Whatever he said

Sit long enough at a pavement coffeehouse in downtown Cairo on a crowded evening and you will see a glass of tea sent back.

The waiter is carrying the whole pavement in his head. Orders from six tables, taken over backgammon dice and car horns, called to the counter as he walks. The tray comes out crowded with small glasses, and he sets each one in front of the right man without asking.

Then one of them sips and frowns. He wanted it without sugar.

Perhaps he said so. Perhaps he said a little sugar and forgot, or his friend ordered for the table and guessed. Over that noise nobody can be sure, the waiter included, and the sugar went in at the counter, so there is no fixing it in the glass.

The waiter could go back over who said what. He called the order himself, may well be right, and is entitled to say so.

Or he can lift the glass, say it is on him, and be back with a fresh one, no sugar, before the next roll of the dice.

The good ones do the second, and lightly, as if a sweet glass sent back were the most ordinary thing on the pavement. Whose fault it was is a question about the last five minutes. Who puts it right is a question about the next two, and that is the only one he answers.

It costs him something. Maybe the price of a glass. Certainly the pleasure of being right out loud, in front of a table, which a man holding thirty orders in his head has fairly earned.

Regulars do not learn a waiter's name on the nights the tray comes out right. They learn it the night he carried away a mistake that was probably theirs.