Via Prague: expats, etc.

You spot each other across the cafe and there's an instant recognition.
A sort of wary contemptuous body language, the worn look around the eyes, which are now scanning in different directions, scouting the bar for potential fresh, bright people -- new people -- the aloofness of step and soul.
You exchange brusque greetings, sometimes not even bothering with introductions. After all they would be superfluous and redundant.
'Right then, where y'from?' (We already know)
'So you living here?' (No, I reside on Pluto actually)
'What y' do?' (Of course you both teach a bit, drink a lot)
Such is why many expats tend to avoid each other. Henry Miller, during his Paris days, described a friend who like him had been in the city a long time, too long. 'We had so many points in common it's like looking into a cracked mirror.'
From this perspective, tourists can actually seem illuminating and refreshing in comparison. At least you don't have to see them again.
At the top of the hill on my street is a hostel. It has a nice cafe, reasonably priced with a great rotating ensemble of bartenders; breezy Irishman Charlie; Andrea and Nikola, two charming Czechs with their matching black-red dreads, and the manager, a Englishman named Brian who's married to a Czech and happily residing in a village outside the city. Each night the bar is reinvented anew, its atmosphere regenerated by the ever-shifting crowds, mostly students, from different corners of the globe.
Then there's us, the expats, who put in reliable shifts, sitting at the bar, chatting up new arrivals, trying to convince Brian to keep the chicken curry on the menu and not put the beer prices up.
'Tourist season's winding down,' he says. 'The food costs are too much. Sorry, I like you guys and all, the expats, but to be honest, the tourists have to come first. They spend the money.'
One of them, the expats I mean, drifts in. He's been outside on the terrace, sipping a Pilsner and reading a sci-fi book in the fading light. I've seen him before, a short, grey-headed English guy, one of those generally described as '45 going on 25,' a group that sometimes I come dangerously close to becoming a member of. His Chris or Ted or Bob. It doesn't matter really. He'll address you, in a warily hearty tone, as Jason or Jeff or one of the interminable Jays.
'Expats can be some of the most boring people I've ever met,' says Brian, the bartender. And you know what he means.
Later, you pay and decide to head to Pavels. There are usually no expats there, except you of course. And Islam, the cook from Bangladesh who is your flatmate. Some Czech friends greet you and you go back and see Islam for a while.
'It's going?' he says. He's making sandwiches.
'It's going.'
'Ah, life is hard,' he says, smiling.
'Life is fight,' I say, adopting his style.
'Life is life.'
'Life is life.' The kitchen is small and warm, but there's a computer where Islam checks the news in Bangladesh and world news and chats online with his Czech girlfriend Monika. I tell her hello. 'Cau!' she flashes back electronically.
'What about interview?' Islam asks. I'd applied for a school in Istanbul.
'Tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow?'
Out in the bar it's noisy and smoky, but Pavel is as always relaxed and a bit stoned. His girlfriend says hey and Pavel already has a frothy pint ready, and the bar has a close, friendly feel and the weary expat feeling washes away.

Via Prague

Literary and other offerings from former Times-Standard reporter James Tressler, who is living, teaching and writing in Prague.

expats, etc.

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