The Red Shop Part 1

It is way across town. Camouflaged by the embrace of nature, it almost seems non-existent yet so evidently present to its frequent visitors.

There are grassy paths, beaten paths and pavements... And there is ambiance: an unmistakable ambiance of tropicalness. The trees ameliorate it. It makes you feel welcome, this "shop".

It is bambooed too: you can sense, smell and see bamboo almost everywhere. There are bamboo chairs, bamboo tables, bamboo rest chairs, rocking bamboo shades, curtains dangling with bamboo ornamentation, bamboo side posts, bamboo themed vases, a makuti roof... And the hollowness of split bamboo stems faces you with a deep cream and jungle-green color from the fences where they've been nailed and painted.

You have to know this place exists to know it is here. It is somehow hidden, somehow treed; outskirted, so to say. The soft music is always on, and people are always moving in and about.

But it's quiet. It is paradoxical that people are always moving in and out yet it's this quiet. It is almost as if activities are clockwork and everyone is minding their own business. Yes, there is that - many people - but this place is like a heartbeat: throbbing so loud, yet so silent.

This heartbeat of "the shop" is what attracts the likes of Adrian. Adrian loves it. This is where he fell in love. No, not with someone, but with nature. And not only with the nature of the surroundings but with the nature of people. Sometimes he just comes here to buzz his mind in enjoying the people and the serenity away from the madness the world has become.

He still remembers the day he fell in love with this place like he remembers what he just had for lunch. This place makes him feel and hear his own soul. Have you ever experienced that? Adrian does. But he won't be telling us about that today, no, he'll tell us why he loves this place. He'll tell us about the people he meets here albeit unexpectedly.

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He has never understood why they call it The RED SHOP yet it's neither a shop nor is it red in color. It's funny. Really funny. Earlier on, when he was new in town, he crushed here but he never really wanted to be inquisitive about it: the name of the place. He let things be.

But stories are told of how the place got it's name...

Two years ago, one Old Man who is a frequent visitor to "the shop" for its famous exquisiteness once told him:

"When I first came here", the old man narrated,
"It was the fuzziness that attracted me. The place felt a bit hieroglyphic: I could know how to define it through what my eyes saw but I couldn't decipher its holistic nature. And after I've been around for a while, I am sure of two things young man; we all love this place because it helps us define ourselves (we "shop" here) and we LOVE here; love is red, isn't it? People experience love in this place in its many forms. Maybe that is why it is called THE RED SHOP after all.

The Old Man insists that Adrian should just call him George. Adrian has never heard of an old man insisting that it's enough and okay if younger people simply referred to him and called him by his first name, so George intrigues him. Adrian's father would die or kill you with the mere whiff of his look if you, being as young as his granddaughters and sons tried calling him by his first name. And you would hear of that story of disrespect and immoral behavior for a whole year nonstop.

George, being a familiar face here, is quite familiar with how life works. Sometimes he talks, and when he talks, he goes full blast... But other times he simply steps in, sandals on his feet and a cap on his head, stands by the door, leans over, clutches tightly at his walking stick, gives the potted plant by the door some keen agricultural look, touches it a little, raises his head after seconds of subtleness, gazes at the waiters and boom! everything gets aligned to his table.

And it ain't much. His order isn't normally that much or complicated: just a certain special cup of coffee made to his liking. To George, THE RED SHOP is a coffee shop.

It is famed that the Old Man loves his coffee that way because he says it himself, "This place gives me that unforgettable and hiatial rückkehrunruhe." So someone once asked him, "What's that?" The Old Man gazed at the questioner the way he gazes at the potted plant by the door and said, "What do you people learn in schools nowadays?" then he shook his head and went on sipping his coffee.

It is rumored that the taste of that coffee makes him experience his wife's cooking again, albeit briefly. They had been married for 50 years. Fifty good years, meeen. And now, here he is, ten years after her departure, and the only thing he can do about it is to endlessly sip coffee in some hidden "shop".

Rumors also pry that George's wife was such an excellent cook. People describe her with the fondness and excellence of an angel. Adrian is not so sure about these rumors because people tend to formulate all kinds of stories about all kinds of things all the time. People are story-mongers: as long as a narrative may suite a person, it will stick. Those are people.

Also, as a matter of fact, Adrian has always wondered what this Old Man, er, George, was in life before he became a permanent "shop visitor/member". He seems older that his dad. Maybe by 10 years. That makes him Kibaki's age-mate. Funny. He has imagined Kibaki telling a young man somewhere in Othaya, "Kijana, wee niite tu Stanley" and that has never fit in place. Wait-a-minute, would that work? Naaah.

"The fuzziness attracted me at first because I was looking for a distraction...", the Old Man continued after strategically putting his walking stick in its rightful place.

"A distraction from what?"

"From myself, from my kids, from friends, from routine, from my work and from life; but not from Liz."

"Who's Liz, again?"

"My wife" *Sips coffee*

That day, Adrian hesitated. Could he ask George all the questions he has been wanting to ask him about his wife? Would it come out to be intrusive and disrespectful? Would it change their relationship? Because, so far, things between them were alright. So he tried...

"By the way, how is she right now?"

The Old Man gave him the potted-plant-look implying, "Like, really?"

"She isn't here"
"She left us and went to be with the Lord 8 years ago. She was the most gracious lady I've ever known and the most beautiful thing that ever happened to my wrecked life.

"Young man, let me tell you something: only one person, or maybe two people, or maybe no-one if you're aligned with bad luck, could make you feel that way about them and life. This is what I mean: butterflies don't fly in all stomachs all the time...

"Liz was impeccable. That girl was fine. I can still see the day I met her so clearly. And I damned myself - sorry for the bad language young man, but you just have to feel the way I did, which I'm sure not so many of you feel today because everything in this generation has become so intensely artificial. This is what I told myself the very day my eyes landed on her: 'I want that girl, I want her for myself'. Yes, I was that smitten, and the whole lot of who I was got a transformation I may never experience again."

On that day George was telling stories from his youth, it rained. It rained so hard that they couldn't hear each other regardless of the not-so-noisy sound of rain on the makuti roof. They remained there the whole Saturday afternoon, George sipping his coffee and Adrian gazing emptily at everyone in the room... And George promised to continue his stories another time they meet again.

That is how it always rolls at the shop.

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I'll soon e back with more stories from The Red Shop. Stay tuned.


Bonface Morris.