for sea water and beach rituals you didn’t even know you’d stopped remembering. All of Café Algiers took me back to Alexandria, the way it took Kalaj back to Tunis, and the Algerian to Oran. Perhaps each one of us would stop by Café Algiers every day to pick up the person we’d left behind in North Africa, each working things back to that point where life must have taken a wrong turn, each as though trying to put time on splints until the fracture and the cracks and the dislocations were healed and the bone finally fused. Sheltered from the morning sun and wrapped in the strong scent of coffee and of cleaning fluids, each found his way back to his mother.
Mornings, however, exerted a second-tier magic all their own because they reminded the three of us of Paris, our halfway home, and of French cafés we’d known at dawn, when waiters are busy setting up the place and exchange pleasantries with the street sweeper, the newspaper vendor, the delivery boys, the baker next door, everyone dropping in for a quick coffee before heading out to work. Kalaj had gotten into the habit of a very early coffee in the cafés of rue Mouffetard. Drop in, greet the regulars, speak, snipe, gripe, and take up this morning where you left off late last night.
At Café Algiers he was almost always the first to arrive in the morning. Like Che Guevara, he’d appear wearing his beret, his pointed beard with the drooping mustache, and the cocksure swagger of someone who has just planted dynamite all over Cambridge and couldn’t wait to trigger the fuse, but not before coffee and a croissant. He didn’t like to speak in the morning. Café Algiers was his first stop, a transitional place where he’d step into the world as he’d known it all of his life and from which, after coffee, he’d emerge and learn all over again how to take in this strange New World he’d managed to get himself shipped to. Sometimes, before even removing his jacket, he’d head behind the tiny counter, pick up a saucer, and help himself to one of the fresh croissants that had just been delivered that morning. He’d look up at Zeinab, brandish the croissant on a saucer, and give her a nod, signifying, I’m paying for it, so don’t even think of not putting it on my check. She would nod back, meaning, I saw, I understood, I would have loved to, but the boss is here anyway, so no favors today. A few sharp shakes of his head meant, I never asked for favors, not now, not ever, so don’t pretend otherwise, I know your boss is here. She would shrug: I couldn’t care less what you think. One more questioning nod from Kalaj: When is coffee ready? Another shrug meant: I’ve only got two hands, you know. A return glance from him was clearly meant to mollify her: I know you work hard; I work hard too. Shrug. Bad morning? Very bad morning. Between them, and in good Middle Eastern fashion, no day was good.
Later in the afternoon, when he’d return to Café Algiers, he was a different man. He was back in his element, all pumped up and ready to fire—this was home base, and the night was young.
I would eventually find that Kalaj was gifted with 360-degree eyesight. He always knew when someone was watching, or eavesdropping, or, like me that first time, simply wondering. He’d sit in his center position—what his Algerian nemesis called Kalaj’s état major, his headquarters—and would instantly recognize people by their footsteps. If he hadn’t turned to say hello when he heard your footsteps, it was because he wanted to avoid showing he was aware of you. Or because he was too busy talking to someone else. Or because he never wished to see your face again. He’d scope a situation in a millisecond. He’d walk into a crowded bar and moments later say: “Let’s leave.” “Why?” I’d ask. “There are no women here.” “How about those two over there?” I’d say, pointing out two beautiful women he’d obviously overlooked. “The one in black is crazy.” “How can you tell?” “I know, that’s how I can tell,” he’d repeat, impatience, sarcasm, exasperation bristling in his voice, “I can always tell—oké? Let’s. Just. Go.”
Or with his back still turned to the door, he’d say, “Don’t look now, but there’s someone making his way toward us.” When had