When I entered the Hans Albers Klause, there were only four people in it. Two women running the bar, one in a red and one in a green shirt, and two guests. I asked if they had a cappuccino and the bar maid with the red shirt shook her head: 'Only coffee and milk or a hit chocolate, love', she said. A rather curious answer. I smiled, ordered a coffee and sat down. It took the woman in the red shirt a while to get the coffee. She apologized and told me she was having her first day and didn't know how the coffee machine worked yet. The other woman, who once in a while was talking in another language I imagined to be Croatian (but I didn't know actually) quickly explained it to her. At first try, she forgot to put a pad in and only brown water came out. The second try worked though and she brought me the coffee in a silver mug. I found the place really interesting. Framed pictures of Hans Albers were everywhere and strangely enough every twenty minutes or so a song kicked in through the speakers at a really loud volume, so I couldn't hear anyone speak anymore.
The two guests were a rather tall man in his sixties with white hair and a beard - he was only shaving his chin and neck, so he had these big sideburns & moustache - and a woman rather small and very very thin hair. I immediately thought she might be suffering from some sort of cancer or so.
Altogether, the four of them really seemed to be enjoying each other's company and observing them and listening to them really made me forget everything else around...and when I couldn't hear what they were actually saying, I tried to imagine what they could be talking about. Amongst other things, they were talking about the bar maid's first day, uncontrollable drunks that every once in a while happen to stumble in and an event from the day before called the 'Schlager Move' where people got loaded and were stumbling through the streets while listening to German Schlager music. I tried to get something down on paper verbatim, but since they were talking at a low volume and every once in a while the music kicked in, this might not make much sense at all, but here it is:
Woman in red: 'I have first day today. I don't know much yet, you see - just with the coffee just now, I forgot to put in pad. (...) My boss told me. (...) When somebody is bad he thinks the world is bad. When somebody is drunk, he gets his face smashed in...'
Woman in green (boss): 'She's doing her job and she's doing it well. (...) You don't have to let yourself down onto same level as them.'
Woman with thin hair: 'I still have chemo four times. After that I gotta go to radiotherapy every day.'
Woman in red: 'What is it you have exactly? Has it spread yet? You know, my husband had it and it spread. If it's small-celled it will spread, if large it won't. With you I beleive it must be large-celled because you'll have to go to radiotherapy.'
Woman with thin hair: 'Actually, I don't know what it is...'
Loud eighties pop music starts and I can't hear anything anymore. When the music stops after a few minutes, I hear them talking about diets. While a delivery person brings in a case of beer, woman in red talks about her not being allowed to eat any more cake and instead eats only fruits in the evenings.
Outside the sky slowly turns grey and I hear chanting from a group of guys touring through Hamburg having a stag party or something. The man with the sideburn-moustache lights himself a cigarette and when he starts talking, I notice that he is lisping:
Man: 'That's not how it works. I only like to drink in a place where the staff is pleasant and when I even know the bartender, that's even better. The bartenders sometimes tell me that I'm a little crazy, too, but when you have gone to a place for years, they kind of know how to take it...'
At 6.10pm another song kicks in. It's Lola by the Kinks! I knew song since I was a kid, but never really listened to it's lyrics properly, I noticed. Since I couldn't hear anything anymore apart from the song, I caught myself writing down how I felt while sitting in this place. Amongst my three lines of notes about the place there is one thing that was very interesting. I wrote down the words 'feeling comfortable'. This place actually made me feel sort of 'at home'...
The woman with thin hair ordered another alcohol-free Becks', while the man was talking about a so-called 'Saufkneipe' - basically a place where you can get drunk. Outside a man with ginger hair was walking by saying 'Slainté!' to someone else and a tattooed man with a leather vest and a beer in his hand came walking in. Quickly realizing that it was almost empty, he walked back out and took a seat there, but after a couple of minutes was asked nicely to leave, if he won't order anything. The two at the bar then had a laugh when she asked him if he wnated to drink from her alcohol-free beer and he answered: 'That'll throw me back at least an hour.'
I realized now that most of the time, it was either him or the barmaid in red talking and that she who had cancer was mainly listening to what they were saying. I wondered if she didn't need to say anything and mainly enjoyed having the company, people around her, or maybe she was just waiting for a moment when she could talk about what was going on inside of her. The moment came when she started talking and, to be completely honest with you, it touched and made me feel bad at the same time. I somehow felt like an intruder who listened in when she poured her heart out.
'It's the hardest thing having to sit there for five hours and knowing that you have to do this every day. (...) It's ironic that my neighbour, she is 73 years old and can dance and jump around anyway she wants, but when I go out by myself alone (...) There are moments when I'm not in a good mood and I just want don't want to this anymore (...) Other times, I wake up in the morning and everything seems to be okay (...) I'm not a hopeless case, not yet. I'm still alive and you're not getting rid of me yet, I'm still here.'
Then she leaned in, he took her in his arms and they put their heads together. They didn't say anything for a long time, but I guess just the gesture was enough for her to be comforted. I, myself, was on the one hand really greatful to see or hear something like this, but as I already mentioned, it also made me feel like I was eavesdropping on something I wasn't supposed to hear. So, at around 7pm I decided to pay my two coffees and go somewhere else. It didn't take long and the rain came pouring down in buckets...
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