This is how we were communicating with Peter every time when we ended up together in a café. Peter has never drank coffee, I was a rebel with bad habits at home. He let himself being convinced to drink a coffee after 20 years of marriage from time to time.
He liked the smell of coffee and the foam. I have always taken coffee with milk, which is called “renversé” or a an upside down coffee. In fact, you get a half of a coffee and a half of a milk and it is not latté. We have fantastic Miss Chantal in our café. She is the soul of the whole place. Her coffee is the best. Her foam is like a cap on beer. The trouble is that I do not like the foam. I prefer coffee. However, an espresso is too strong. These are real troubles. I am telling you.
Peter always knew what to do. He always sipped my coffee, just one sip. Like a taster of an emperor or Cleopatra. If there was a foam, I gave him a glass with a coffee and he savoured it. It was the same with the food. Peter had “20 kilos together with his bed”, as we say. He did not have a gram of fat despite of eating for three persons. He ate 4 kilos of fruits every day, since we have a big garden with plenty of fruits. It was the same with the food. When we were invited for a visit, mothers advised their children to eat in advance since Mandik will come and there will be no food left. Half of my portions went always to his belly, since I wanted to keep a space for a desert. Half of my desert went also to him, in addition to his own desert. It worked well in symbiosis. Now, it is different. I was in a café today. The foam flew from a glass and I though how he would have enjoyed it. It made me sad. They started to play Voyage in the radio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PDmZnG8KsM.
I have heard this song when I was 14. It was a school trip in Spindleruv mlyn. We went to a discotheque and I tasted Daiquiri for the first time. I loved the song so much that I asked my friend Ilona to register it on a tape recorder and never delete it. I even asked her to swear on something very crucial. Now, being 50 years old, I do not remember what was it. How silly idea! I did not think at the age of 14 that tape-recorders will be erased from history and will be replaced by much smaller and diverse technology. I did not think at that time that I will not regularly see people that I knew in the basic or high school. I thought that I will be living in my hometown whole my life and come anytime to listen to a song to my friend Ilona. What a young fool!
Everything is different.
Thanks to Peter, I am in Switzerland, in Cartigny, I can listen to this song here, since it is often in the air, and in addition, I understand the text. They also play Vanessa Paradis and Joe le taxi. At the age of 14, I did not know that Joe is a name and I heard it as one strange word “joeletaxi” and was thinking what is “jole”.
In addition, there is a nice smell of a fresh bread in a café. I miss that bread in our house. I have to work on it. Peter baked a delicious one. Its smell was everywhere in the house. I was helping him. We have divided the work in the same way as with the coffee foam. He prepared dought, mixed it, added seeds, caraway and ferment… and then he did not have time since he went jogging. I had to finish it. Take care of it when the bread was in the oven, check the crust, tap on it and find out how it smells, take it from the oven, so it would cool down and finish naturally. Then, we were sitting together in front of TV, cutting the bread, putting butter and salt, keeping each other hands and eating the whole bread, piece after piece. I still have a recipe from our friend Luda. It includes a method of producing ferment. There were no thoughts for such things after Peter’s departure. It has to be followed and I not really focused. I think about delegating it to Jozka and Lucka. They do not know about it yet. They are skilful and diligent. They are friends who wanted to bake a bread and borrowed a baking machine, which came back to me without being used at all. Peter was baking in the oven. I can do the same. I still have a hand written recipe that has a bit of magic.
Peter did not take a wedding ring when he was climbing. He could be injured if he would. When we lost Peter, I was looking for that ring. It was very important for me to find it. The ring is a symbol that shows me every time something different. I wear the Peter’s ring with mine. Peter always put the ring to a little box in a shelf or a drawer when he was leaving for mountains.
While cleaning Peter’s study, I found a ring under a yellow post-it on which is written the recipe for the bread. Recipe is waiting on my notice board. There is another recipe for an excellent cake that Peter baked for me from time to time.
An additional reason to start baking.
Cartigny, 2.9.2020