During the brief pauses between questions, Armanoush scrutinized the place and the people, intuiting where the name of the café came from. The constant tension between vulgar reality and treacherous fantasy, the notion of the outside people versus us people inside, the dreamlike quality of the place, and finally, the sullen expression on the men’s faces, as if they were desperately ruminating on what to choose—either to carry the weight of disheveled love affairs or become half real with lightness—everything evoked a scene out of a Kundera novel.
