Louis reluctantly returned to… His steps stopped at the approaches to the terrace. The lady was still standing there, from whom Louis heard a bold answer to his question. He approached her again, but this time he had completely different questions in his head.
– Excuse me.
– Yes?
After a long pause, Louis said what he thought was most needed to ensure that this middle-aged woman did not refuse to communicate with him:
– I want to ask for forgiveness if I offended you in some way. I… I…
– No. It is I who should ask your forgiveness.
Louis was greatly surprised by this answer.
The stranger continued:
– I should have guessed right away that this was your first day here.
– By the way, my name is Louis.
The lady extended her hand, on which was a pearl bracelet.
– Justine.
Louis kissed her hand.
– Justine, do you mind if I talk to you about what’s going on here?
– I don’t mind. It is very rare to find a sober interlocutor here. So I will only be glad to have your company.
Louis thought for a long time where to start. Leaning against the railing, like Justine, he began to ask:
– Who’s the bartender?
– He serves visitors – Justine answered with a grin.
– No, no. Who is he…
Stuttering, Louis continued after a few seconds:
– …just, out of anger, I threw a glass at him, which went through him. Honestly. I saw it with my own eyes.
– I believe. You’re not the first to throw a glass at Albert. But everyone who tries to do this immediately gets scared when he sees all these mystical tricks.
– Fine. Where is he from?
– Nobody knows this. However, like where this bar is located.
– What do you mean? – Louis was surprised. -Aren’t we in France?
– Well, we are French. I guess Albert is also, well, somewhat French, and speaks the same language to all the clients so that over time all the visitors begin to understand each other. And in this sense, you and I are lucky. But there are many here who are from other lands. And they have never been to France. They also stumbled upon this establishment in some deserted place late in the evening, and the next morning they had already become guests of this establishment, which does not stand in one place. There are Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Dutch, Flemings, Germans, Scandinavians, Persians. Guests from all over the world gathered here.
Immediately, Louis asked the following question:
– I noticed that no one orders food. Everyone drinks, but no one eats. What is the reason?
– This is another feature of the bar. Albert’s establishment is quite mysterious. There is something here that saves a person from hunger and disease. You can drink as much as you like and you won’t experience any problems. No one here even experiences a hangover in the morning.
Now Louis asked questions indiscriminately, one after another.
– Here all drinks are paid and increase… um…
– Credit – Justine suggested.
– Yes, credit. This is true?
– Yes.
– But if this deprives them of the opportunity to leave here, why do they drink more? Don’t they really want to see their home as soon as possible?
– You will soon learn something about this place. And then you might also want to increase your debt to the establishment.
– But I don’t need to.
– Well, at least because for some this place eventually turns into a real paradise. You drink as much as you want and you can stay here forever. No one will judge you for drinking from morning to evening.
– And you? You obviously don’t intend to stay here, do you? And that’s why you don’t drink. Isn’t that right?
– Maybe. However, I still don’t know what I want,” Justine answered, sighing heavily.
– And how did you get here?
– That day, my husband and I went to our estate near Paris. A few years earlier we had lost our only child. – With a trembling voice, Justine continued: – My boy was only eight. I couldn’t decide to have another one because I was afraid that we would lose him too. For this, my husband hated me and began to cheat on me. He walked to the fullest, dragging first one and then the other into bed. – Justine said these words with some anger. – In a word, he behaved like a male dog who, as soon as he sees a bitch, immediately rushes to mate. And on the day we arrived at our estate, I went to the stables. I didn’t even have time to step over the threshold. He fucked the servant right in the hay, who moaned like a street whore. – Then she looked at Louis. – He despised me so much that he didn’t even disdain to have sex with the servant. This was the last straw. Hatred was eating me up from the inside. I walked wherever my eyes led me. It probably took two hours, no less. I came out onto some hill where I had never been before. There was the bar there. Albert turned out to be very polite.
– And how much did you owe when you found out about everything?
This was followed by an unhealthy laugh from Justine.
– The funny thing is that I have never drank anything other than wine aged for many years. All evening I drank one of the most expensive wines and thought about how I would return, pack my things and leave this scumbag. The wine was so expensive that in a couple of hours my credit grew to 52 days. And when I realized that there was nowhere to go, I began to drink in order to indulge in oblivion and not think about it. But it only made things worse. The credit grew with every glass. I owed the establishment 632 days.
– And how many days are left? – Louis asked carefully.
– I haven’t checked with Albert for a long time, but somewhere around a couple of hundred or so.
After a short pause, Justine asked:
– And you, dear Louis?
He spoke in detail about his bitter loss that preceded his arrival at the bar. Having told about everything, he seemed to feel some kind of lightness and serenity filling his chest. As soon as he poured out his soul, the feeling of grief noticeably subsided.
– O-o-o. Louis, I’m so sorry. My condolences.
This is how he met a very pleasant and sociable French woman, who had been a guest of the bar for a year and a half.
Louis was depressed. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and sat in his room. Just like that, waiting until the third day comes to an end, the sun disappears below the horizon and he can leave the walls of the mysterious establishment.
As time went. When a person is waiting for something, not a second escapes his attention. Occasionally time mocks a person, and patience amazes with its cruelty, not wanting to part with its prisoner and sarcastically waits for a specific moment to come.
Louis stood in front of the window, counting down the moments until the small orange speck in the distance disappeared from view. Gradually the waiting became too tedious for him. It becomes so hard to wait and feel how every second evaporates, and every moment passes like a hopeless eternity.
The solar disk was in no hurry to go beyond the horizon.