Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain quotidien

M. tells me that, in my concentrated devotion to the subject of peanut butter and Marmite, I forget that I did visit a branch of Le Pain Quotidien on one of my trips to New York. I wish I had clearer memories of what happened during the rare days when I did not have to study for the Bar exam. Unfortunately, I did not take my diary or notebook with me to record anything, not having expected to be able to do much on my visits when my brain was filled with exam-related anxiety. So my powers of recollection, which have always resembled pages of a scrapbook more than a memory chip, can only garner a hazy mix of events: I do remember what we did, but I do not remember the sequence of things.

We ended up in Le Pain Quotidien because we were walking around Madison Avenue before going to visit the Asia Society's exhibitions. I was excited to be walking after having been in the car for an hour - it took that much time to get into Manhattan and find a parking spot - so I didn't mind that it was so cold my nose felt numb. It was already getting dark although it couldn't have been later than five o'clock in the afternoon.

The long table was made of naked wood, smoothened by a plane but unvarnished, and it was empty on our side except for two gentlemen sitting opposite to us. They looked like old friends - they were languidly drinking from large bowls of caffe latte in front of them, and their conversation was at times slow and at times animated. When the waitress gave us the menus, I noticed she had a tatoo in Chinese characters around one of her upper arms, but I could only make out the second character.
"Hey, what do you think that says?" I nudged M. for him to have a look at the tatoo. He looked carefully at the tatoo, then shrugged.
"I don't know."
"Let's ask."
Before M. could stop me - it is not in his nature to do these things - I asked the girl when she came back for our orders: "That's a very interesting tatoo. What does it say?"
The tall girl grinned. She was wearing black rimmed glasses and short hair that was tossed fashionably around her small head. Her white apron was tied firmly around her waist.
"It's nice, isn't it? I had it done in Tokyo. I made sure I knew what it was saying before I had it done, you know, so that it didn't say something tacky," she said, lowering her arm so that I could see the black words better. The gentlemen in front us suddenly became quite animated. They stared at her tatoo like I had done, and the girl was proud to show it to them.
"That's very interesting," one of them said, "I can tell you, one of my friends got a tatoo done by a Japanese guy in Tokyo."
"Really?" the girl and I said in unison.
I'm afraid I can't remember what the tatoo meant, nor can I recall the joke the man told us about his friend's tatoo. Maybe M. will have a better recollection of it. But I do remember that our coffees were lovely - aromatic and soothing enough to make my nose warm and toasty again. We even had a little pastry or two. The tatooed girl went about her duties and the two gentlemen went on discussing a dinner party. There was a large crowd of Frenchmen sitting on the opposite side of the long table, talking in their language. A small queue had gathered in the front part of the shop to buy the elegantly shaped bread and cakes that were oozing out delicious smells into the cafe. M. and I rested on the bench, sipping in the cosiness of it all with our coffee. I have always complained to M. that New York feels like an unfamiliar, cold and unwelcoming place. But at that moment, I felt quite happy with it.
"Goodbye," I said to the two friends in front of us, as we stood up to leave.
"Goodbye,", "Have a good evening," they said. I waved to the waitress, too. Then we were back out in the cold street, our skin rapidly chilling in the wind.