He enters with the gracious air of someone doing the establishment a favour by discovering it. His first accomplishment was to establish that no one had quite understood the occasion until he had explained it. English attended to the opening formalities. Hindi supplied warmth. Marathi arrived shortly afterwards, carrying a local reference and inspecting the premises. A simple request for soda travelled through three jurisdictions and returned with diplomatic flair. The waiter listened with the immobility of a man whose livelihood depended upon not developing a face. There followed a little inquiry into the human condition, beginning with the waiter’s salary.
Nothing intrusive, naturally. Merely an interest in people: where they came from, whom they knew, what they earned, what they meant by no. The gentleman possessed that rare conversational gift of making an answer feel like the beginning of an obligation. A name became a contact; a contact, an introduction; an introduction, a small proposed construction.
He was particularly accomplished at discovering limits. A limit, once discovered, offered the pleasure of finding out whether it had been properly installed. A joke met with silence? Another inch. A smile grown rigid? Another pinch. He advanced by tiny courtesies, each scarcely worth a scene, until the conversation resembled a hedge through which a rhinoceros had been. At last the gentleman departed, having made an impression on everyone and an arrangement with no one. His farewell was expansive. His return was implied. The room recovered quietly.
