Tabula Rasa

It had started last Tuesday. Esmerelda Isabella Cortez had walked into Café Paradiso at 11am and asked for an espresso with one sugar. The men in the cafe stared at her, cigarettes hanging from their open mouths spilling ash onto their shirts. The young man at the counter, unsure what to do, called for his boss and shifted uncomfortably while Esmerelda's eyes bored into him. A bulging stomach lurched uncomfortably into the room from a back office a few moments before it's owner, the proprietor Alejandro Delgardo, followed shortly behind. A terse conversation followed, Alejandro sneaking beseeching looks at his patrons for support. He explained that it wasn't really a cafe for women and that she might find it more enjoyable to have a coffee at home. When she asked why, he gaped at her, his chin disappearing into his flabby neck. He considered it obvious why, everyone thought it was obvious why, but like explaining an idiom to a foreigner he realised he had no means to relay that innate knowledge. Wary of losing face, he gave the performative sigh of a father allowing a child to commit a terrible mistake and prepared the bitter drink. Esmerelda took it, found a spare table and sipped it with clenched nonchalance, idly flicking through a discarded newspaper. After a few minutes she folded the newspaper, placed a few coins on the table and left, ignoring the men with painstaking indifference. Alejandro kept a tense eye out all day on Wednesday, but to his relief she did not appear. On Thursday however, he heard the faltering voice of the boy behind the counter and his stomach turned. Poking his head around his office door he saw Esmerelda again, this time accompanied by another woman. Two espressos; one with sugar; one without. He tried to explain more clearly that women tended to enjoy drinking coffee at home much more than at cafes, but again faltered when she calmly asked him why that was the case. The other men, who had previously sat in stunned silence, grumbled softly as the women found a table and spoke in low voices. Since Thursday, Esmerelda had returned every day, sometimes by herself, sometimes with a few friends. New women now also turned up by themselves. Alejandro had tried several times to get them to understand that only really men like cafes, but the women seemed particularly belligerent in their ignorance. As the sun warmed the cobbles of the square on Monday morning, Alejandro watched with increasing anxiety as his cafe filled up. Every seat in his cafe was taken by women, reading papers, playing cards, smoking cigarettes and talking. It wasn't right, he thought, where would his regulars drink their coffee? At home? No-one likes drinking their coffee at home, that's obvious.