An Extreme Love of Coffee

by Harish Bhat

  The coffee shop did have monsoon Malabar coffee. In fact, it was highly recommended, particularly for connoisseurs who wanted something unique and different from the usual Colombian and African fare. Neha and Rahul carried their cups back to the promenade. It was a magical beverage, not merely mellow, but also beautifully pungent.

  Rahul immediately recognized the musty aroma that must have developed naturally over the long monsoon. He remembered the story of the wooden ships sailing through the monsoon winds, with their precious cargo of coffee. And then he smiled as he thought of Sharad Machaiah’s Appappa and his Derrick. What delicious aromas they must have inhaled! The story was as precious as the coffee.

  Then, he felt a chocolatey flavour popping up in his mouth. And finally, before he knew it, he also felt notes of spices and nuts, the sensual feel of pepper and areca nuts, grown with care on the lush green Malabar coast, wondrous stories that came all the way from the coastline of India.

  ‘This is magic, Neha. Pure magic. The beans in this coffee hold more wonderful stories than any other blend I have tasted recently. No wonder the Danes out here love it. You should write about all these stories, you know.’

  Neha nodded. She was already thinking about a piece, but all this talk of stories quickly brought the monk’s clue back into her head. ‘Rahul, let’s take a look at that clue again. It spoke about stories, I think. Here’s the paper.’ She kept her cup to one side, peered into her handbag and pulled out the note with the third clue written on it.

  Goddess from the sea, you welcome our coffee.

  Rain and mellow, we are gold and yellow.

  And then, on the back:

  Every coffee bean tells a story, including my own, says the goddess.

  ‘That line is trying to tell us something, Rahul. Think carefully. What is the coffee bean that our goddess, the little mermaid, owns? Did the little mermaid have anything to do with coffee at all? Let’s look.’

  For some time, Neha’s question led them on a wild coffee chase. Sitting on the promenade in front of the little mermaid, they eagerly browsed the Internet on their smartphones, hoping to find an answer. They came up with interesting results: little mermaid bakeries in Japan, little mermaid enchanted bikinis and swimsuits in America, a little mermaid sunken ship, and, interestingly, a little mermaid rock band that appeared to have made some good music inspired by their own fairy tales. However, there was no evidence of coffee beans connected to the little mermaid.

  ‘Let’s look at the statue, Rahul. Maybe the mermaid herself will speak to us. Let’s sip our monsoon Malabar coffee and hope that these cups hold some magic, like the beans that the old woman gave us, which got us started on this chase.’

  They sat there, silently sipping on their coffee, an Indian masterpiece in this far-off Danish land. Rahul closed his eyes, partly to relish the coffee and partly out of fatigue. The coffee warmed his throat and the aromas rose slowly into the creaking crevices of his brain. He found a strange sense of pleasure overtaking his limbs, just like the coffee made with those pink beans.

  When he opened his eyes, he was still there on the promenade with Neha next to him and the statue of the little mermaid in front of them. The mermaid was seated wistfully and longingly on her rock by the waterside. She seemed to be saying something to him. He followed her eyes, which were tilted downwards at her home, the sea. He followed her hands and saw them placed on the rock on which she had been sitting for a century. He looked at the rock, and then he looked at the rock once again. It was smooth and sloped on both sides, like a well-seasoned stone that nature had tempered carefully over time. Suddenly, with the next sip of coffee, something went off in his mind. He squeezed Neha’s hand, speaking excitedly.

  ‘Hey, Neha. Look at the rock on which the little mermaid is seated. Look at it carefully. It looks like a coffee bean, doesn’t it? Yes, of course, it does. Neha, what if this rock is the goddess’s own coffee bean, the bean that the monk’s clue mentions? Look, look carefully, and tell me.’

  Neha looked. The rock on which the mermaid sat was shaped just like a coffee bean. Wow, wonderful. What a moment, she thought. Maybe Rahul is right. Maybe this is where we will find the answer. Was this a coincidence? Was this what Edvard Eriksen had planned to begin with, when he made this beautiful statue? And did he do so in discussion, perhaps, just perhaps, with our own coffee monk? Or maybe he did this because this was the waterfront which welcomed the monsoon Malabar coffee beans, and other coffees as well, into his beloved Denmark? Or was Eriksen the sculptor a great lover of coffee himself?

  Then, Neha felt a strange sensation taking over her. Was this a larger coffee bean conspiracy that was pulling all of them in? Where would all this end? Very importantly, would it end badly or well? Or were they living some sort of dream, one from which they would wake up very soon, silently brewing their morning cup of coffee? Maybe the deep desire for morning coffee had given rise to all these outlandish dreams. Hadn’t Freud written about things like this, deep ingrained desires and fantasies leading to dreams and visions? Freud had been obsessed with sex, but coffee was close enough.

  But Neha knew that this was no dream. Rahul, in the flesh, was next to her, holding her hand and patiently waiting for a reply.

  ‘Yes, Rahul. That rock does look like a coffee bean. I agree with you totally. What a sharp observation. Let’s walk a little closer and see if we can find the story that it wants to tell us. Our monk was really smart. Look at how he planned and configured this wonderful coffee chase for us.’

  They walked up to the statue of the little mermaid. Up close, the rock looked like a coffee bean even more. No doubt about that at all. Neha tapped it at a couple of places to see if it was hollow, but she was wrong. The smooth surface amazed them. It was dark grey stone, smoothened over the years by the lapping of the waters and the breeze, some parts virtually resembling a shiny, wet mirror.

  After a few minutes of examination, Rahul found one section of the rock with several words scrawled on it. There was nothing unusual about that because this was how visitors from across the world often left behind their messages on monuments, hopefully preserving their visits for posterity. It was not a good practice, because of the defacement, but unfortunately it was common. He looked at the words carefully. They appeared to be old inscriptions as many of the words were faint. What if a few of these words were deliberately written by the monk many years ago? And what if these were the story that he wanted the mermaid’s coffee bean to tell them?

  Most of these words were just names, scratched aimlessly and messily into the rock: Damien, Wilhelm, Henry, Anand. Some others were a little more descriptive: Donald meets Hillary, King James the tenth, ‘Big Rambo. And then there were a couple of oriental and Japanese names too: Takahara, Haruto and Aiko. This was visitors leaving behind their imprint, using the rough metal sticks and pins they had at their command. Such is the human urge to be remembered.

  In one extreme corner, something interesting held Neha’s attention. At first glance, it appeared to be a line drawing of a coffee bean. Yes, it certainly appeared to be a coffee bean, etched very carefully into the rock. Unlike the other scrawls, there was something artistic about the way it was presented. While the etching looked old, it also appeared quite deep, as if someone had used a sharp chisel to cut out the image of the bean well-pressed into the rock.

  As Neha looked closer, the coffee bean seemed to contain some writing too. Yes, a couple of words were deeply etched inside the boundaries of the bean. She stepped closer. Two words quickly swam into her view. They were very clear, etched deep, though in extremely small font so that they could fit neatly into the coffee bean. The writing was in a sharp capital font, clear and precise, just two words in plain, simple English: LOOK WITHIN.

  Neha turned to Rahul and tugged at his hand. ‘Look here, Rahul. Look at what I found in this corner. Do you think this is what the monk left behind for us?’

  26

  Still at the promenade, fuelled by the excitement
over what they had just found, and also by a second cup of hot monsoon Malabar coffee from the same café, Rahul and Neha could not help but marvel at how well the monk had crafted his clues.

  ‘Think of this, Neha. Our monk identified a goddess so remote from his land, who welcomed a unique Indian coffee to this country. He imagined a mermaid as a goddess of sorts. Then, he chose a coffee bean-like rock on which this goddess has been sitting for decades. I wonder whether this rock’s shape is deliberate or an accident. That will take another long exploration, I guess. After that, our monk came all the way to Copenhagen from his coffee estate in Coorg and etched this clue on the coffee bean-shaped rock using a professional chisel which he probably carried all the way. The clue itself is in the shape of a coffee bean. Wow, what a lovely thread!

  ‘You remember his line in the clue. It just said: “Every coffee bean tells a story.” That is true at so many levels. Every coffee bean does tell a wonderful story, you know. Just think of the fascinating story of the delicious monsoon Malabar coffee we are sipping right now. Remember Sharad Machaiah’s grandfather on the wooden ship, with sacks of coffee being seasoned for months by the musty monsoon winds. And his Danish boyfriend, of course! Or the story of the jaggery-laced bellada kaapi that we drank on that hill near the source of the Kaveri. That’s a story worth repeating. Or the story of the deep and dusky filter coffee we drank at Annapoorna Hotel in Coimbatore. Or the old woman’s story of her magical coffee beans. A small, green bean and so many big, colourful stories.’

  Neha listened, fascinated. She piped in, ‘Yes, Rahul. The clues are superbly crafted. But now what?’

  Rahul continued his narration, as if he had not heard her. ‘Then again, it is this coffee bean-shaped stone which has this drawing etched on it. So, once again, here is a story told by a coffee bean. And finally, on the stone is a drawing of a coffee bean, with two words written inside it. So, quite literally, it is a coffee bean within a coffee bean, telling us a story through two words!’

  Neha nodded, but she was now fixated on getting to the bottom of the meaning of these two words. So, this time, she firmly interrupted Rahul’s flow of words.

  ‘Yes, Rahul, every coffee bean does tell a story. The monk has brought that message home to us quite cleverly and clearly at every step in this adventure. But now, what story do these two words tell us? We have less than a week left before your much-awaited film shoot begins in Mumbai. So little time and so much to do! It’s been clue after clue, that’s all so far. We haven’t seen even a hint of the monk’s treasure yet. Let’s just focus on these two words. What do you think?’

  She pulled out a small card and a pen from her handbag, which was now feeling quite heavy and cluttered thanks to all the pouches of old coffee beans that had come with each clue. She wondered why she was carrying all these old pouches, but she didn’t want to throw them away either.

  She wrote out the two words on the card in sharp capital font. Then, she drew the rough outline of a coffee bean around the words—similar to the bean etched on the stone. Surprisingly, her drawing came out very well. That’s a nice touch, she thought. I must have a little bit of an artist hidden inside me somewhere.

  Rahul sipped on his coffee and stared at the card for some time. His mind wandered a little as the coffee seeped deep into his gut. Drinking coffee and staring into space did this to him always; his mind ended up wandering. He thought of the monk and tried to imagine his train of thought as he wrote those two words within a coffee bean. Why would the monk ask them to look within? And look within, where? They could look within a million places here, there and everywhere.

  Then the other line in the clue also swam into one corner of his coffee-filled brain: ‘Every coffee bean tells a story.’ What if the monk had drawn the coffee bean on purpose because he wanted them to look within coffee beans? This was all about coffee, wasn’t it? But where were these coffee beans? Back in the estates of Coorg?

  Neha nudged him. ‘Rahul, don’t blank out now. We have work, solving these two words and finding the treasure.’

  Rahul came out of his monsoon Malabar-induced reverie. ‘These two words were on my mind, Neha. That’s exactly what I was thinking about. What if our monk wants us to look within coffee beans? After all, that’s what he’s given us as a clue, that every coffee bean tells a story. But then, which coffee beans? And where?’

  An idea formed in Neha’s mind. ‘Good thinking, Rahul. And here’s the thing. He has used the word “within”. It must mean something, Rahul. Let’s look for coffee beans within us, maybe where we have been, or within what we own.’

  ‘And where, Neha, do we have coffee beans with us? I don’t own any, except those pink beans we bought from that old woman, which I think we have already consumed.’

  That was quite right, thought Neha. They didn’t own any coffee beans. This would require fresh thinking. She opened her handbag to drop the card and pen inside. As she did so, her hands brushed against one of the old pouches of coffee beans. It had a soft but knobbly touch. Instinctively, she pulled it out. It was a pouch that had accompanied one of the clues. She looked at it. A simple, old, greying cloth pouch tied up with a thin, knotted red-coloured thread. She looked at it again. And then she quickly stood up, holding the pouch in her right hand.

  ‘Rahul, look here! We do own coffee beans. To be exact, three pouches of old coffee beans, left to us by our monk with each clue that came our way!’

  Then she sat down equally dramatically, still clutching on to the pouch in her outstretched hand.

  ‘Why would he leave these pouches of coffee beans with the clues, Rahul? Surely not just for effect. Maybe he wants us to look within these pouches, maybe that’s what the “within” means!’

  27

  They decided to undertake this ‘look within’ activity in the secure confines of their Copenhagen hotel, to avoid any Japanese snooping. Though they had not yet seen their Japanese stalkers in this mermaid city, who knew where and how low people stoop to snoop.

  They got back to their cozy room in a beautiful red brick building overlooking the waterfront. The most prominent feature there was a queen-sized bed that virtually filled up the entire space. The bed was fashioned with thick pillows and a cotton sheet with large sunflowers all over. The mattress itself was remarkably soft, comfortable in a nice, squishy sort of way, equally supportive of both frenzied movement and sound sleep, as they had happily discovered on their first night there. It may not have had the celebrated patented springs of Nippon Springlove—the film shoot for which was coming up in less than a week, Rahul remembered with some anxiety—but on the whole it had worked quite well. Now, it was about to serve another important purpose.

  Neha opened the first pouch and smelt the contents. This was the pouch that they had got with the first clue, at old man Pandian’s house. It had a musty coffee bean smell with a familiar nutty aroma. Would it send them on some fantastic mind voyage again, she wondered. She then poured out the contents on the bed, ensuring the beans fell in an empty white space between the yellow sunflowers.

  The coffee beans tumbled out of the pouch. They looked very old, but well preserved. Pale green and mild yellow in colour, there were perhaps a hundred beans in the first pouch. Looking at unroasted, green coffee beans was a reminder that an infinite world of tastes and aromas can lie dormant for years and years, confined within small little berries. It is the roaster that magically heats the bean, unlocks these aromas and splashes them generously into the hot, alluring cups of coffee that millions of people lust for every day. Rahul was a prime example of these caffeine-seeking millions, and here he was, right in front of the beans, examining them and seeking out what lay within.

  He spread out the mound of beans, evening them out with his fingers. And then, just like that, in a split second, he spotted it.

  ‘Neha, look at that, look at THAT!’

  A small brass key lay amidst the spread of coffee beans. It had tumbled out of the pouch along with the beans. Now that th
ey had seen it, the key stood out, pale brass in a small puddle of green and yellow.

  Neha could not control her excitement. ‘Rahul, it must be the key to the treasure! We have found it!’

  She leant over impulsively and, in a burst of ill-advised enthusiasm, tried to kiss him squarely on the mouth. But since Rahul was at a distance, almost on the other side of the bed, she nearly tipped over. Moments of exuberance! We have to be careful of them.

  She recovered quickly and picked up the key from amongst the beans. It was made of pale brass, with a couple of faint markings—like Japanese letters—on one side. The markings made no sense to her. In fact, the key had a commonplace design and was rather small by contemporary standards. She held it against the light for a minute, examining it closely, but found nothing else of note. She then handed it over to Rahul almost reluctantly.

  They opened the other two pouches too. First was the pouch from Raghavendra’s coffee stall near Talakaveri, the origin of the Kaveri. Even as they emptied this pouch, Neha said, ‘What delicious jaggery coffee that was, Rahul. My mouth waters each time I think of it.’

  Next was the pouch from pawnbroker Ramaswamy in Coimbatore. Neha spoke again. ‘I would almost die for that south Indian filter coffee at Annapoorna Hotel, Rahul. Fresh milk, fresh coffee beans and a lovely decoction squeezed out of the beans! Can we go back there, do you think?’

  Both Rahul and Neha couldn’t help but wonder what new surprise would the monk have put into these two small bags? Actually, as they soon found, there was no new surprise. It was just the same walnutty aroma. Old coffee beans that tumbled out readily, quite the same in all the pouches. And from each pouch emerged a key.