the other members of the personnel as I didn't know them
so well and, besides, I want to leave the pleasure of describing
them to the other patrons of the Cafe. There were quite a few of
us literary types spending our evenings there so someone else
ought recollect enough of that time to relate about it.

I do not yet know whether xiron will interest you enough to make
him a permanent member of the staff. So I shall tell you mostly
about the first impressions he made on people and add more details
later on if required.

-----


He arrived one dark, windy evening in November. No one noticed him
at first. He was just a tall shadow at the doorway, standing there,
quietly observing the room. He stood there for a while, motionless,
as if half asleep. There were groups of people sitting at the
tables, drinking coffee, chatting with each other. Someone glimpsed
at the door, started to turn away but changed his mind and took a
closer look. Others noticed his curios gaze and also turned to look.
A silence fell. A stranger wasn't too common those days. The man at
the door seemed to wake up. He took off his hat, wiped his forehead
with a sleeve and started towards the nearest unoccupied table with
a heavy step. He hesitated for a moment before sitting down, glanced
apprehensively around and threw down the rucksack from his shoulder.
His hand was gently stroking the wood of the table and he had again
a far-away look on his face. A murmur of voices began to fill the
air as people lost their initial interest in the newcomer. Only
the most curious ones were stealing glimpses at him every now and
then.

There was nothing special about the stranger except perhaps his
quietness. He seemed to be content just to sit there and observe the
other patrons. He was a dark, slim man of indeterminate age and
origin, face expressionless but not inscrutable in an oriental way.
He had obviously come afoot as his boots were covered with dust but
somehow he didn't seem to be an outdoor type. Veins were visible on
the backs of his hands but the hands were soft, apparently not used
to manual work.

The owner of the Cafe was busy in the kitchen and hadn't noticed the
arrival of the stranger. He himself had drifted quite recently into
the village and hadn't yet succeeded in hiring anyone to help at
the Cafe so he had to serve at the tables in addition to cooking.
Presently he lifted the frying pan to the edge of the stove, wiped
his hands and started his round among the patrons.

He noticed the stranger almost immediately. The stranger was looking
straight at him but gave no sign at all of noticing him. There was
no rudeness in the stranger's gaze when he at last noticed the
approaching Cafe owner, just quiet waiting, no smile, no irritation.
The Cafe owner felt a slight discomfort which reminded him of the
times he had had to address the head master at school. Had someone
asked he would have been unable to tell what exactly was the reason
for this uneasiness.

The stranger was looking at the approaching man. Japanese? No, more
likely Chinese. What was he doing in these parts? Well, none of his
business. He had been listening to the sound of the locals talking.
There was a curious note in their speech and he had been unable to
recognize the few words he was able to discern. He just hoped the
Chinaman would be able to communicate in some language he
knew.

"Good evening, sir. Welcome to Cafe Jbolanzu. Quite chilly outside,
isn't it? Would you like to have something hot to drink? Coffee or
tea perhaps?"

Something in the appearance of the stranger made the owner choose
English instead of Lojban to address him. A slight change in the
attitude of the stranger's shoulders seemed to indicate relief. The
Chinaman felt easier.

There was an almost imperceptible delay before the man answered. He
wasn't actually surprised, it just always took him moment to switch
into English. Now he knew he'd be able to cope.

"Oh, yes. Good evening. Yes, it is. Could you bring me some tea,
please. Have you got any green teas? Gunpowder? I'd really appreciate
that. A whole pot of it."

There was no smile on his face even when he was speaking, just a
relaxed softness. He was at peace with himself and had obviously no
need to affect others one way or another. The Cafe owner felt
strangely at home with the man.

"Well, I think I have got some tucked away somewhere. Isn't much
demand for it, you know. Will take a while. Thank you, sir."

The Chinaman left with a slight bow. The man sat waiting, still
stroking the table every once in a while, regarding the others
absentmindedly. The din of the conversations grew louder and his
thoughts wandered.

There had been a time when he had preferred quieter places, much
quieter. He remembered a particular one in some provincial capital in
the East. It was a large tea-house with tables for  more than a
hundred people. He had spent many an evening sitting there alone at
his table sipping his tea and thinking. There were two other regular
customers, the three of them coming there for a year or so a few times
a week.  Each had his own corner, they never spoke to each other
during all the time he frequented the place. The Japanese waitresses
sometimes told the latest news of Sensei-san, Teacher, as they called
one of the patrons. It was really very discreet, no gossiping at all,
they'd say: "Sensei-san is tired today. He's had a rough day." or
something like that. And he'd sit there sipping his Japanese tea,
eating perhaps a cupful of rice with a slice of cucumber dipped in soy
sauce and looking at Sensei-san correcting exam papers. It was a quiet
time in his life. Later came more turbulent times but they too had
passed into semi-oblivion. He'd been wandering around for years now,
observing people, almost always an outsider.

There was a sluggish discussion going on at many tables. Quite many
people were just listening to the others and most of the speakers
didn't seem to be very fluent. It was as if they had just recently
learned the language. A few were narrating a longer story but they
were quite often interrupted by one or another of the listeners who
seemed to be asking something but curiously there was no change in
their intonation. The stranger was perplexed. Where had he stumbled?

The Chinaman returned with a large teapot and a Chinese rice cup. He
put the cup in front of the stranger, poured some olive green tea into
it and set the pot on the table.

"Here you are, sir. Anything else, sir?"

The man raised the cup to his lips, took a sip and sighed. He then
lowered the cup and looked up to the waiting Cafe owner.

"Excellent. Thank you. Maybe in a moment. Tell me, I've been
wondering, what is the language these people are talking in? Who are
they really?"

The Chinaman paused for a moment before answering. He wasn't quite
sure what to tell the stranger. He himself was just beginning to grasp
the language spoken here and had to formulate his answer most
carefully.

"Well, sir, the language is called Lojban but I guess the name tells
you nothing. I myself knew quite many languages before coming here but
I'd never heard about it. It is a constructed language not related to
any natural language --- living or dead. Hard to explain in a few
words if you aren't a linguist. These people are practitioners and
students of Lojban who gather here to tell stories or just to chat
with each other. As a matter of fact, the name of this Cafe is 'la
jbolanzu' which means something like 'The Clan of Lojban'. It seemed
to be a fitting name as most of my patrons are Lojbanists."

Lojban. The stranger looked around. Not an ethnic language --- that
explained many things which had been bothering him already before he
had reached the Cafe. Lojban. The name brought no recollections what
so ever into his mind even though he had been studying linguistics
sometime in the remote past. Languages had always interested him and
he knew a few words of quite many languages. Some of the languages
he had learned while wandering from place to place in search of ---
well, he really didn't know what. Some he had studied at various
schools and colleges during the more quiet epochs of his life.

"I see. Thanks."

He had done many things and studied many subjects during the years
since leaving home --- some things out of necessity, some out of
curiosity. Here was something new. He hesitated. He had intended to
continue across the mountains in the morning. He wasn't exactly going
anywhere but there were some old cities in the Plains and he had
thought he'd spend a few days just enjoying the atmosphere there. It
was a long time since he had sat in a Bierstube drinking a proper
black draught beer, sweet with the taste of caramel malt. But now he
had bumped into something unexpected.

The Chinaman was leaving. Someone had beckoned him to a table across
the room. The stranger nodded just slightly.

He was eyeing the other customers with a renewed interest. He raised
the cup and smelled the fragrance of the tea while pondering the
situation. He'd have to find some employment if he was to stay for
more than a few days. Perhaps the Chinaman could help? He was
prepared to do almost anything within his capacity for board and
lodgings and a reasonable amount of free time. He'd stay till he
felt it was again time to go.

The Chinaman had apparently gone to the kitchen which wasn't visible
to where the stranger was sitting. The questions would have to wait.
An elderly man at a nearby table stood up and approached him...

------

A year had gone by. He called himself xiron now. There was no specific
reason for the name --- he had just made it up one night in early June
when he was trying to memorize a batch of rafsi. Though names had no
inherent meaning you could always play with them, divide them in
different ways --- even ungrammatically. xi-ro-n, xi-ron, xir-on. The
last variant had a Japanese rafsi meaning 'sound' at the end. He would
play the games mainly in his thoughts as he wasn't exactly of the
playful type. He would rarely venture to play with others and few
would have considered him a member of the species Homo ludens, playing
man.

He had made few friends during his year at the Cafe and no real
enemies though there were people who didn't like him very much.
Newcomers often at first thought he was unfriendly as he didn't smile
when he greeted them and later on many felt the same uneasiness the
Chinaman had felt a year ago. Perhaps it was the initial impression of
self-assuredness and reservedness which only gradually was replaced by
a more realistic, more mixed one.

Xiron was mostly very quiet and even later on in the evenings when the
staff was mixing with the customers he'd just sit there and listen to
others talking, rarely expressing himself. When he did there was a
certain finality in what he said. He might err but mostly his facts
and opinions had a ring of truth about them which made it hard for the
others to disagree. Sometimes he got on his hobbyhorse and then there
was no keeping him. Luckily the occasions were quite rare.

He seemed to know very much or at least of very many different
subjects though if you poked deeper you might find that sometimes
he knew just a handful of key facts, nothing more profound. He didn't
often volunteer the information. It was almost as if he had considered
many things not worth mentioning without a specific reason. Just
knowing wasn't enough.


The Chinaman now liked him. Many times they had sat late at night
quietly sipping tea, not talking much, each deep in reverie. Both
had seen a lot of world and contemplated many things with a certain
polite amusement. Not many words were needed to convey ideas and
somehow Lojban suited their purposes extremely well.


\end{document}------------------------------------------------------------------

 Veijo Vilva       vilva@viikki21.helsinki.fi