Croissant

A few weeks ago, Maggie asked me to stand in for her at the language school. When I got there, there were two students. One was Thai, the other was Vietnamese. The Vietnamese was a brand new student, fresh from his home country, with almost no English. I found myself repeating lots of words and trying to make sense of what he said. Then I noticed he was saying something familiar. Qu’es que c’est a dire? He spoke French! From then on I began to understand what he was trying to say or ask. That was the first time that my elementary French was put into use.

During the break he asked me to have coffee with him, so I did. I refused his offer to buy me coffee but he bought me a croissant and a custard cake anyway. He puts them on the table, placed two fingers on the croissant and said, ”Hot. Eat. Hot.” I was eating my scone, so I said, “Thank you. Yes, after this.” He touched the croissant again and repeated, “Hot. Eat.” ((((((:

There was a short period in my life when I refused to eat the chicken-congee-on-bicycle, because I saw the seller break the krupuk and sprinkle the fried shallot with his bare hands. The same hands he used to handle money and gripped the handle bars of his bike. After a while, gluttony took over and I said to myself, “Heck, I didn’t get sick eating the congee all this time. Why should I stop now?”

It’s the same case with the croissant. If I didn’t eat it, I might offend the kind student. I didn’t know what the fingers had touched since morning. But what’s the worst that could happen? I put away my scone (so he wouldn’t touch the croissant again) and ate the nice, warm, crispy croissant. Yum!