How Schweik Searched for the Truth in Santo Domingo and Found Half a Glass
The brave soldier Josef Schweik, arriving in hot Santo Domingo, felt as if he'd been shoved into a bakery along with his duffel bag. He certainly wouldn't have refused a Czech beer in the Dominican heat, but he reasoned sensibly: "Beer makes you sweat more, while coffee only clears your soul. And Lieutenant Lukash always said that a brave soldier must be able to change his habits as quickly as a sergeant's slap."
Spotting a shabby coffee shop under a palm awning in the distance, Schweik was about to set off when he noticed a short, dark-skinned youth munching on an unknown fruit with a philosophical air.
"Listen, fellow countryman," Schweik addressed him in Czech, then in German, and then simply switched to sign language, miming a cup with his hands and a quick shake of his head, "how much does coffee cost?"
The boy, who turned out to be a local named Pedro, understood everything instantly, even without gestures:
"Fifty pesos a glass. Excellent coffee, sir. You drink it, and it feels like you've already died and reached a better place, because your heart beats so fast, as if it were trying to win a race."
Schweik reached into his pocket. Even he, a man who had once marched from Budejovice all the way to Galicia, didn't want to walk such a long way in the scorching sun. So he handed the boy a hundred pesos and said with fatherly concern:
"Here you go, young man, for two glasses. Drink one yourself, and bring me the other. And the remaining money is yours for your troubles — that is, exactly zero pesos, since two times fifty makes one hundred. But you will gain invaluable experience in European culture."
Pedro nodded understandingly, deftly hid the money, and disappeared in the direction of the coffee shop faster than Lieutenant Lukash hides love letters from a jealous husband.
Schweik sat down on the parapet, lit his pipe, and began to wait. He waited a minute, then five, and had time to reflect on how coffee in the tropics is probably brewed from entire coffee trees, roots included — and then Pedro appeared on the horizon.
The young man returned leisurely, with the air of a man who had just completed an important mission. In one hand, he held a half-empty glass of coffee — the very same one from which he was peacefully finishing the remainder — and in the other, fifty pesos in change.
Coming close, Pedro handed the money to Schweik and took his last sip with a feeling of deep satisfaction.
"Where's my coffee?" inquired Schweik, who, even in the most hopeless situations, maintained a calm resembling the indifference of an old saucepan.
"But I brought you some," Pedro replied sincerely, gesturing to the empty glass. "Or rather, I brought what was left. You see, sir, when I arrived at the coffee shop, there was only one full glass of coffee on the counter. I thought: if I drink this glass, there will be no coffee left. And if I buy it for you, I'll be left without coffee and without your blessing. So I did something different: I bought this glass for fifty pesos, drank half of it on the way — because the heat is terrible, and you, as an elderly man, should take care of your heart — and brought you the other half. But while I was explaining, you didn't take it, and the coffee got cold, so I finished it off to save it. Here's your fifty pesos back. The result: there was no coffee left, but everyone remained honest."
Schweik looked at the empty glass, at the change in his hand, then at Pedro's innocent face, devoid of even a hint of deception — only logic as pure as the Dominican sky.
"Tell me, my friend," Schweik sighed, "have you tried buying coffee for me first, and then for yourself?"
Pedro thought for a moment. He thought so deeply that he seemed about to discover a new theorem.
"That's an option," he finally admitted. "But then I'd have to run to the coffee shop twice, and the second time I might have run out of coffee for good. I solved the problem radically — I ran out of coffee, and I didn't have to run twice."
The moral of this story, which Schweik himself wrote down in his travel notebook: in the Dominican Republic, as throughout the universe, the truth is sometimes told by such simple-minded people that lies simply can't keep up. The guy really wasn't lying — there was only one cup in the coffee shop, and he honestly brought it back recycled. The good soldier was left without coffee, but he did gain some invaluable knowledge: before sending a local out to buy groceries, find out exactly where they plan to go for their drink. Because the truth is more dangerous than a lie — it leaves you with an empty glass and the feeling that you've just been robbed, according to all the rules of local hospitality.