* * *
—
They stopped in a small market town, ordered poori bhaji and chai at the Udipi, ate and smoked cigarettes after, barely exchanging a word. He paid the bill, left a twenty for the waiter, a fifty for the beggar woman standing patiently by the bike. To a bunch of kids, he gave nothing. And they were off again.
It took another half hour to reach their destination, cruising with full bellies through the one-track hamlets with their sloped-roof houses and roaming chickens and their tulsi shrines. They crossed a palm-fringed river on a narrow iron bridge and the water was a turquoise she’d never seen.
And then the beach, the ocean, the bite of salt air. Kilometers of untouched sand, with only a few fishing boats and simple huts signaling life. He eased the bike down a sandy track toward a cluster of palm-roofed huts.
“We’re here,” he said.
* * *
—
“Santosh!” Sunny walked between the huts, calling out the name. A boy playing football with a deflated ball saw him and went hollering and jumping through the air. A moment later a cheerful young man stooped out of the darkness of one of the huts. Compact and muscled, with soft, pleasant skin, he wore nothing but Bermuda shorts and a silver Om pendant that dangled from his neck.
“Sunny, my friend!”
He wrapped his arms around his shoulder.
“Santosh,” Sunny smiled. “How are you?”
“Very good, now you are here. I was waiting too long.”
She saw how shy Sunny was, how happy.
“You’ve grown up. Santosh, this is Neda.”
“Most welcome,” Santosh said, holding his hand out very formally for Neda to shake.
He led them away from the huts, up toward a dune and a bank of pine trees.
She could hear the sea behind.
“Where are your things?”
“This is it.”
“This is it? Just this. OK, very well. This is all you need. How long you stay? A week, a month, a year?”
“Just one night.”
He clucked his tongue. “No good. How long has it been? Three years since you come? Look at you.” He stopped and stood back and examined Sunny and laughed cheerily. “Now you look prosperous,” he said, patting Sunny’s stomach. Santosh turned to Neda. “Before he was never eating. He was too weak.”
The hut was separated from the beach by a strip of wind-blasted pines, trunks tilted like calligraphy strokes. To the south, the pines ended at a tidal lagoon that connected the mangrove swamp to the sea. Beneath the trees sat a red plastic table, two chairs, two hammocks. The beach sand was soft and golden and piled up in powdery drifts. The high tide lapped the shore.
“Come. Sit,” Santosh said. The boy who was playing with the football now waddled up carrying a huge metal bucket of beer and ice. He placed it in the shade next to one of the trees.
“See,” Santosh declared as the kid ran off again, “I am prepared.”
Sunny touched Santosh’s arm with great affection. “Thank you.”
“Anything for you, my friend.”
Sunny kicked off his shoes and socks and collapsed into one of the chairs.
He lit a cigarette.
“Always working too hard, this one.” He gripped Sunny’s shoulders in his strong hands. “Now you relax.”
Neda threw her coat and shawl and bag onto one of the chairs, walked up a little, and scanned the beach.
“What time is it?” Sunny said.
“Nine maybe,” Santosh replied.
A handful of empty fishing boats bobbed in the surf.
Neda stretched. “Santosh, this place is incredible.”
“I was born here,” he said. He fished out two ice-cold Kings from the bucket, opened them on a row of nails hammered into one of the trees. He handed one to Sunny, then Neda. “Are you hungry? Let me go see. Maybe food is ready.”
Santosh strolled back toward the huts.
“We just ate,” Neda said.
“It’s OK,” Sunny replied, “even if it’s ready Sushma will take another hour.”
“Sushma?”
“His mother. She works on Goa time.”
She sat, placed her beer on the table, removed her boots and socks. She buried her toes in the cool sand and lit a cigarette. A scruffy beach dog wandered up and curled itself under her chair.
“How do you know this place?”
“I spent a few months here a couple of years ago. Santosh was just a kid then. He flagged my bike down when he was walking home from school and demanded a ride. I ended up living with his family awhile.”
“Good days,” she said.