On Coffee

Kemal said Turkish coffee was like a confession: never stir after the grounds had settled.

Long ago, coffee ruined everything.

I was twenty-nine, which is old enough to know better and young enough not to.

Lena sat across from me in the Blue Lantern. Midnight pressed its black thumb against the windows. Arman leaned over, smiling, and stirred her cup with my spoon.

One circle. Two.

That was all jealousy needed.

I watched the spoon touch porcelain. I watched Lena say nothing. In those days, silence always testified for the prosecution.

So I stirred my own coffee. Hard. The grounds rose like a drowned city. I drank anyway. Mud on my tongue, murder in my heart.

“Enjoy him,” I said.

Lena looked at me as if I had fired into an empty room and somehow hit her.

She left. Arman followed, calling my name. Kemal caught my sleeve.

“Fool,” he said. “Her wrist is hurt. He only stirred in the sugar.”

I went after her.

But love is badly signposted after midnight. I took the wrong alley, the wrong tram, the wrong decade. By dawn, Lena had vanished from my life, and Arman had vanished from hers. Only Kemal remained, polishing cups and remembering everyone’s mistakes.

Thirty years later, I returned to the Blue Lantern. Kemal was gone. Arman, too. Lena sat beneath the same dead clock.

She ordered two Turkish coffees.

Neither of us touched the spoons.

“You got lost,” she said.

“Yes.”

“On the way to me?”

I looked into the black cup. The grounds rested at the bottom, patient as old grief.

“On the way to myself.”

Outside, rain combed the street. Lena lifted her coffee. I lifted mine.

Midnight again.

This time, nothing was stirred.

Nothing was repaired.

But for one bitter minute, nothing was lost.

~ Blue Lantern, the cafe ~