So, you have an accent.

by
David G. Hochman

“You’ve got an accent,” the guy says. You’re shopping, minding your business, but as you ask a question (he had overheard me asking a salesperson where the wine was), it’s always there—the accent, and the dreaded questions that come with it. Mind you, in the beginning, being an American overseas, is fun, you like the questions. Makes you feel sort of—what? special? different? You know you’re not really different, but people love accents, don’t they? Women especially. I’ve always wondered about that. There must be something subconscious going on, biological. Don’t tell me a woman likes a guy better than another just because he sounds like Inspector Clouseau. But somewhere in the female brain, I suspect, lie brain cells that are telling her, yeah, baby, go for it, so what if he looks like a balding, clumsy, messily dressed sleuth--expanding the gene pool, never a bad idea.

But now I’m standing in front of a guy at Woolworth’s—nothing in common with the old American Woolworth’s with the suspect products (not unlike today’s Kmart); this Woolworth’s, the South African Woolworth’s (part of the English Marks and Spencers, apparently) is an upmarket grocery store: what that means, essentially, is that you pay twice as much for milk, albeit in a slightly nicer carton, than at another store; this may lead you to ask, logically, what the hell I’m doing here, a struggling (struggling like a son of a bitch) writer: the answer: I’m wondering that myself.
Back to the guy: short, curly brown hair, brown eyes, round spectacles. He’s beaming with anticipation. I know the look too well. And I can already predict the conversation, nearly word for word.
Over the years, you go through stages: first, like I said, you enjoy the questions; then you start to dread them; and finally you play along, you say whatever the hell you want, because you just don’t give a damn—not about the answers, not about the person posing the questions, and, as a struggling writer (did I mention, like a son of a bitch?), not about anything else either, because scraping cash, worrying about money every single goddam day, well suddenly reverence loses all meaning—save of course for the truly great writers who suffered like sons of bitches before you, that never goes away.

“Accent? You think so?” I finally say.

The guy doesn’t look so sure anymore. “Well, you’re from the States, right?”

“No, you’re right. I am.”

“I thought so,” he says, smiling. “East coast?”

Now I’m wondering if he’s going to start narrowing it down by state, county, city, neighborhood, street, house.
“Midwest,” I say. He looks disappointed.

“Chicago?” he says, regaining his composure, looking hopeful again. That’s the amazing thing about these people, their undying optimism: about winning the lottery, about making it on TV, about knowing exactly where I come from.

I wonder whether I should let him down again. “That’s right, Chicago,” I lie.

“I knew it,” he says. “I got a cousin in Chicago--Gavin.”

I let the statement linger in the air. It’s not fair, I know, but I just can’t help myself. “Gavin,” I repeat after him softly. I look around, at the ceiling, at a can of beans, at a nice woman walking down the aisle. “Hmm, Gavin.”

“You know him? Gavin?” he says, adding hopefully, “Gavin Distiller?”

“You mean, the distiller? Moonshine? In the hills of Chicago?” I say, trying to keep an air of gravity.

“No, no, that’s his name—Distiller.” He thinks for a bit. “Are there hills in Chicago?”

“Are there hills in Chicago?” I say. “My goodness, there’s a glacier twenty minutes from downtown.”

He seems embarrassed. “I never knew that.”

“Don’t worry,” I say reassuringly. “Most people don’t. It’s just no big deal to us, not when you have the lake and jazz and the blues. You know what I mean? We leave such things—mountains--to Colorado—they’ve got nothing else.”

“Oh.” He reflects a bit, then remembers his question. “So…you do know him?”

He just can’t help himself. I feel like telling him there are millions of people in Chicago, so you can just calculate the probability of me knowing some schmuck named Gavin. Instead, I nod my head slightly. Of course, I feel like grabbing him by the lapels and smashing him into the cans of beans stacked neatly behind him (twice as expensive as elsewhere), and yelling whether he’s ever taken Statistics 101 in his life, and if not then he damn well should. But I don’t, that’s stage two. I am way past that. I am far, far into stage three. This stage is more subtle, much more relaxing--and much more fun.

“Short guy? Brown curly hair?” I say.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he says, smiling like an imbecile. Again, for a split second, I feel like smacking him (maybe I’m closer to stage 2 than I imagine?), but of course I don’t. I’m enjoying this a bit too much now.

“Glasses?”

“Yeah, Jesus,” he says, incredulous. “A doctor.”

“A doctor?” I say. Suddenly, I shake my head. “No, don’t know him. Funny enough, my grandfather used to buy moonshine from a distiller named Gavin, but then that was a long time ago. Days of prohibition and all that. Nothing to do with your cousin, of course.” I look at him suspiciously, squinting, as if saying, or does it? As if I’m not entirely convinced his cousin isn’t really a moonshine distiller in the hills of Chicago and the doctor story isn’t just a lame ruse. At last I relax. I appear to give him—and his cousin--the benefit of the doubt. I place my hand on his shoulder fatherly. I even manage a face forlorn. “Sorry.”
He, too, looks suddenly terribly disappointed. As if it made any damn difference whether I knew his cousin in Chicago. “Well, nice meeting you,” I say.

Of course, he looks as if he’s got some more questions, about Chicago, Gavin, who knows what. Instead he says, “So, what are you doing here?” Ah, here we go.

“I work for the”—I lower my voice—‘government.”

“Oh?” He says. “You mean the consulate?”

“Well,” I say. “Sort of.”

His eyes narrow. “So…what do you mean then, the government?” I stay quiet, looking at him directly, unflinching. “Can you talk about it?”

“I’m not really supposed to,” I say. I stay quiet for a moment further as if I’m deciding whether or not I can trust him. “But you look alright. You don’t, uh, work for any foreign government yourself do you?”

He laughs. “You mean the Russians?”

I smack him on the back jovially. “Ah, that was the old days.” Then again I appear grave. “What about the French. You’re not working for them”—I pronounce them with a hint of distaste, as if I had just swallowed a bug—“are you?”

For a moment he puffs out his chest. He’s thinking--I can see it--so, he takes me for one of them, one of him, one of the clandestine operatives. Then he says: “No, not at all. You probably won’t believe me, but I’m just an accountant”—

“An accountant?” I interject. “Really? No, you’re right, I would never have guessed.” Is it my imagination, or has he puffed out his chest a bit more?

He appears satisfied. Then he says: “What do you mean, the French? Has it come to that? I read something in the paper about it—you know, Iraq and all that. Freedom fries, right?”

“Right. But it’s much worse than that. Everything has changed. For example, we now say freedom kiss.”

“Freedom kiss?”

“Instead of French kiss.”

“Oh, right,” he says; he pauses. “You serious?”

I look deadly serious. I even furrow the line between my eyebrows for effect. “Everything has changed. Didn’t you know? It was on the news, CNN, all the news channels, a while back. Every instance where it used to be French, we now say freedom. Such as freedom restaurants, freedom lessons, freedom embassy, and so on. Anyone who says French gets fined in America. You can even go to prison, up to six months.”

“Wow,” he says. “Even if you say French by accident?”

“Especially by accident,” I say. “You have to set an example.”

“Right,” he says. “That makes sense.”

“You bet it does,” I say. “That was Dick’s idea—I mean the Vice President’s—he’s one smart guy.” I look sadly in the distance as if Dick and I had spent many a friendly moment together. “And I mean smart.”

His eyes widen. “You know him?”

“Listen, I’m sorry, I may have said too much.” I look at the ceiling distractedly. “The thing is, at the Agency”—I suddenly grow quiet; I look nervous; I look in every direction, checking out the store worriedly. “I mean, at the travel agency”--

“Listen, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he says supportingly. His voice and expression say: don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.

I suddenly grow bored. But I think, it could have been worse. I grab some juice, marvel at the price, place it back down. “Well, nice meeting you,” I say again.

He looks as if he doesn’t want me to go. I can just imagine, he has a million more questions, especially now. His TV and movies-induced brain is fluttering in the winds of a spy world he would love to be a part of. But he sees I am turning to leave. Reluctantly he says, “You also.” As I walk away, he adds: “And--good luck.”

I turn back. He winks at me conspiratorially. I nod my head, trying not to smile, and reply, “Thanks.” He seems satisfied.
At the counter, as I’m paying for a bottle of wine which is only one-and-a-half-times more expensive (writers can go without food, but never without booze), I hand over a fifty-Rand bill. I say I need change for parking. Big mistake. The cashier’s eyes grow big. “You’re American, right?” he says hopefully.

David Hochman is a freelance writer residing in South Africa.
Copyright David G. Hochman 2003