A 25-Euro Reading Meets Seven Days of Rain in Port Vesper
Restaurant critic Teodor Brandvold was promised a dry week by Madame Ozerova and got seven days of rain. Adaeze Nwosu-Prior, wrong thirteen times herself, is on his side.
Teodor Brandvold is drying his hat on a bollard on the Long Pier. It is noon on Monday. The rain stopped at nine and the boards are steaming. He has an umbrella beside him that cost 18 euros on Tuesday, and he says that is the real insult.
Last Sunday he paid Madame Ozerova 25 euros. Her room is above a key cutter in the Dust Quarter. He says it smelled of oranges and warm radiator. She held his left hand for four minutes and told him he would stay dry all week.
Then came seven days of rain. The gutters on Kelp Row gave up on Wednesday. He stood in four doorways on Thursday alone.
People are laughing at him. I won't. Teodor reviews restaurants for a living. He knows what it is to be promised something in a nice font and handed something else. He is entitled to be upset.
I have been wrong thirteen times. I said the cummerbund would return to the Slate by spring. I said the Neon Annex would go quiet for a whole summer. Nobody asked me for a refund. Teodor did, in writing, and I respect that more than any of my forecasts.
Madame Ozerova's camp says he was dry in spirit, since he spent the week at tables with roofs. Teodor will not accept this. He says dry means dry.
He is right. A reading that needs a footnote is a trend report, and I would know.
On Friday I told a man at the ferry kiosk the rain would stop by the weekend. That makes fourteen.
