One Morning in London: A Cucumber, a Rubber Rat, and Whatever May Happen

London is a little universe. On Brick Lane, where we stayed on our last visit, there’s a coffee shop.

There, a middle-aged Indian host makes the best cinnamon coffee in the area, and from the very morning — as early as 7:30 — he gathers all the local Londoners: Brits, Vietnamese, Thais, Arabs. And since his wife is half Russian, half Latvian, he confidently speaks Russian himself and greets me every morning with a cheerful, “Good night, Alisa.”

On our fifth or sixth visit for coffee, the owner kindly approached me and offered a cucumber, letting me choose from a tray of neatly arranged cucumbers. He said it was organic, from his garden. I thanked him and picked one. It would fit perfectly into dinner.

Then he exchanged a few words with Sasha, my daughter (her English is about as good as his Russian, so they understood each other perfectly), and he gave her a toy egg and a rubber rat.

With these little artifacts in my bag, I started the day and wondered what else it might surprise me with. And a surprise followed: it started raining, and the rain was long, eagerly awaited, and fresh. We spent the whole day under it, wandering along London’s little Venice and reaching Regents Park.

Rain in August is not part of my routine these past seven years. In a way, I think this is the essence of this city.

London is a morning smelling of cinnamon, with a cucumber and a rubber rat in your bag, endless rain ahead, and the fading heat behind you. London is when you walk along polished cobblestones among a Babel of people, bewildered, expecting anything, yet confident that whatever happens next will be more than wonderful.

Sincerely,

Alisa Abramova