Mozart and I sit next to each other on the bus home again. It is not raining but you can't see anything anyway. He is sitting next to the window, looking out into the passing nothingness; I am sitting next to the aisle taking occasional glances at him. I apologise to Mozart about what Ant said and tell him not to pay any attention to what he says. Mozart looks at me and shakes his head.
'I don't like that nigger.'
I see a few people turn around. I turn red, that final word echoing off every face. I try not to respond. I try to ignore it. But the more I do the more I feel like a tiny man in Klan robes is chiseling a swastika onto all of my internal organs so that even after I am dead people will know what kind of person I really was. We sit in silence for the rest of the journey..When we get to his stop he asks if I would like to come round to his, perhaps. I tell him that I need to get home to feed my dogs, but maybe another time.
In bed I make up excuses for Mozart. Maybe he had heard Ant refer to himself in that way and had just adopted it due to his poor grasp of English. Nothing's working for me though. Every time I think of him saying it my fists start to clench. I get up and go downstairs, unable to sleep. I take a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge and sit down at the dining room table. In my mind I weigh up all the things I now know about Mozart: he is from Poland; he has blond hair; he plays the violin; he is quiet; he washes the dishes where I work; his hands are hard and worn; he doesn't like TV; we get on the same bus; he is probably a racist; his level of English probably isn't too good; he knows the word 'nigger'; he's probably a racist.
I decide I will talk to Mozart tomorrow. I go to sleep thinking about what I’ll say to him.
The theme from 'Friends' is playing over and over, except it is different. It’s like it is playing backwards but it all makes perfect sense (not like if it was a record being played backwards). I watch TV and there's a program on about it, which Mozart is presenting. He is speaking fluent English and he tells me about how the producers of 'Friends' thought that the song was now outdated and that people were getting annoyed with it. So they got a new band to record a song where all the chords were reversed and they changed the lyrics around a bit. Mozart is now interviewing the band and they ask him to play violin with them. He starts to play but it is all in a different key and sounds more like an entire orchestra rather than just one violin. They stop and look at him. Mozart apologises bashfully and puts down the violin.
I dread having to see Mozart at work. I walk into the kitchen and he looks up at me through his blond hair that’s hanging in front of his eyes and asks in his Polish accent:
‘Busy?’
But in my head the only word that is coming out of his mouth is 'nigger.' I flinch and say: ‘Yeah, seems to be a lot of people out tonight.’
He doesn’t say anything to this and goes back to his sink. I place an order and one of the chefs looks at it absent-mindedly.
Jazz is piped through, even to the toilets. I sit on the comfortable wooden seat. My trousers are done up and I am not going to the toilet. There is a sign on the wall, covering where someone has written some graffiti. The sign says:
RUNNING A RESTAURANT IS LIKE A GOOD FRIENDSHIP
SOMETIMES YOU MAY FIND FAULT.
IF YOU HAVE FOUND FAULT WITH ANYTHING HERE
PLEASE LET A MEMBER OF STAFF KNOW
I start to cry.
I go back to the kitchen and Mozart looks up at me. He looks at me slightly shocked. He can probably see I have been crying. Tears leave an unruboutable trace on your face. I want to say something to him. Tell him to stop being a racist or something, but it all sounds ridiculous in my head. He smiles at me and says,
‘Are you okay?’
I go over to the plates waiting to be taken out to the customers, pick them up and walk out of the kitchen.
'I don't like that nigger.'
I see a few people turn around. I turn red, that final word echoing off every face. I try not to respond. I try to ignore it. But the more I do the more I feel like a tiny man in Klan robes is chiseling a swastika onto all of my internal organs so that even after I am dead people will know what kind of person I really was. We sit in silence for the rest of the journey..When we get to his stop he asks if I would like to come round to his, perhaps. I tell him that I need to get home to feed my dogs, but maybe another time.
In bed I make up excuses for Mozart. Maybe he had heard Ant refer to himself in that way and had just adopted it due to his poor grasp of English. Nothing's working for me though. Every time I think of him saying it my fists start to clench. I get up and go downstairs, unable to sleep. I take a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge and sit down at the dining room table. In my mind I weigh up all the things I now know about Mozart: he is from Poland; he has blond hair; he plays the violin; he is quiet; he washes the dishes where I work; his hands are hard and worn; he doesn't like TV; we get on the same bus; he is probably a racist; his level of English probably isn't too good; he knows the word 'nigger'; he's probably a racist.
I decide I will talk to Mozart tomorrow. I go to sleep thinking about what I’ll say to him.
The theme from 'Friends' is playing over and over, except it is different. It’s like it is playing backwards but it all makes perfect sense (not like if it was a record being played backwards). I watch TV and there's a program on about it, which Mozart is presenting. He is speaking fluent English and he tells me about how the producers of 'Friends' thought that the song was now outdated and that people were getting annoyed with it. So they got a new band to record a song where all the chords were reversed and they changed the lyrics around a bit. Mozart is now interviewing the band and they ask him to play violin with them. He starts to play but it is all in a different key and sounds more like an entire orchestra rather than just one violin. They stop and look at him. Mozart apologises bashfully and puts down the violin.
***
I dread having to see Mozart at work. I walk into the kitchen and he looks up at me through his blond hair that’s hanging in front of his eyes and asks in his Polish accent:
‘Busy?’
But in my head the only word that is coming out of his mouth is 'nigger.' I flinch and say: ‘Yeah, seems to be a lot of people out tonight.’
He doesn’t say anything to this and goes back to his sink. I place an order and one of the chefs looks at it absent-mindedly.
Jazz is piped through, even to the toilets. I sit on the comfortable wooden seat. My trousers are done up and I am not going to the toilet. There is a sign on the wall, covering where someone has written some graffiti. The sign says:
RUNNING A RESTAURANT IS LIKE A GOOD FRIENDSHIP
SOMETIMES YOU MAY FIND FAULT.
IF YOU HAVE FOUND FAULT WITH ANYTHING HERE
PLEASE LET A MEMBER OF STAFF KNOW
I start to cry.
I go back to the kitchen and Mozart looks up at me. He looks at me slightly shocked. He can probably see I have been crying. Tears leave an unruboutable trace on your face. I want to say something to him. Tell him to stop being a racist or something, but it all sounds ridiculous in my head. He smiles at me and says,
‘Are you okay?’
I go over to the plates waiting to be taken out to the customers, pick them up and walk out of the kitchen.
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