The First Grind Before Six

The alarm goes at five twenty and I am on the street by five fifty, crossing the Marais while it still belongs to the delivery vans and the sweepers. The shutters are down on rue de Bretagne. A man hoses the pavement in front of the flower shop and does not look up. I like the quarter at this hour. Nobody is performing anything.

I unlock, lift the chairs off the tables, and let the room breathe for a minute before I start. The floor needs sweeping. The pastry order arrives at six fifteen, always the same boy, always two minutes late. I put on the apron over my shirt, and the day begins in a very unglamorous way, which is the part nobody photographs.

The Machine Comes First

The espresso machine is second-hand, bought from a man in Belleville who was closing his bar to move south. It has a temperament. In winter it needs twenty minutes to trust me; in summer, ten. I pull a shot for myself before anything else — not for pleasure, exactly, more to hear whether it is going to be a good day.

By seven thirty the room is half full. The baker from the corner takes his espresso standing, reads the first page of the paper, and leaves the rest for whoever wants it. Two women share a table and a single croissant and speak quietly about a divorce. I have learned not to hear things, and also to remember which cup belongs to whom.

People think slowness is a style. Mostly it is just paying attention for longer than is convenient.

I wear a waistcoat because it changes how I stand. A white shirt, a grey vest, and suddenly I am not a person leaning against a bar but someone keeping a room. It is a small trick and I am not ashamed of it. The customers behave differently too — better, honestly. They ask for things instead of demanding them.

What the Register Does Not Show

After the lunch rush I sit with the ledger and am reminded that a café is mostly arithmetic. Milk, electricity, the lease that went up again in January. I am not natural at this part. I do it on Tuesdays with a pencil and a coffee that has gone cold, and then I stop, because the day has a second half and it belongs to the room.

At four the light comes through the front window and lies across the zinc counter. I play a record — usually something old, because the machine is loud and quiet music loses. Someone asks what it is. Someone else is reading a screenplay and has been on page four for an hour. I wipe down the grinder and consider that a Tuesday has passed.

We close at seven, later on Fridays. I count the till, turn the chairs, and walk home along the rue de Turenne with my collar up. The Marais is loud again by then, full of people who are just arriving. I have already had my day. There is something restful in being out of step with your own street.