French Lover (17 page)

Danielle went back to Paris, after wilting under the dust, pollution, traffic jams and violent honking, and eating snacks off the roadside and falling ill, chatting with Monique Claude Mathew in her Park Street flat on two days and watching Nikhil perform his mother’s last rites. Danielle had tried to knock on the boulder. ‘Regrets? You may not have returned from Paris and Molina would have had to go without seeing you. Why are you feeling guilty? It doesn’t help anyone. Never think that way. Do you want to be a stagnant pond?’

But the boulder didn’t budge or speak. Nila threw away Danielle’s words on the rubbish heap nearby and said, ‘You have troubled me enough. Now go away.’

This one phrase should have been enough for Danielle to go back to Paris without a backward glance. But she stopped at the door, left a piece of paper with Monique Mathew’s address on the table and said she was Nicole’s friend, a very nice person. If Nila ever needed to, she could look her up.

The nights sank in deeper silences. No one moaned in the house, Chitra didn’t weep any more. She had cleared out Molina’s bed. The pillows and linen from Molina’s room had been cleaned. Anirban wanted to see patients in that room. He’d set it up with chairs, tables and an examination table. The sun vanished from the window. Nila stared at the darkness, her eyes focused on the moonless sky. On one such night Nikhil came and sat beside her, stroked her back comfortingly and said, ‘You are not the only one. We are all feeling sad. But we can’t bring back Ma. Life has to go on. That’s how it is. Reality can be very harsh, but we have to accept it.’

Nila began to speak in a trance. ‘We had a mother; she used to feed us, put us to bed, never let us get dirty, never let us feel any hurt.
People called her dark and plain, we did too. We called her silly and naïve. She felt sad but it didn’t matter to us. Nothing about her mattered to us. We thought she was mother, not another human being. Mother means the one who doesn’t have a life of her own, who shouldn’t have one. If she screams in agony, we said, that’s nothing, just your imagination. When she dies, we just cremate her and think we have done our duty. That she no longer exists, doesn’t matter to us.’

‘Don’t talk rubbish. Come and have dinner.’

Both Anirban and Nikhil took three days off. Those three days there would be just rice and boiled vegetables cooked in the house. After that they would call the priest and Nila would have to perform her mother’s last rites. Nikhil’s duty extended for a whole month. He had wrapped a piece of unstitched cloth around his waist, another on his body and carried a cloth to sit on. He would eat only boiled vegetables and rice and yogurt with flat rice. For a month Nikhil would carry his sorrow thus. For Nila, the sorrow wasn’t for a month but for three days. She was married and had gone into another family. Now she didn’t have so many duties towards her mother. Anirban also maintained the rules faithfully. He was already drawing up the guest list for Molina’s death ceremony at the end of the month. After that both Anirban and Nikhil would get busy; they would leave the memories behind and move forward. Neither of them saw the point in looking back and wallowing in misery. It was Nila alone who stood between life and death, asking questions.

Nila entered Molina’s room sometimes and called out, ‘Ma’ absently. Then she realized, the room was empty and a lonely lamp burnt in the middle of it. She felt like resting with her head on Molina’s breast, as she had after Sushanta left. Chitra came and lifted her up from there.

‘Chitra, what did Ma want to say?’

‘How can I say that, didi?’

‘Did she want some water? Or the painkillers?’

‘I don’t know, didi.’

‘Did she want to hug me close? Was she scared?’

‘I don’t know how people feel at the time of dying, what they want to say! Only those who have died know that, didi.’

Molina’s absence was tearing Nila apart. Everything felt like dust and ashes. Nila wanted to be gone, like Molina.

There were many ways of going and visiting Monique Mathew wasn’t one of them. But Nila went to her house anyway.

Monique was the same age as Molina, but she was healthy and alive. Her finger-and toe-nails were painted neatly, she wore mascara in her eyes and make-up on her face, lipstick on her lips and her brown hair was dyed blonde; she wore a filmy dress that showed off her breasts. Monique quickly made them some tea and talked as they drank it, ‘Do you know the meaning of life? Douglas Adams said life begins at forty-two; I think he was wrong: life begins at forty-seven.’ Monique shook her breasts and laughed. Nila wasn’t amused.

Monique was a lively and vigorous person. She had married a Bengali man much younger than her. Now they were divorced and she was moving to Delhi. She used to teach French in the Alliance Française. Now she had got a job at the French embassy and she would have to leave Calcutta. But she simply couldn’t bring herself to leave her house in Calcutta.

‘Nila, there is no city like Calcutta! If you want a city to live in, it is Calcutta.’

Nila sighed.

Monique asked her, ‘So, are you going back to Paris?’

‘No.’

Two German Shepherds walked around the room arrogantly—Lullu and Bhullu. Bengali names for foreign dogs! They were named by Monique’s ex-husband. Monique cuddled them a little and then sent them out to the garden to play.

‘They are my life. I have lived with many men and I find it infinitely more satisfying to stay with pets. Trust is a big thing. Men break your trust, but dogs don’t. Do you have any pets?’

‘No.’

Nila sat there with her sad face and aloof eyes. She wore a white cotton sari, her hair was dishevelled, her skin chapped and the paint
on her nails was chipped.

Monique stared at her long and hard and then said, ‘You make me feel as if you are eternal, you will never die!’

Nila showed no interest in hearing an explanation of this ‘feeling’. But Monique continued, ‘You have become so depressed because you saw someone die in front of your eyes, that you’ve forgotten man is one species among many others. In this universe, man lives on a planet in one solar system among many in one galaxy among many others. You are like a dot, even smaller. Can you feel your existence anywhere in this vast system? Or your mother’s? That mud-eating tortoise lives longer than man. That is nature and we cannot conquer it. We come and we go; thus we float away. Man’s life is over in a blink of an eye. Just think, for billions of years so many things live and die on this planet. Once the dinosaurs ruled, and now they are no more. One day man will no longer exist; man’s history will vanish in the deep dark hole of the past. We are nothing, nobody on the face of this vastness . . .’ Monique’s green eyes were lost. But they brightened up instantly, ‘Do you believe in rebirth?’

Nila shook her head, she didn’t believe.

‘Those who believe in it have one comfort, if they couldn’t do something in this birth, they can do it in the next. But if you believe in just one life, then don’t waste time. Each one has his own life and time flies swiftly. You must take all you get. You must be selfish, Nila, there is no other way. Seize it, have your fill.’

Monique spoke nineteen to the dozen. Nila knew it was easy to say many wonderful things, sitting with your feet up on the sofa in an air-conditioned room, watching the trusted dogs play in the soft sunlight out in the garden.

Suddenly Nila spoke out of context. ‘Monique, is your mother still alive?’

‘Yes. She is ninety-one and she lives in a village in Toulouse.’

‘Who lives with her?’

‘She lives alone.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t you go and live with her?’

‘I don’t have the time. Mother also doesn’t want her children bothering her. Each to his own, Nila. No one wants to give up their independence. We go to visit Mother once a year for Christmas. But even that isn’t possible every year.’

‘Your mother can do everything on her own? Cook?’

‘She can, still. When she can’t do it anymore, she’ll go into the government home for the aged. There will be people there to look after her.’

When Nila came home after spending half the day at Monique’s, Nikhil informed her that Mithu had hung herself with her sari and committed suicide the night before.

Mithu was lying on the floor. She was dressed in a red sari, floral garlands around her neck and sandal decorations on her forehead. She had perhaps never dressed up so much when she lived.

People who came to see her said, ‘Oh, what a perfect face, what a sharp nose! Such long black hair! The mole on her chin made her face even more appealing. Her nature—what can I say; she was the best: always looked down when she walked, never looked an elder in the eye when she spoke, never misbehaved. These days, educated girls don’t respect tradition. But Mithu did. She did the housework all alone, she was a gem of a girl.’

Nila saw Mithu’s mother wailing. She wailed, but there was a tinge of relief in it.

Mithu’s father, Sadhanbabu, was wiping his tears with his shirt. The worry lines on his forehead were gone. Now there was no need to worry about Mithu. Now it was just the burning ghats, the pyre and ashes. Mithu would be wiped off the face of this earth. No one would be hassled about the black ashes of her dark body. Mithu herself escaped from the humiliation of being dark. But her suicide brought even greater relief for her parents, her brother, who could now marry a suitable girl for a huge dowry.

Mithu’s death left Nila speechless.

Anirban shook Nila and brought her to her senses as he asked her when she was going back to Paris.

‘I am not going to Paris. I’ll stay here.’

‘Here where?’

‘Here, in Calcutta.’

‘Where in Calcutta?’

‘In this house.’

‘After marriage your husband’s house is your home. There lie all
your rights. Girls come to their father’s house for a short while, not to stay.’

Nila looked around at her room. It had her bed, her books, clothes, old letters, her favourite tanpura, harmonium, everything. It was a broader horizon than her life out of a suitcase, in Paris.

Why would Nila have to go to Paris? Because the neighbours and relatives were already whispering that she had left her husband.

‘Yes, I have. What is it to them?’

Anirban shouted, ‘It is nothing to them. It is all to me. I will not be able to show my face to anyone. You want to disgrace the whole family?’

‘If I don’t get along with my husband, how is that a disgrace?’

‘It is.’ Anirban insisted. ‘If you want to stay in this society, you have to do what everyone approves of. Either you go back to Paris, or kill yourself like Mithu and let us off. This is my last word.’ After Anirban left with his last words, Nila soaked in the bathtub for a long while. No, she didn’t have a single tear in her eyes.

Late in the night, when the whole house slept, Nila went into Molina’s room and lay on the floor with one arm extended like she often slept hugging Molina close to her. She whispered, ‘Ma, why aren’t you here?’ Nila’s shadow was the giant that charged at her as she lay with her back to the lamp. Nila decided she would leave Calcutta.

‘Go after your mother’s shradhh.’ Anirban and everyone else said. Nila had no interest in Molina’s shradhh. She saw no point in feeding people and calling the priest.

‘Your mother’s spirit will suffer. Don’t behave like this.’

Nila laughed, ‘Ma is used to suffering and her spirit will also be able to take it, this is nothing.’

She packed her suitcase. But going away was not so easy. There were many hassles like buying the ticket, cashing the cheque, transferring the money, etc. Her return ticket had lapsed and so it would have to be a new ticket. Since she didn’t want to stay until the shradhh, Anirban gave Nikhil some money to go and buy a cheap air ticket from Calcutta to Paris.

Nila barred his way, ‘Give him back that money. I will buy the ticket.’

‘Where will you get the money?’

Gradually the facts emerged: when Molina got her inheritance, she sold everything and kept the money in the bank. Those papers weren’t in her drawer, they were in Nila’s hands.

‘How much?’

‘Twenty lakhs.’

Anirban sat down heavily, holding his head.

‘What will you do with all that money? Kishanlal will pay for all your needs. Leave that money behind, we have a lot of expenses coming up. The house is old and it needs work.’

‘But this house isn’t mine and I am not of this house. This is your house; so you take care of it. Don’t eye my money.’

‘Do you know that as per the law, this money will be divided into three parts and you will only get one part of it? When have you ever heard of a girl taking her inheritance? They usually give their share to their brother.’

‘If Ma had wanted it to be divided, she wouldn’t have written that cheque in my name.’

‘Writing isn’t everything. There’s such a thing as inheritance.’

Anirban invited all his relatives to explain this fact to his daughter. Molina’s sisters, brothers, brother-in-law and even Manjusha came and tried: ‘There is such a thing as inheritance. Although girls go away to their husbands, they don’t forget their father and brothers. They’ll die for them They never covet their father’s property; if they do, people don’t approve of them. Girls should be unselfish, unstinting, unspoiled, uncontroversial, unalloyed, undefiled, unassuming . . .

‘Molina must have lost her mind; she didn’t know what she was doing. One shouldn’t take it seriously, even if it was really her signature [or perhaps Nila had forged it]. Even if it was a real signature, there was no point in taking so much money out of the country. It wasn’t as if Kishanlal didn’t make good money. With two restaurants, he lived comfortably. And if she insisted, she could keep that money in a bank here, for a rainy day perhaps. Or she could buy a house with it and the
rent could be deposited into her account. People went abroad to earn money and send home. No one took money from India to a foreign country. Was Nila out of her mind?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Nila said.

Who could handle a lunatic!

Nila believed Anirban advised Nikhil not to sue her because it would look bad. Sometimes the censure of society made the wrong hold itself back. But the bankers made her life hell. The shrewd businessman talked himself silly. ‘So much money going out of the country, it’s not a joke. Why? Where? How did you come to have so much money? Tax papers? Get the permission from the Reserve Bank, etc. etc.’

After endless harassment, Nila was able to draw about fifty thousand rupees and the rest was supposed to be transferred to her account in Paris, for which she submitted the necessary papers, although the banker couldn’t tell her when the money would reach her there. Nila surrendered herself to the uncertain and bought her ticket.

There wasn’t a daily flight from Calcutta to Paris or Nila would have boarded it that same day. She would have to wait for two weeks. For her it was like two years. She wanted to escape from this dirty society. Now she didn’t feel Calcutta was her own. She began to feel as if she had never known it, never played in the dust and grime of the city and never whispered to the breeze on the Ganga. For Nila, Calcutta was now a burning ghat. It used to be her mother’s cotton sari where she wiped her sweat and tears and stood waiting at the door. It used to be Molina’s large, black eyes, which flew into the sun, into the night and wherever Nila dived, they searched for Nila. It was as if someone had wrapped up the fun of curling up in Molina’s rug in the winters, eating savoury snacks on fields of shefali, into a parcel of darkness and hurled it far, dug a hole in the silence and dropped Calcutta into its depths and run away. Now there was no one called Calcutta, nothing called Calcutta.

One summer afternoon, in the burning heat, Nila sought refuge in Monique’s shade and grace.

‘Talk to me about France, Monique, not Calcutta.’

Monique, drowned in red wine, talked of France. In the lazy afternoon Lullu and Bhullu were in the balcony, Monique’s driver Suranjit lay under the tree to spare himself the fiery sparks, the cook Bindiya was humming as she braided her hair, the gardener Haridas lay beside the dogs like some elderly cousin telling them stories and in the cool room Monique’s green eyes brightened as she told her stories. Her forefathers lived in the Chateau Montaigne in southern France. Monique was full of her aristocratic breeding. The next moment she could see the Chateau fall apart in her mind’s eye and her eyes dulled, as if she was seeing the Bastille being stormed and heard the cry of the revolution for herself.

Then it was just that—egalite. She uttered the word twice.

‘I am going to Delhi tomorrow for three days. But I am very worried about Lullu-Bhullu’s feeding; who’ll feed them?’ Monique’s mossy eyes held concern. ‘Will you do this for me, Nila? I’ll leave the keys with you and show you where the food is, some in the fridge and some outside and two bottles of mineral water. The water has to be changed thrice and they feed twice a day.’

‘Sure, I can do it, but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘Won’t this Bindiya, Suranjit or Haridas be here?’

‘Yes, they’ll be here.’

Monique lit a cigarette and smoked some rings into Sunil Das’ Horses on the wall and said, ‘They’ll stay, but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘But my Lullu and Bhullu don’t eat rubbish or leftovers like the dogs here. They have packed food brought from Paris.’

‘So?’

‘So I suspect they may not feed the dogs.’ Monique’s voice was low.

‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Nila was curious.

‘Because they’ll eat the food themselves.’

‘They’ll eat it up? How strange! Have they done that before?’

‘No.’

‘So then?’

‘They may.’

Nila returned home feeling positively ill.

Nikhil scattered some cooked rice in the courtyard and called to the crows to come and feed. Only when they did that, would he be able to eat. It wasn’t easy doing your mother’s last rites!

Nila stood behind him and said, ‘Do you really believe that Ma has become a crow?’

Nikhil looked away from the sky and said, ‘Are you mad? I’m doing it because it’s a custom.’

‘You call yourself a communist, but you go to the temple in Tarapith and feed the crows before you eat—it doesn’t add up,’ Nila said as she squashed a rotten tomato from the garden underfoot.

Nikhil gave a tired smile. Nila dragged him inside and took the cloth from his neck. ‘Look at this, you have bathed in this and now you’re wearing it till it dries? Leave this and wear a shirt. This is no way to rid yourself of your debt to your mother—rubbish! Go and have a bath and get dressed. Let’s go to a restaurant and have lunch.’

‘Leave it. Just a few more days to go.’ Nikhil was weary. He wouldn’t go anywhere and he wanted to eat the boiled fare.

‘Then eat before the crows at least.’ Nila shoved the food into his mouth.

After lunch, Nikhil left the suffocating heat indoors and sat on the grass with his legs outstretched. There was a light breeze. Nila came and sat beside him.

‘Dada, tell me the truth: do you really believe in all these rituals and rules of Hinduism?’

‘Does one ever believe in them?’

‘Then why do you do it?’

‘There’s an element of fun in it.’

‘Fun? I see no fun in a bunch of illogical rules and pointless emotions.’

‘Suppose Pujas were suddenly cancelled, would you be happy? Won’t you miss it? How would you have the festivities and the fun?’

‘Dada, do you remember, when we played hide and seek here,
you often hid behind that stone bench? And I always found you first.’

‘Your hiding place was different—the topmost branch of the mango tree.’

‘Do you remember about Prafulla’s guava tree? You went and stole all the ripe fruit and Prafulla came to complain to Baba.’

Nikhil laughed loudly.

‘How did you like Baba’s hiding?’

‘And at night, full moon nights, when there weren’t so many houses all around, Ma used to sit here and sing the songs of Rajanikanta. What a lovely voice she had . . .’

For a long time neither of them spoke.

Nila gazed at the spreading pink tinge of the sunset indifferently and broke the silence, ‘Dada, Ma will come back one day. She’ll wash her feet at the tap and say she’d gone off to Darjeeling suddenly and ask if we are all fine. At night she’ll tell us stories of Darjeeling and feed us, she’ll wear a red-bordered sari smelling of moth balls, sit on this field and sing to us like the old days . . .’

Suddenly Nila stood up and said, ‘Today I saw an eighty-five-year-old man walking on the streets. He doesn’t have to be alive! I hate to see anyone live these days. If all the trees in world die today, and all the mountains are razed to the ground and the rivers and seas dry up, all animals and men would die in that wasteland. And if only this earth fell off the orbit, went too close to the sky and burnt to ashes!’

Nila realized she was shaking. She felt weak. She lay down beside Nikhil on the grass and spoke softly, ‘Do you know something, Dada? I feel alone, very lonely.’

‘Are you really going back to Paris?’

‘Do I have a choice, dada?’

‘When will you return?’

‘Where?’

‘Where? To Calcutta, of course.’

Nila didn’t reply.

‘You are angry with Baba, right? But once you leave, he will worry about you as usual, how you are, whether you are happy or not.’

‘Happy.’ The word escaped on a sigh.

‘Baba didn’t know that Kishanlal had married once before. I came to know just the other day when Sunil told me. I haven’t told anyone.’

‘Don’t tell anyone. What’s the point? Baba will only get anxious about dishonour to the family.’

‘Sunil said that’s why you left Kishan. Apparently that marriage was an arranged one, to get him the citizenship. Don’t take that to heart.’

‘I am not.’

‘This time, send me a good bottle of Chanel. The first one you sent was fake.’

‘How did you come to that conclusion?’

‘It doesn’t smell right. The ones I buy here in Calcutta have a strong smell.’

‘The one I sent was the real thing.’

‘I have thrown it away.’

‘You’ve thrown the real thing and kept the fake? All that money wasted!’

Nila enjoyed lying on the grass. The breeze blew her hair off her face. The birds were flocking to their nests. The two cats who were sitting on the neighbour’s fence were also heading for home.