Marina Kadhal – Part 2: Filter Coffee

The stall by the lighthouse had a single bench, a steel tumbler of filter coffee and an old radio playing film songs very loudly. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving the sand dark and shining and the sky a soft, washed pink.

Arvind handed Meena a steaming tumbler, and she wrapped both hands around it and closed her eyes.

"Good?" he asked.

"Better than the hospital canteen," said Meena. "Which is not a compliment to the canteen."

"You're very honest for a doctor."

"I'm a nurse," said Meena. "Doctors are the ones who get the praise. Nurses get the blame."

He laughed, and sat beside her on the bench, close enough that their shoulders touched.

They talked for an hour. About his grandfather's watch, which had stopped working twenty years ago but still ticked in his pocket when he was nervous. About her mother, who had wanted her to become a teacher, and the year she had spent in a village clinic that had no running water. About the bank, and the customers who cried at the counter, and the one who had given him a mango pickle jar as a thank-you gift.

"I still have the jar," said Arvind. "It's the best pickle I've ever had."

"You should have told me that on the first day," said Meena. "I'd have brought you a bigger one."

"Then I'd have had to say hello," said Arvind, and grinned, sheepish. "I was waiting for the right reason."

She set down her tumbler carefully on the bench between them.

"And is this the right reason?" she asked.

He looked at her, the pink dawn on his face, his cap pushed back, his eyes open and nervous.

"Yes," he said. "I think it is."

Meena leaned in slightly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Do you still want to run with me tomorrow? Side by side? And say hello at the lighthouse, every day, like a normal person?"

"Yes," said Arvind, and his voice came out softer than he'd meant. "Every day. And I'll hold your hand after, if you let me. Only if you want to."

"Green?" she asked, half teasing, half serious.

"Green," said Arvind. "Very green."

She smiled, and then reached over and took his hand, her fingers laced with his on the warm wooden bench. He squeezed gently, and they sat together as the sun rose over the Bay of Bengal, two strangers who had finally said hello.