The Jealousy Bar was almost empty, yet it was hard to breathe. Mehmet Kalak observed the man and woman sitting at the bar in front of him as he served them wine. Four customers. The third was a guy sitting alone at a table, sipping his beer in small gulps. Of the fourth, only a pair of cowboy boots and the darkness around his secluded counter could be seen, occasionally lit by the screen of a mobile phone. Four customers, the month of September, half past eleven at night, in the best area of Grunerløkka: a total disaster; this situation couldn’t go on any longer. Sometimes he wondered what on earth had made him quit his job as manager at the city’s trendiest hotel and take over this rundown bar, including its alcoholic clientele. Maybe because he thought that by raising the prices sky-high, he’d get rid of the old customers and attract the new kids in the neighborhood, who had money to burn and didn’t carry problems on their shoulders.
Maybe because he needed to throw himself into work to forget breaking up with his girlfriend. Maybe because the offer from loan shark Daniel Banks sounded tempting when the bank rejected Mehmet’s loan application. Or maybe it was the simplest reason of all: that at the Jealousy Bar, he got to choose the music, not some jerk manager who only knew one sound: the clink of the cash register. He managed to drive away the old clientele; they went and parked their behinds at a much cheaper bar, three blocks away. But it had proven very difficult to attract new regulars. Maybe he needed to rethink the whole setup of the place. Maybe the single channel, which played only Turkish football, wasn’t enough for it to be considered a sports bar.
