tHE hABERDASHER7*

A soup bone gray day, a saltlick of clouds above his head, the man in the hat’s thoughts on veal chops and chicken legs, figs and a thermos of black tea minted with anise and allspice. The haberdasher that tailored suits for the man in the hat was neither Italian nor Portuguese, but rather Angolan, but of a pale brown complexion. He wore a fez, red with blue and yellow tassels, and seldom spoke unless spoken to. He made extraordinary suits, serge and gabardine, wide-lapelled and narrow, double-breasted and single, fob pocketed or sporty. He smoked kef, though sparingly, and ate little other than chick peas and parboiled rice, generally wild, brown and glutinous. His wife had one eye, the missing one gouged out by a less than propitious ex-lover who worked as a sommelier for a small West African restaurant. She smoked long slender cigarettes, which she held between her thumb and forefinger, but found kef unsavory and odiferous. She didn’t mind that her husband partook of kef, but rather he smoked it in the storeroom or the alleyway behind the store. The haberdasher tailored suits from hemp, smoothing out the seams and folds with a steam iron that hung from the ceiling with box twine. He generally smoked kef in the evenings, once the day’s work had been done, and his wife had gone out to play bridge or pinochle, which she did most nights, thereby avoiding the numinous pong of kef. ‘May I ask what side you dress on?’ asked the haberdasher. ‘Either side, it doesn’t much matter’, answered the man in the hat, his hat off centre to one side. ‘Might I suggest?’ added the haberdasher, ‘that to the left is most suited to a man of your stature, as it will allow for a freedom of stride I believe you will find most satisfactory’. ‘Thank you.’ Said the man in the hat, ‘of course, as you suggest, after all, it is you that tailor the suits, not I.’ ‘As you wish, dear sir.’ The haberdasher reached for his chalk and sighed, ‘what a day indeed,’ he said, ‘my dear wife has a dislike for kef, which, as you know I smoke, though sparingly of course’. The man in the hat shifted his weight form one foot to the other, re-cocked his hat, and closed his eyes. ‘Of course, please feel free to light one up; it certainly makes no difference to me.’ The haberdasher drew a curved line along the inseam of the man in the hat’s leg and smiled, full toothsomely. ‘You are too kind’, he said, ‘and, might I add, a fine gentleman, both courteous and unduly considerate.’ ‘If you like,’ said the man in the hat, ‘I have some Jell-O you might find of interest, strawberry and kiwi’. The haberdasher drew one last chalk line on the man in the hat’s trousers and said, ‘yes, so kind and considerate indeed.’