Cafe Scheherazade by Arnold Zable Page A

slowly, savouring the taste, savouring his thoughts, devouring the sun that pours through the window. In the years of his retirement, this is what he loves most: to savour, to take his time.
    â€˜Our centre of gravity had shifted,’ he tells me. ‘This is what I sensed as I stood aboard the boat on the day of our departure. The sailors loaded it with freight. Their cargo included a herd of horses. They were led aboard just as we had been, hours earlier. You could see their confusion and fear. We were no different. We were merely animals being shunted about. And our centre of gravity had shifted: away from Poland, Russia, Europe, away from our childhood homes.
    â€˜To this day, I no longer have a centre of gravity. I feel rootless. I will always feel rootless. I had been stripped of everything. Of the scent of my youth, my known way of life. And there is a certain advantage in this, a certain freedom. Even today, though I have lived in Melbourne for over fifty years, I have no sense of belonging. I am acutely aware that everything is temporary in life, a mere bridge. One does not build a house on a bridge. Instead I find my true home inside. I escape inside and I can go wherever my fancy takes me.
    â€˜You have a taste for champagne, but a pocket only for beer. So the saying goes. But I have enough imagination to make beer taste like champagne. This is the great gift I received. Through losing everything, I became free.
    â€˜I no longer care for anthems, and I no longer care even for nations. They too are transient. The truth of who we are lies elsewhere, in the way we order our inner lives as we drift over unknown seas.
    â€˜In losing everything, I have come to value everything: to savour this cup of coffee, its warmth, its aroma, to savour my walks by the sea, and this moment with a friend, at a table in Scheherazade. What more is there? Can you tell me?’
    The Japanese freighter weighed anchor towards evening. Fragments of debris floated by. Ice breakers swept the bay. The lights of Vladivostok blinked as the vessel moved away. Zalman was afraid he would be sick. But the sea was smooth. The gentle rocking of the boat soothed him.
    As they headed out into the darkness Zalman descended into the hold. It was divided by aisles that threaded between rows of straw mats. Passengers lay on the mats. Some were lost in sleep. Others stared at the ceiling. In a dark corner a bearded man, in a black caftan, rocked back and forth in prayer.
    Zalman lay down on a mat and fell asleep. He slept deeply. He awoke feeling sick. It was still night. His head ached. His whole body ached. He staggered out onto the deck and vomited. He crawled back onto the straw mat, fell asleep and awoke again, hours later, to a cool sensation on his lips. A fellow passenger was feeding him a slice of apple. He smiled. Zalman has never forgotten that smile or that act of kindness from an older man. A wiser man. Zalman ate the apple and fell back into the darkness.
    He awoke again at dawn, and climbed the stairs to the deck. The sea was as smooth as a table. On the horizon he could make out the coastline of Japan. Pine trees rose above distant dunes. The boat floated on a sedate sea. He stood there for hours; he did not know for how long. He had to tear himself away to descend for breakfast.
    Zalman returned to the front deck in the late morning. The sun was high. The coast was approaching. He could see forests, fields, wooded hills, a port, and the entrance to a bay. And he thought, ‘I am entering the land of Madame Butterfly.’
    The Tsuruga wharf drifted towards him in a tranquil dream. Zalman saw the town, its streets lined with wooden houses the colour of teak. He focused on one house. He saw a door. It slid open and he saw a woman in a kimono. She flitted by on wooden clogs. Then she was gone. But in his imagination she remained a luminous presence, a glimpse of the unknown, a Madame Butterfly.
    Zalman yearns for peace of mind,