The Half Guinea eavesdrops on John Smith and The Hunched Cornish
Andrew’s Pub is a cavernous basement-level watering hole down in Kyiv’s bohemian Podil district made up of two halls – one big one in the back with a bar and live music once a week; and a smaller one nearer the entrance with a handful of tables along the walls.
The sound is brogue-to-the-brim ballads, some of which were probably considered offensive before the advent of Gangster Rap.
The interior is otherwise predictable – plenty of framed pictures of “Old Eire” and other Celtic kitsch sharing wall space with the ubiquitous flat-screen TVs broadcasting your choice of Fashion Channel, Cable News or some Euro sporting event.
All of this corridor space is broken up by what I call closet booths, so that you can get drunk and naughty without bothering the other guests.
The occupants of these booths, who can pester the wait staff with a kind of bell in each closet, regularly reveal themselves in group formation as they noisily pile out on to the corner of Yaroslavska and Kostyantynivska streets to fill their lungs with nicotine and tar.
Some don’t go that far, but rather ensconce themselves just beyond the entrance door at the bottom of the outside staircase, making it easy for other patrons to hit them with the door, which you want to do anyway because they invariably blow smoke in your face as you try to get around them to go up the stairs.
As for the menu?
Well, John Smith wants a 200 ml glass of uzvar, or boiled dry fruit served at room temperature or chilled, which at Andrew’s only costs UAH 11.
John also likes the veal steak, which at Andrew’s is arguably one of the best in Kyiv for UAH 148. Don’t be put off by the price – it’s worth it. Cooked to your taste – well done, medium-rare or rare? (the waiters have been trained to ask) – with wedges of potatoes fried in their skin, the meat is both succulent and flavorful.
But The Hunched Cornish, Smith’s dinner companion, begs to differ and is reporting different prices for the same items. He says the uzvar costs UAH 15 and the veal goes for UAH 138.
The reader should be made aware that these two collaborators don’t always see eye to eye.
But let’s listen in more closely to learn what else the restaurant critics are talking about and to what purpose.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
John Smith (JS)
The Hunched Cornish (HC)
An Andrew’s Pub Waiter (W)
JS: So does he have a soul?
HC: I don’t know.
JS: What do you mean, you don’t know? This character, this malignant freak is running all over the city of Kyiv wreaking havoc in people’s lives, and you don’t know whether he has a soul or not? I cannot continue like this. Where is the sense? If he exists in the plot, then he is alive. If he is alive, and presumably but not certainly human, then he must have a soul. Isn’t it so?
The Hunched Cornish lets out a deafening belch more insulting for the indifference of its producer than any smell it exudes.
JS: All right, you son of a bitch, and I use this term loosely, as I am not certified that you indeed had a mother, but may have somehow coagulated from the dregs of foul-smelling demon’s dung – cut the crap. We have this personage, this creature, this, this Ferret, running around Kyiv and being directed solely by the mechanics of your, that is, our imaginations, and all you can do is belch?
A waiter – a young, calf-faced man with the shifty expression of a medieval knave – suddenly besets the table, as is his wont.
HC: Arrgh aha, aha ha.
W: Hmm?
JS: No thank you. That won’t be necessary. Just leave these table droppings and other unsightly consequences of our meal till we’ve departed. That’s right, and you will be tipped accordingly, my dear boy.
The waiter leaves.
HC: I was gonna tear his face off.
JS: Now that will be enough of that, my hunched-back corn-fed friend (begins laughing at his own bad joke).
HC: (not laughing) The Ferret is not only a figment of our imaginations or the product of our trade, but a real entity, although not necessarily human. He has a soul only to the extent that I give him one, and I am not disposed to do as much. Let him flee where he may, hide where he can – I will always catch him out, exposing him as the liar of liars, the backpedaler of the ages before the bicycle was invented, a manipulating little t…
JS: Ok, that’s enough of that… people are beginning to…
HC: Let ‘em stare. You act the way you want in public, and I will act the way I want to, Smith! Heh, heh, heh. You write what you want, and I will write what I want… All right? We aren’t here to just decorate the Internet or serve as the defendants of lawsuits concocted by the characters behind the characters that we’ve given life to. Not on your life (takes on a blue, devilish look).
JS: (putting on a brave face) Yeah, I know that…
HC: You don’t know anything, and neither do I, but both of us are going to find out a lot about this town and the two-dimensional losers who control its English-language media – and most of all about ourselves – before it’s all over.
The waiter again slips up to the table, almost unnoticed, except for a faint scent of body odor.
W: (placing the bill on the table) Anything else?
The Half Guinea, March 8, 2013