Rhetorics

6. The old coffee machine (Madara)

I pushed my glasses up on my nose as I looked down on the stack in my hands. They were all classics, heavy and worn, loved over and over, by older readers coming back to flicker through the pages for the fourth or fifth time, by young men who'd just read Atlas Shrugged and felt like they could take on the entire world, by women in their twenties who had come to realise what a messed-up place the world was and were fed with it and wanted to escape reality.

I looked up, stretched my hand up and put the books back on the shelves by the last names of the authors; Huxley, Kafka, Tolstoy, and others.

"Congratulations."

I turned to the side. It was my colleague, the middle-aged woman who had recommended the Eva Rice book for Miss Asghar.

"For what?"

"Your first speech!" She took a stack of books and started helping me out. "You did well."

"Nothing to congratulate me for. I was slaughtered directly after."

"You need to be less humble!" she said. She was adorable in her short, grey hair, a purple cardigan over her plump frame. I had worked with her for the five years and trusted her immensely. She was the closest thing to a mother figure I had, Mrs Asghar being like my crazy, messed-up grandmother. "You're doing more than the majority to actually change things. Most people just talk."

"Hmm..." I said. I didn't really feel like talking politics. I tried to enjoy the atmosphere of my working place instead.

Our library was phenomenal, several stories and with preserved old stairs and details, although it had been modernised with humongous glass windows. Many tourists came here just to see it and take pictures. Some even came in the hope to catch a glimpse of me. I wasn't very open with the fact that I worked here just to stay away from those kinds of people; I did not feel comfortable having... Fans. But they had a tendency to find me anyway. Some asked for an autograph. I always accepted, not having the heart to decline.

"That new right-wing guy who spoke against you... Senju was his name?"

"Yes."

"He announced he'll apply to the parliament elections, right?"

"Unfortunately, yes. He's dangerous." But am I truly worried? I searched within me and felt nothing of the sort, rather excitement. To be in parliament with him... 

"What do you mean, dangerous?"

I sighed, adjusted the sleeves of my light purple shirt, flipped my hairband once to turn my high ponytail into a bun as my hair was getting in the way all the time.

"I mean, he's exceptional at speaking. He's the kind of man that can turn normal, reasonable people unreasonable by making them believe whatever he wants. He uses a very special technique of rhetorics that doesn't convince; it manipulates. He doesn't try to convince you that he's right, and we are wrong. He tries to convince you that what he says is what you've believed in the first place, you just haven't figured it out yet. It is very, very difficult to carry out. Even I would struggle. But it's even more difficult to stand your ground against, once you're exposed to someone who has mastered the art like Senju has. It is made to make people who stand in between two opinions tip over, but he does it so well even people who have a strong sense of what they believe in will start to stagger as well."

"And what about you?" she asked, sneaking a glance at me. "Would you stagger?"

"No." I swallowed. "Not a chance."

She did not push it.

The machine purred beneath my hands. I loved that old beast.

"Whipped cream or skimmed milk?" I asked the customer at the cafe where I worked Saturdays.

"Whipped cream on both, please."

I frothed the cream to perfection and topped it on the coffee in the two mugs, poured in some vanilla syrup, put in one praline each on the plate and handed the plate to the two young women.

"The pralines are on the house", I said with a wink, causing  both of the girls to blush like mad. I enjoyed myself immensely.

The cafe was frightfully expensive, and even if working there wasn't all that glamorous, it suited me well. I could chat with the rich wives, the daughters of CEO's and new mothers desperate for a treat, and I really enjoyed the art of making coffee. The old metal coffee brewer had a personality on its own that I'd learned to master over the two years. I'd taken on the job yearning for something different than politics but less quiet than the library. And as I wasn't paid for my job in politics, and my job as a librarian didn't pay all that well, the small amount of extra money was welcome. I also liked my oversized white shirt and grey vest I worked in, my hair in a high ponytail. I had studied English literature at university, but decided not to do anything with my degree other than use my knowledge about source criticism and writing in politics and recommend books as a librarian. I wanted to be well educated, but I didn't crave a highly intellectual job. I knew it was unusual, that most parliamentarians held highly regarded jobs, but I didn't care. My goal had been to be politician of such a calibre that my party just couldn't say no to me and with that, I had succeeded.

"Look at you, serving us."

I turned round.

Oh, fuck me. I really wasn't in the mood.

"Cute maid outfit. Please, work for me."

It was three members of the main right-wing party. Senju's party. I recognised them, but had only interacted with one of them, three years ago on a television debate where I had obliterated him. He was clearly still salty about it. I wonder if they talked to Senju recently, I found myself thinking. I was taken aback, wondering where that thought had come from. 

"What can I get for you?"

One of them sniggered, the second one snorted, but the third one played along with it, mocking me.

"One espresso, please, doll. And black coffee for these two."

"Coming right up."

"Are you okay with this?"

I turned round. It was the salty one, his mocking smile dying on his face.

"I'm sorry. I'm working."

He didn't stop. "How can you have so little self-respect that you serve your political enemies? Go get an education."

"It's my job to serve coffee to my paying customers. You're my paying customers, and so I serve you. As opposed to you, I don't need my expensive education in order to figure out how to do simple tasks like that." He opened his mouth to speak in outrage, but I got in before him. "Now, sit down at your table, please. I have a lot of customers behind you who are waiting for my services, and I will not have them wait because of you." I was talking so loudly, all other customers could hear to make the situation as uncomfortable as possible for the three right-wing men. It was working. "Next, please." 

I turned to my next customers, and they walked angrily to a table. When the customer had finished her order, I turned back to the old coffee machine to make the orders of the three men and the woman after them, its pipes hissing and puffing happily beneath my hands, providing an odd sensation of familiarity that suppressed my rage.