Arnon Grunberg

Glasses

Germany

An evening in restaurant Capri, Lindengracht, Amsterdam.
A man with a moustache and a hairdo that appeared to be a wig was staring at me.
After fifteen minutes or so he came to our table and said: ‘One Jewboy is saying hello to the other one.’
I nodded friendly; I’m not easily offended.
Then he said: ‘In Germany they say “Mahlzeit”.’
‘Take a seat,’ I answered. ‘We are not in Germany, but Mahlzeit anyhow.’
We drank a few glasses, he was having dinner with his sister, two men were in love with her, she was in her late seventies. He said he was 78 but he looked younger, and he told us that he used to be a spy.
Before he left, he gave me his business card, an old and yellowed business card.
One of the better encounters in Capri.

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