Free drinks for your souls

– Justine, do you mind if I talk to you about what’s going on here?

– I don’t mind. It is very rare to find a sober interlocutor here. So I will only be glad to have your company.

Louis thought for a long time where to start. Leaning against the railing, like Justine, he began to ask:

– Who’s the bartender?

– He serves visitors – Justine answered with a grin.

– No, no. Who is he…

Stuttering, Louis continued after a few seconds:

– …just, out of anger, I threw a glass at him, which went through him. Honestly. I saw it with my own eyes.

– I believe. You’re not the first to throw a glass at Albert. But everyone who tries to do this immediately gets scared when he sees all these mystical tricks.

– Fine. Where is he from?

– Nobody knows this. However, like where this bar is located.

– What do you mean? – Louis was surprised. -Aren’t we in France?

– Well, we are French. I guess Albert is also, well, somewhat French, and speaks the same language to all the clients so that over time all the visitors begin to understand each other. And in this sense, you and I are lucky. But there are many here who are from other lands. And they have never been to France. They also stumbled upon this establishment in some deserted place late in the evening, and the next morning they had already become guests of this establishment, which does not stand in one place. There are Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Dutch, Flemings, Germans, Scandinavians, Persians. Guests from all over the world gathered here.

Immediately, Louis asked the following question:

– I noticed that no one orders food. Everyone drinks, but no one eats. What is the reason?

– This is another feature of the bar. Albert’s establishment is quite mysterious. There is something here that saves a person from hunger and disease. You can drink as much as you like and you won’t experience any problems. No one here even experiences a hangover in the morning.

Now Louis asked questions indiscriminately, one after another.

– Here all drinks are paid and increase… um…

– Credit – Justine suggested.

– Yes, credit. This is true?

– Yes.

– But if this deprives them of the opportunity to leave here, why do they drink more? Don’t they really want to see their home as soon as possible?

– You will soon learn something about this place. And then you might also want to increase your debt to the establishment.

– But I don’t need to.

– Well, at least because for some this place eventually turns into a real paradise. You drink as much as you want and you can stay here forever. No one will judge you for drinking from morning to evening.

– And you? You obviously don’t intend to stay here, do you? And that’s why you don’t drink. Isn’t that right?

– Maybe. However, I still don’t know what I want,” Justine answered, sighing heavily.

– And how did you get here?

– That day, my husband and I went to our estate near Paris. A few years earlier we had lost our only child. – With a trembling voice, Justine continued: – My boy was only eight. I couldn’t decide to have another one because I was afraid that we would lose him too. For this, my husband hated me and began to cheat on me. He walked to the fullest, dragging first one and then the other into bed. – Justine said these words with some anger. – In a word, he behaved like a male dog who, as soon as he sees a bitch, immediately rushes to mate. And on the day we arrived at our estate, I went to the stables. I didn’t even have time to step over the threshold. He fucked the servant right in the hay, who moaned like a street whore. – Then she looked at Louis. – He despised me so much that he didn’t even disdain to have sex with the servant. This was the last straw. Hatred was eating me up from the inside. I walked wherever my eyes led me. It probably took two hours, no less. I came out onto some hill where I had never been before. There was the bar there. Albert turned out to be very polite.

– And how much did you owe when you found out about everything?

This was followed by an unhealthy laugh from Justine.

– The funny thing is that I have never drank anything other than wine aged for many years. All evening I drank one of the most expensive wines and thought about how I would return, pack my things and leave this scumbag. The wine was so expensive that in a couple of hours my credit grew to 52 days. And when I realized that there was nowhere to go, I began to drink in order to indulge in oblivion and not think about it. But it only made things worse. The credit grew with every glass. I owed the establishment 632 days.

– And how many days are left? – Louis asked carefully.

– I haven’t checked with Albert for a long time, but somewhere around a couple of hundred or so.

After a short pause, Justine asked:

– And you, dear Louis?

He spoke in detail about his bitter loss that preceded his arrival at the bar. Having told about everything, he seemed to feel some kind of lightness and serenity filling his chest. As soon as he poured out his soul, the feeling of grief noticeably subsided.

– O-o-o. Louis, I’m so sorry. My condolences.

This is how he met a very pleasant and sociable French woman, who had been a guest of the bar for a year and a half.

Louis was depressed. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and sat in his room. Just like that, waiting until the third day comes to an end, the sun disappears below the horizon and he can leave the walls of the mysterious establishment.

As time went. When a person is waiting for something, not a second escapes his attention. Occasionally time mocks a person, and patience amazes with its cruelty, not wanting to part with its prisoner and sarcastically waits for a specific moment to come.

Louis stood in front of the window, counting down the moments until the small orange speck in the distance disappeared from view. Gradually the waiting became too tedious for him. It becomes so hard to wait and feel how every second evaporates, and every moment passes like a hopeless eternity.

The solar disk was in no hurry to go beyond the horizon. Louis lay down on the soft bed and fell asleep, and when he woke up, it was already completely dark outside the window and the bar was deserted. He went downstairs and headed towards the exit, passing the bar counter.

Albert wiped the glasses, peering at their transparency every couple of seconds. He called out to Louis, who was passing in front of him:

– Louis.

He timidly turned around to face the bartender.

– Let me talk to you about something before you go. It won’t take long.

– Yes, of course – Louis said quietly.

– Sit down – Albert pointed to a chair in front of the counter.

He threw a snow-white towel over his shoulder, placed his hands on the edges of the counter and turned to Louis:

– Before you want to leave, I would like you to know what you may need most right now. I’m sure Justine has told you a lot about what’s going on here. But I want you to know the main thing. Those three days that you spent here – no one took them away from you. There, in the outside world, these three days really passed. But here life comes to a standstill. During this time you have not aged at all. Time in my establishment has no power over people and it stops for those who want to spend a day, a month, a year here. Nothing could be worse than losing your wife and children. Don’t ask me how I know everything. Just listen. Now you will return home, you will wake up with chest pain, and you will fall asleep with it. And the days allotted to you will melt away. Your soul is filled with grief, there is complete sorrow in it. But this grief is too strong. And this feeling will not allow you to return to the world in which you lived before tragedy engulfed your home. Don’t get me wrong, Louis…

Albert continued to speak, filling a glass with the contents of some bottle:

– …this establishment is not a prison, but a place where time stands still. Here among the visitors there are rich and poor, believers and atheists, lucky and unlucky, daredevils and cowards, pacifists and militarists, generous and greedy. Everyone has gathered here. If you stay here for a while, you can get to know this crowd and maybe they can change your attitude towards life. Believe me, all this rabble has such life experience that your idea of the world will seem meager to you, and life will seem like time that you wasted. In addition, you will have nowhere to rush, and therefore you will be able to carefully think through all the pressing issues.

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