It’s a small place out in the woods a good 35 minute drive out of town on a one-lane dirt track. Café Heartbreak. It opens well after dark and closes when it feels like it. The dusty road up there winds, thick with trees on both sides so you can hardly see three feet left or right. If you wind down your window you can hear owls hooting and creatures rustling.
Eventually, a sole upright streetlamp rumoured to have been an original from London in the 1930s when they had real thick fog, but now its ultra-bright bulb is dull. Next, you notice the sign, even dimmer but in pink neon spelling ‘Cafe Hearbk’ with one or more letters flashing, as you’d imagine for a scene like this.
The bar itself has a blue facade, faded and cracked with age, but discernibly blue. Blue is the theme. You can’t see inside, the panes are thick with dust but park your car and as you approach, the door will open. You’ll find yourself face-to-face with a huge unfriendly brute of a man, completely bald, with a very thick moustache and Italian features. He wears a huge black overcoat no matter how hot it is. This is Plato. He never smiles and you have to concentrate to make out what he’s growling, but you’ll be OK. Don’t be afraid of him, he’s got the biggest heart of anyone in that place. Softer than butter in summer. The exact opposite of Steve.
You’re on your own, well, you’d better be, because you can only get in if you’re on your own and - as the sign says - heartbroken. Cafe Heartbreak is for the properly broken hearted. Those who are desperate, who can’t stand themselves but also can’t help themselves. You’ll feel it soon as that door creeks open. It seems to let out a sigh and you’ll taste the saltiness of tears on your lips as you approach. The sorrow embraces you like an old friend, and you’d better be in the right frame of mind to embrace it back, because if not, you’re not getting in.
You don’t need me to tell you at this point, but I’m going to anyway - don’t try and fake it. Many, many have tried. Actors and chancers have put on the most mournful shows and Plato has spotted every last one of them before they’ve even reached the door. They all get turned away, and its for their own good. If they were inside Café Heartbreak without the requisite broken heart, they’d die of shame within minutes of exposure to the truly forlorn. Their sham laid bare would make them so sick, they’d be out the door in seconds.
Entry is $25, or £15, but its negotiable over the state of your suit and shoes, which are obligatory, or a dress if you’re a lady. If it looks like you’ve been living in your clothes three days and you already stink of whisky, lines of despair on your face, he’ll let you in for 10 or even 5. I told you Plato has a big heart.
He will show you to your table. Once you’re inside you hear his perfectly shined shoes clacking over the jagged black and red pattern on the floor and you’ll wonder why its so clean when everything else is coated in such a thick layer of dust? You can try and sneak a peek into the other booths, but you won’t be able to make out much more than hair colour, illuminated by the single lamp at each table. There’s no lighting on the ceiling, and you’ll never quite be able to make out where the corners are. Everything is thick with cigarette smoke. As your eyes adjust you’ll notice a partition dividing off the bar at the back wall and the lowly illuminated outlines of a man and woman sign over the toilet doors.
It’s akin to a grimy post-war bar, where the gin used to be like petrol and your hand came off black every time you wiped your brow.
The tables are tiny, hardly big enough to sit behind and with barely any space for drinks. Only one person can sit. A large black telephone with an old fashioned receiver and a thick, curly cord sits before you. Next to that is a bottle, which at some point years ago had a label on it. Also, a fine well-cut crystal whisky glass, which you’re about to find out is in complete juxtaposition to the contents of that bottle. The whisky’s there for you, feel free to pour as much of it as you like, but be warned, it is truly the most foul tasting, sour and disgusting stuff you’ve tried to soak down. God knows where they get it from - China is my guess - but it’ll have you heaving. I can’t say I know of any man who’s made it so much as halfway through a bottle of that paraffin, let alone finished one. Truly a drink only a brokenhearted man or woman could subject themselves to, and believe me, you will.
Once you’re sat down and comfortable you’ll hear the music, you somehow never notice it straight away. It’s soft and creeps up on you. Gentle but weary strings, adagios and sonatas, played by the most mournful string quintet you could imagine. It’s a recording, but they seem to have hundreds of them, I’m no master of that sort of thing, but its said you can tell its the same quintet playing each one. They’re supposed to be from Mexico, a group of the most fierce-eyed women you’ll ever see, who all wear complete black aside from a deep red flower in their hair and who all lost their husbands in a fire at a notorious whorehouse. Their strings resonate with bitterness and resent but, above all, sadness, the engulfing sadness of the bar. Every now and then you’ll hear the record run out and click for a few minutes before Steve changes it.
The telephone has a large and unusual circular dial with 21 numbers on it, zero to 20. Zero is for the bar. They’re not cruel enough to make you actually drink that putrid mess in the bottle, so you can order drinks. Everything costs five, but they don’t serve beer. Only cocktails, spirits and wine. Steve takes your order on the phone, but The Boy brings your drinks. He’s called that but he must be pushing 40 now, even if he still looks around 17. Wordlessly he’ll set down your libations and there will be a nod, that is all. I’ve never heard him speak.
Now you’re sitting comfortably, its time to talk. Pick up the phone and dial a number - one to twenty. You’ll be connected to a table. They’ll pick up and, usually, just start talking. Oh, the stories you’ll hear. You won’t be able to stand them. You won’t be able to stand yourself. Mothers who have lost their sons in car accidents just days before. Fathers with daughters murdered by jealous husbands. And so many who have lost the great, great loves of their lives. Near-teenagers going through the gut-wrench punch of their first love leaving, widowers bereft after 60 years together. Stories to make the devil cry. You’ll cry, you’ll cry and you’ll confess your own heartbreak, you’ll rain down the tears and push your angry misery back on them too. Its exhausting, it leaves you aching. The tears will roll down your cheeks and all over that floor (so that’s why its so clean!) The tears will flow forever and ever and you’ll lose yourself in sentiment, in self-pity, in loathing. The blubber and mucus congealing on your shirt, you won’t care. Your heart beating so slow and yet so hard, kicking your ribcage. Your shame at being so small and pathetic compared to the 88-year-old-man you’ve just heard wring his stomach out. More people in the bathrooms are retching the last little bits of love out of them than there are pissing. Nobody sits in silence, and the cacophony of wails alone is overwhelming. The music gets a little louder once all the tables are full, once everyone is sobbing away.
Then there’s the bar. If you’re new, the other person has to ask, and people usually pair up. You’ll be talking to a 55-year-old lady and she’ll say “come to the bar with me, we all need a little company, huh?” and you’ll give her ten minutes to clean up, you’ll wipe the corners of your eyes and you’ll get yourself together, then you’ll meet her behind the partition. Here the tables are a little larger, enough to get two people around and no telephones. There’s only one rule, but its a strict one: First names only.
Here you’ll catch your first glimpse of Steve. His icy-cold stare, a thousand yards and then some. His lips are curled at the edges and his hair dyed jet, jet, black, blacker than Elvis’, framing an old and deeply lined face. Steve hears everything, even if you murmur. He appears hateful but you will come to realise it is at best indifference, the only thing he has to shield himself against all the pity and hopelessness.
There are rumours about Steve. That his left chest is criss crossed with a thousand scars, deep cuts above where his heart is or was. Others say there’s just one huge scar, where he stabbed himself through with a blade so deep it came out of his back, somehow he lived but the blade’s still in there, for if they removed it he’d die. Like Plato, his brother, nobody knows a thing about him. They look Italian but certainly are not, the language they occasionally utter to each other said to be Albanian or Hungarian, or an archaic form of Norwegian everybody else in the world has forgotten. Nobody knows how long they’ve been running The Heartbreak, but stories go as far back as my father in the 40s.
If you’re at the bar you’ll get your drinks there and the price doubles to ten. As a gentleman or gentlewoman I’m sure you’ll buy the shrunken old lady in front of you the first one. Steve will be surly as he serves you, and don’t you dare make small talk. He’s a man of function, always in a dirty white shirt unbuttoned at the top, but not enough to see if the rumours are true. His eyes are circled black like he never sleeps. He grunts and stamps your drinks down, but mark my words, he’s on your side.
You’ll chat, more people will appear at other tables, and maybe you’ll even start to feel better. The night goes on and the music gets faster, but its still so awfully sad as to shake your bones. From there it depends how the night goes. It could all stop there, continuing until you’re so drunk you can’t see and you wonder how you even got home the next day. But if its a good night, if people really gel together in that atmosphere, suddenly a light will come on. A small pineapple shape will appear above a door you never noticed before. Everybody’s eyes will be on it, but for a while none of the 20 will dare make a move. The oldest person - always the oldest, as they are the bravest - will make their way over and open the door. Inside is the blue room. A regal room with lounge chairs and large, lush, blue velvet curtains, and a blue light. The music changes now, becomes more modern. The saddest songs of the 20th century, some the originals, some dreamy, breathless cover versions by bands who have never been heard of in this half of the world, in languages you only know the beginnings of: Latvian, Estonian, Khazakh. They play Don’t You Want Me, Stay, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Broken Heart, old Spanish polkas and Cossack epics.
Steve couldn’t possibly be DJing, and Plato is still by the door. Is it The Boy? Nobody knows, but now they can’t help but dance. The saddest songs you ever heard can make you feel something else. You won’t care who you dance with, but you’ll place your feet carefully, not wanting to spoil such a beautiful night, bathed in such mournful blue light. Will you feel better? Undoubtedly, but it won’t last long, especially after you leave. Everyone must leave, and depending how drunk they are, they usually start to file out at 4am. The thick night air will provide little compensation, but you’ll be glad for it as you step into the real dark. Do people leave together? Of course, but not often, and usually just because they can’t stand to be home alone. Plato drives everyone in a once-silver Rolls Royce, rusting around the edges and poc marked with dents from coming up and down that track.
With so many people to drive, you have to share and you talk to people on the same route. At this point Plato can usually be coaxed into a few words, although nothing personal and he never discusses his own love life or heartbreak, whichever it is. If you took your own car he’ll move it to the bottom of the hill by morning, the other side of the chain stopping anyone driving up there in the day.
You’ll wake up late and your mouth will be hoarse and taste of old leather. It’s all so surreal you’ll be convinced you have seen things you haven’t, a monkey with a tray of drinks or a pinball machine in the corner. You’ll believe you were playing the jukebox even though there is no such thing. You’ll be convinced you’ve heard things you haven’t, a certain Beethoven arrangement or an incredible version of Loomer which was never played. And the strangest thing - every person you’ve seen there, you’ll never see again.
Even if you somehow take another person home you’ll be left in an empty bed by the time you awake. There will be a piece of paper with ‘Rose’ or ‘Tom’ on it, and a number with an out-of-area code, which is always - always - disconnected.
You’ll start to think you were never there at all, but then you’ll be in the Post Office a few days later and you’ll hear a low murmuring, humming a song you’ve only ever heard in The Heartbreak. Or you’ll phone for a restaurant reservation and recognise the voice taking your booking, but they won’t give you their name and will never be there when you arrive.
That’s the way Cafè Heartbreak is. You have to go with the enigma. Push too far and you’ll find yourself down a track you don’t want. Believe me, and don’t ask why. You take it for what it is, a place to indulge a broken heart, but a place to never ask questions.
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