MY MEMORIES of coffee cup reading go back to my teens when my aunty Tezel, sitting on her front porch under a blazing August sunset, read the dregs of my first ever cup of Turkish coffee. I was nervous, and I clearly remember rubbing my sweaty palms on the smart trousers my parents had cajoled me into wearing for the interminable visits to our Nicosia relatives. Auntie had already read the cups of the adults among us when I piped up, “Can you check if I’ve passed my O levels?”
Although I was still too young to appreciate the taste of a good Brazilian roast, Auntie cooked me up a cup of what was probably the sweetest ?ekerli ever.
“I see an official-looking envelope,” she said ten minutes later, peering into my cup with a serious expression that made me yet more jittery. This time it was not only my palms that were literally gushing with sweat.
“The envelope has good news inside,” she said after a pause almost long enough for me to asphyxiate.
The elation that followed was quickly replaced by an inner debate on whether my aunt’s prediction could be true. Unfortunately, I was not sufficiently diligent at school to allow myself the luxury of automatically believing her prediction correct. But I was smart enough to ask myself how the hell a bunch of coffee granules could tell her anything about me or my future. This had to be BS, I thought, but I wanted so much to believe.
On my return to England, Auntie’s prediction, to my entire family’s surprise, proved correct. The letter on the front mat did indeed bring good news and as a result I have since been burdened with the odd belief that my aunt, and other coffee cup readers I have since met, has an ability to accurately predict the future.
In the years that have passed since those first predictions, I have had my cup read tens of times, and at each reading I am filled with the same feelings of anticipation and trepidation.
I love having my coffee cup read. I love the opportunity it gives me to focus on what I truly desire from life. And so when the reader asks me to make a wish before turning my emptied cup over, I take her seriously and make a proper wish.
And so it was with requisite solemnity that I sat before Zeliha Hanim as she carefully studied the remains of the coffee she had cooked up for me early one morning last week. I had heard about Zeliha from a friend who had warned me of her uncanny accuracy in making predictions.
It has to be said that Zeliha is a big lady – big of body, big of voice, and big of character. Speaking in a tone deeper than most men can manage, she begins by telling me that whatever one’s fate, one has to keep smiling and be positive about life. To illustrate this she points to what used to be her waist and describes how doctors had to sew her up from one side to the other again because she had “burst”.
“But I’m still smiling,” she insists. “You have to be positive”.
I explain to Zeliha that the reason for my visit is that I want to learn the secret of coffee cup reading or fal, and also, while at it, have my coffee cup read. She agrees to do both.
“I taught myself. In fact, I was born a falc?. God made me one,” she explains, in effect ruling out the possibility of my becoming one.
“It comes from inside, and it’s in the eyes. You might not be able to see well,” she adds.
At this stage two elderly women in black appear at the front door, and as if to further impress on me her special powers she says, “I knew they were coming. I always know who’s coming”.
One of the elderly women puts down a bag of second-hand clothes and hands Zeliha a packet of cigarettes. Intriguingly, rather than sit down and drink a coffee the women have brought their used and upturned coffee cups with them in a washing up bowl. They place them in front of Zeliha, who begins to read.
I miss much of what Zeliha says to the women in black, because my mobile phone rings and I end up spending ten minutes on the balcony dealing with it. What I do hear appears to be positive.
Finally we get round to my cup. She picks up the saucer, gives it to me and asks me to swirl the residue around until it covers as great a part of the saucer as possible. Then she leans back, chin pressed into her chest and studies the patterns.
Pointing to a darker area of the saucer she tells me I have secret plan which I will not reveal till it comes to fruition.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she advises with a gravity that makes me nod as if receiving an order.
“And I see you somehow involved with the government,” she says, pointing to a figure that vaguely resembles a man. “You see how he’s taller than you, that means he is higher up than you,” she explains.
Evidently, she uses pictorial symbols to see the future. But interpretation is everything, and this changes from person to person, she says.
“For example, there’s a woman who comes to me whose son died in a motorbike crash. So when I’m reading her cup and I see a motorbike, I tell her I see a bicycle,” the falc? explains.
She tells me I’ve had a disagreement with an olive-skinned person, and points to two figures standing back to back. This makes sense, but then she tells me I’m going to move house.
“But I only moved two years ago and I’m very happy where I am,” I object.
She points to a pattern in the coffee that resembles a door. “It’s a big front door, can’t you see it?”
“Yes, but I already have a big front door,” I say.
“Then that means there will be changes in you house,” she offers. I relax.
As Zeliha goes on, my coffee cup life gets progressively better. I am visited by a beautiful woman, albeit blonde, and get incredibly rich. Finally, a long-awaited goal is achieved and I am released from all troubles.
“All you need is patience,” she reassures.
I cannot deny that the reading added a spring to my step as I prepared to go back out into the glorious sunshine.
“Coming to Zeliha is better for you than going to the doctor,” the falc?’s rotund and jolly husband tells me as I leave. The cigarettes from the women in black were for him.
And as I cross their threshold onto the street Zeliha calls after me, “You’ll be back!”
“Is that in my cup as well?” I think to myself.
