Uncle Jan (not pictured) is miffed. “Too much talk," he says.
Of Amsterdam’s ten best cups of coffee, the one Bruno makes is surely in the top two. Jan, a regular since Bruno opened up three years ago, would prefer to sit out his early morning, late-life cappuccino in quiet or, at worst, in conversation in his native tongue. Though I am the sole figure who chats up Bruno now with my too much talk, the number from which Jan wishes to hear and so be forced to hear himself over is closer to zero.
Eighty-six, Jan spent last week in Mallorca, diving every day. In his previous life he paid one of Hemingway’s bar tabs. (Hemingway paid it back after publishing The Old Man And The Sea.) When it gets too warm he suggests whiskey on the rocks. All this Bruno knows--and believes true--though he does not know Jan’s last name.
A year ago Jan got sick. Alone. Not young. Not easy.
Bruno posted Jan’s status on the Facebook group of his shop. The regulars took note and took action. A medical student went with Jan to the hospital three times to help him make sense of the forms and procedures, another sat in on consultations. Someone met him at the hospital after surgery with a taxi and others crewed up to make sure Jan had groceries at home as he recuperated.
The village took care of Jan, just as it should, the people did their job because Bruno does his.
(Bruno, fyi, used to do office stuff and is much happier now earning much less.)
As the old man with a legitimate old man gripe about expats like me making too much noise, Jan plays his role with maximal and steady endurance. If today he is in a miff, it is just a joke, since he otherwise never fails to talk with any who join him, speaking in English or, if you like, Sweedish. And his departing smile comes with the same happy effort you see in the stuttered walk that gets him around the hood. He could choose to sit at home or ignore you. But he does neither.
As fine as both Bruno and Jan are, nothing here is unique or unreplicable. They are types. The store and the owner, the place that mills patrons into neighbors, the neighbor who will not get ground down by the system, the system made of connections that depend on something other than impressive resumes or big data or extreme vetting.
Might we teach that? Teach the system we want to see in the world?