You can barely hear the hum of Asif’s grinder over the hubbub and bustle of the market. Behind his stall, the Mediterranean glitters and stretches long arms on the stony shore. Picks up a stone, drags it along the beach with a scratching rustle, tosses it back. The sky is so clear that the lazy moon hangs suspended opposite the sun, a milky globe on a wire under Aquila’s arrow. All around you, stalls jostle for position, staggering drunkenly away up the cobbled backstreets beneath flapping red bunting. The fluted minarets of the mosque mark a skyline of tumbledown concrete blocks, where laundry sways gently in a summer breeze. At mid-afternoon the call to prayer echoes hauntingly between the buildings. The air is perfumed with incense and grilling fish, spiked with the darker aroma of coffee.
Oblivious to all this wonder, Asif measures fine, powdery grounds into a copper cezve and adds a little water. He looks up at me inquiringly, his tongs hovering over a heap of sugar. He tucks the cezve, as carefully as one might place a baby into a cradle, into a pile of sand on a hot plate. As precise as any chef or engineer, he swirls it clockwise and uses a scraper to push the sand around. Once satisfied with the arrangement, he takes a thermometer out of his pocket, shakes it, scowls, and stands it up in the sand like a little flag. The water in the jug slowly starts to froth and bubble. He is an artist, a magician, with his materials. He pours out the foam, returns the jug to the sand, and scrapes and swirls again.
I take my cup to a wobbly chair where I can watch the market. The coffee is rich and thick, so bitter it makes your lips purse. Chocolatey in colour and consistency, a hint of citrus cuts through the foam. It’s so sharp that it seems to brighten the senses, sounds growing louder and fading out, colours turned up with a volume switch, just for a second.
When I take back my cup, Asif turns it upside down on the saucer.
“Cool quicker with a coin,” he says, with a canny smile. I fish around in my pocket and come up with a lira. He places it gently on top and sets the cup aside.
“Wait, ok?”
He turns to greet an old lady wrapped in black shawls, with whom he bickers cheerfully. I wait obediently and, once the queue dies down, he nods at me and picks up my cup. He swirls it clockwise and lifts it up with a ta-da flourish.
“Very good fortune,” he sniffs.
“Thank you?”
“Yes, yes. Very good. You will fall in love many times. Something else here. Look like a goat, I think.”
Asif would go on to tell my life story with flair and hand gestures and exaggerated facial expressions indicating joy or sadness. Heartbreak. Happiness. All of it. But I wouldn’t know that for a few years yet. At the time, I just smiled politely and thanked him. He pocketed my lira and waved me away. And when I returned a few days later, curious to see him pull the same trick on someone else, he was gone.
1 tbsp per cup of finely ground Turkish coffee | sugar, to taste | water
