Dinner with the Advocate (Part I)

For now I had four days off, with a wonderful Mercedes, and at six dinner at the hotel restaurant, the best restaurant in town, with the patron of the Hares and Bronco. 

We had plenty of time, so I had time still to swim for an hour, while Bronco laid back and relaxed. When after the pool I went back home, Bronco told me that unfortunately for these four free days he had to return to his home—the train was around midnight—and he assured me that Wednesday morning he would definitely be back. 

For dinner I put on a shining dark blue double breasted jacket with a wide lapel and thin pants, a white shirt, a very colorful and wide tie in Leo’s style, colored socks and black STACY ADAMS’. I looked and felt like a cross between Fred Astaire and, of course, Humphrey Bogart. 

Because this day was horribly humid and cold, even though we went by car, I put on a dark blue-green double-breasted coat of camel fur with an obligatory orange-green scarf. 

Bronco, who only had what he had on when he came, I dressed in a beige cashmere gold shirt, a thick, wool green club jacket with gold buttons, khaki pants and dark brown shoes, and to this also a dark blue gabardine coat with warm artificial fur stitched on the inside, with a belt and a large bright collar from the fur of a baby seal. 

Because Bronco was shorter than me by less than a centimeter and a half, when he put the outfit on it looked like it had been tailor-made for him. I don’t have to add, I think, that everything we had on us was MADE IN USA. 

We presented ourselves not too poorly. 

When we came in, the Venetian merchant sat already at the table. He had on the same tweed jacket as last time, a fresh light blue shirt with a wool tie in a color so bright green that it made an impression as if the advocate had just come from the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Philadelphia, Chicago or New York. 

You could tell that he bought new, very wide gray pants and what was most important—new black shoes of domestic production, with gray, gray socks. He looked in all this somewhat like a Chinese forest ranger. 

To the question of how his interests were, he responded that he was participating in an ugly affair, in which most likely the following day a verdict would fall, and immediately, unlike the accused, he would get to go home. 

He continued that he was very happy to be able to have dinner with normal, respectable people, because here the people with whom he had professional contact, they were all without exception miscreants—and in this nasty situation that he found himself in a week ago at the train station, none of them would have taken interest or helped him at all. 

On the contrary, each one of them would try in their inherent meanness to pile on. He added that he had only one more big favor to ask, that no matter how the evening would unfold, to throw him out at ten absolutely, because the next day he had to be rested and in good mental form. 

Even though tomorrow was Saturday, because of the court process he was involved in, a particularly heavy day awaited him, and he intended to impress because he was considering the possibility of moving to this town. 

When the waiter came, I realized that aside from a light breakfast I hadn’t eaten anything that day, because the whole time I was very busy. 

I had a light sign of hunger when I was leaving the pool, but in light of other obligations I had simply stopped thinking about it. 

Now I ordered a triple serving of tartar sauce, lobster soup, pike perch in water with vegetables and a bottle of white wine. They each ordered fish in jelly, the advocate cream of asparagus and a large hand of pork, and Bronco ordered borscht with pate and a baked turkey with stuffing. 

They ordered also a half liter of chilled vodka, some beer and for the end, coffee, liqueurs and ice cream. We were all so hungry and tired that there was not much in the way of conversation. 

The advocate repeated constantly what a great act of good I had done him the week before last, to which I jokingly responded that I would not have done it had I suspected that for the whole evening it would be our only topic of conversation.

The hotel restaurant was huge. It consisted of several interconnected halls of different sizes. 

From an architectural standpoint it represented a mix of late art deco style and early socio-realism. When it came to prestige, this location had a very strong position, because the hotel in which it was located was the only one in the province that during this time welcomed the very diverse lot of foreigners that visited, and because of all-encompassing Soviet spy mania, everything here had to be under alert control. 

In this hotel everywhere were installed different kinds of surveillance equipment, and the whole staff, from the bathroom personnel to the restaurant maitre d’, were definitely trained by security functionaries. 

Despite this, the kitchen there was excellent. Among the best locales in town this restaurant found itself in second place, the first belonging to a small private restaurant a little ways away from the center of town, covered in greenery. 

Because at eight dancing was to begin, the halls filled relatively quickly. On such an evening, when the orchestra played and there was dancing, the restaurant operated under rules of CONSUMPTIONS, meaning everyone who entered was obligated to pay a pre-set sum at the small table by the entrance, for which they received a voucher. 

The sum ranged from thirty to a hundred złoty, depending on the class of the locale. The voucher then acted as normal cash when paying the check, and the restaurant had a guarantee that no one stayed the entire evening, dancing and blocking attractive tables with only a purchase of a bottle of mineral water for one złoty fifty. 

The advocate, who came earlier, not having much big city experience, and wanting to satisfy us maximally, bought three consumption vouchers, two for us, because he had invited us, and one, even though as a guest of the hotel he was exempt from this requirement, for himself. 

Entering with Bronco I had bought two also. 

In sum we had five hundred złoty worth of vouchers to eat and drink through, which for three people was far too much. 

I had to admit one thing: the advocate chose an ideal table in the main hall, right by the dance floor, with a view of the entrance and the restaurant bar in the next hall, and also with a view to two of the halls at either side of this one, not to mention already the orchestra, which we had as if at our fingertips, and which was just preparing to play the first three pieces.