Lunch (in English)

“I don’t speak any English,” she said, sitting next to me. “So don’t try chatting me up.”

 

I nodded agreement, but said nothing, during which time she took out a plastic lunch box and placed it on the table next to me.

 

There were over a dozen tables in the outside seating area, all of them empty, and I was confused why she chose to join me, especially as she was so keen to avoid conversation.

 

As if reading my mind, she said, “If anyone asks I’m with you,” directing her gaze firstly towards her packed lunch and then to the ‘Seating for customers only ‘ sign. “Tell them I don’t speak English,” she added.

 

“What are you then?” I asked. “Polish?” I guessed, from the hint of accent she’d displayed.

 

“If you like.”
 
We said nothing for a while, both of us focussing 100% on consuming our respective lunches. Eventually she spoke again.

 

“It’s Natasha,” she said.
 
“What is?”

 

“My name. Natasha. I’m not telling you anything else about myself though, else you might get ideas. I don’t even speak English.”

 

Another woman approached and, even though the outside area of the café was otherwise empty, she pulled a chair up to our table.

 

“If anyone asks, I’m with you,” she said, taking out a plastic lunch box.

 

“You can join us, but we don’t speak English,” Natasha warned her.

 

The woman nodded agreement and proceeded to consumer her lunch.

 

Not long afterwards another woman pulled up a chair and joined us, then another. I wasn’t really paying attention, Natasha told everyone who arrived that we didn’t speak English and I didn’t want to confuse things by getting involved in the conversations that were happening around me. I was 100% focused on my lunch, and it wasn’t until I’d finished that I realised we’d been joined by twenty or thirty people, their chairs circling our table, all of them eating packed lunches.

 

Having finished my lunch I put on my jacket, ready to leave.
 
“Don’t go,” Natasha said.

 

“But I’ve finished my lunch,” I said, “I have to return to work.”
 
She put her hand on my arm and looked at me pleadingly. “Don’t leave,” she said. “We need you here.”