French Lover (4 page)

Nila knew that all husbands liked their wife’s cooking. Though Anirban would always criticize Molina’s cooking, he would never eat the food if it was cooked by Chitra. Once Molina was down with fever and Chitra did the cooking. Nikhil and Nila both ate. But Anirban refused to eat. Molina got up and cooked, despite her fever, and only then did he eat. Not only did this satisfy Anirban; it gave great pleasure to Molina as well.

When he finished, Kishan said, ‘One day I’ll send Bachhu, the boy who cooks in the restaurant, to teach you some cooking.’

Nila laughed and said, ‘Cooking is also a matter of habit.’

Just as cooking was a habit, so was sharing your husband’s bed. After their marriage, when Kishan slept with Nila for the first time, she had felt stifled because she couldn’t throw about her arms and legs and roll all over the bed. Gradually she got used to leaving more than half the bed for him, restraining her arms and legs and listening to the sounds of his snoring.

When Kishan lifted her sari and dipped his head into her breasts, Nila said with a childlike excitement, ‘Tomorrow I want to walk on the streets for a bit.’

‘Why?’

‘Just.’

‘No one walks around without a reason.’

‘I won’t go far, just close by.’

‘Why do you want to walk in this dirty locality?’

‘Dirty? But it’s sparkling clean.’

‘Alone? And if you get lost? Next Saturday I’ll have some time and I’ll take you to see the Eiffel Tower.’

Nila was lost in her dreams of the Eiffel Tower even as Kishan lost himself in Nila’s depths.

After the six days’ wait the promised Saturday arrived. Kishan bought some warm clothes and shoes for Nila, took her to see the Eiffel Tower and finally stopped in front of the Taj Mahal restaurant in Montparnasse. News travelled fast that the boss’s wife was here.

Mojammel came forward with a wide grin, dressed in a black suit and a tie. He said, ‘Hello didi, what would you like—tea, coffee or something cold?’

Nila wanted some tea. She felt it was years since she’d had any.

‘What kind of tea, the Indian kind or black tea?’

Nila was surprised. ‘What’s the Indian kind of tea?’

‘With milk, cardamom and cloves.’

Nila shuddered. She didn’t even have milk in her tea, let alone cardamom and cloves.

The tea arrived and also a bunch of Bengali youth. Even Bachhu dropped his cooking and came forward. Some were from Jessore, some from Rangpur and some from Barishal. Nila was bursting with happiness as she said, ‘My father came from Faridpur. At the time of the Partition he came over to Calcutta and never went back.’

The boys found a long-lost sister in Nila and talked to her of their faraway homes. Kishan observed all this from where he stood near the cash-box and shouted, ‘Is that the Bengalis having their famous adda? There isn’t a race lazier than this one, really! Eat, sleep and chatter. Come on, get back to work.’

Nila raised her voice, ‘Let me finish the tea at least.’ This was the effect of finding so many Bengalis. Her voice gained strength. Nila presumed even her soul was strengthened.

As she drank the tea, Nila came to know that Mojammel, who came to France three years ago because he couldn’t find a job in Dhaka, had completed his master’s degree in chemistry from the Dhaka University. He was still on a cut-throat passport.

‘What is that?’

‘This is when they remove the neck upwards from someone else’s passport and stick your own photo in it.’

Nila shivered.

Mojammel said, ‘I had no choice. There was no way I’d get a foreign visa . . . so you get to buy passports with visas. I sold the land and whatever else my father had and bought such a passport for five lakhs of rupees and then . . .’

Nila was curious.

‘Then I came to France and started working.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘Selling roses on the streets.’

‘Selling roses after studying chemistry? Couldn’t you get a good job here?’ Nila’s voice shook with anxiety.

Mojammel laughed and said, ‘Our education has no value here. I have even worked as a janitor for a while.’

Before he got the job at the restaurant, Mojammel used to work in a packing-box factory. There was less money in these jobs because they used illegal labour. The government of this country didn’t allow you to apply for a proper job until your papers came through. So whatever you did, it had to be illicit and surreptitious, giving the police the slip. Nila was curious about these ‘papers’. It wasn’t just Mojammel, she’d heard it from an innocent-looking boy called Jewel as well. Nila could tell that the thing for which they all waited eagerly, for which they hoped and prayed and with which their lives could become brighter and more comfortable, was ‘papers’.

What
were
these ‘papers’?

‘The permission to live in this country.’

Nila’s curiosity mounted. Mojammel spoke candidly, ‘They tried to evict me twice from this country. Finally I sued them, showing a valid cause for staying on and the case is still pending. As long as it’s not decided, I can stay on.’

‘What was your reason?’

‘Didi, how do I say it . . . it’s really a shame . . . I got a new passport with a Hindu name and said that Hindus are being persecuted in Bangladesh . . . it wasn’t safe for me to go there.’

An utter and complete lie, Mojammel admitted it himself readily.
Nila, who could never tolerate lies, when she heard Mojammel’s story, felt no anger.

Mojammel scratched his head and said, ‘Didi, these are not things we can hide. Everyone knows how the poor young boys from our country come here, how they stay, what they do . . .’

‘Isn’t it possible without such lies?’

‘No. If I say that I’m educated and I was jobless in Dhaka, that I want to work here, build myself a healthy, beautiful life, the kind of life that everyone dreams of, they’d just throw me out of the country. Political asylum they may just allow, but economic asylum—never!’

Nila had had a minor experience of how they threw people out of the country when she had arrived at the airport. So she didn’t probe any further.

Jewel sat beside Mojammel and rattled out his story; that he used to sell fruits near the underground station; that the police got after him and he had to quit that.

‘Why would the police be after you?’

‘You’re not allowed to sell fruits over there. They often take us to the police station and ask for the papers . . .’

‘And none of you have them?’

‘Yes, some do. There were some people who married French women in exchange for a lot of money. Such a marriage got them the papers and even a citizenship. And if you hang on for many, many years, eventually they do grant you permission, sort of like throwing a scrap to the dog.’

Mojammel and Jewel lived in the same apartment in Belle Ville along with five other Bengali boys—all in the same room.

‘Seven of you?’ Nila took the last sip from her cup.

‘Cutting cost, didi—we really have no choice.’

Kishan finished tallying the accounts and said, ‘Come on, come on, get going all of you.’

Nila said, ‘But I wanted another cup of tea.’

‘You just had tea.’

‘But one cup is hardly enough. I’ve told you how I love this drink.’ Nila raised her head and stated, not pleaded.

When Kishan shouted out, the boys straggled off, one by one,
except for Mojammel.

Nila lowered her voice and asked, ‘Why don’t you go back?’

‘Home? I’ve spent so many years in the hope of earning some good money. What will I do if I went back home now? At this age I won’t get any jobs and what will I eat? How would I show my face there? I can’t go back with nothing. Even with such menial jobs here, I’m able to send back some money home. At least I pay for my younger brother’s studies.’

Jewel brought her another cup of black tea. Nila took a quick swig from it and asked, ‘So what’s the use of all your education?’

‘No use, didi.’

‘All those others, are they all like you—I mean, have they all come here the same way as you have?’

‘All of them.’

Nila was concerned, ‘Are they all educated?’

‘Yes. Bachhu is a doctor.’

‘Why doesn’t he practise here?’

‘Who’ll give him a job? Even if you have studied medicine in your country, you have to appear for fresh exams here. If you are an illegal immigrant, you can’t sit for those exams. Language is a problem. Even if we can speak it, we can’t write.’

‘Do the people at home know that you work in a restaurant?’ Nila sighed and asked.

‘I haven’t told them . . . I’m ashamed . . .’ Mojammel laughed and said, ‘Do you know what I’ve told my family? I work as a DC—people think it’s Deputy Commissioner. I know it as Dish Cleaner.’ Nila laughed with him. Kishan walked into their midst uninvited and asked, ‘What’s so funny? Come on now, let’s go.’

Mojammel moved away.

‘I want to see the kitchen.’

Nila went into the kitchen and found Sohail from Barishal chopping onions there. Bachhu was pouring oil into the kadhai. Jewel was washing the dishes.

‘So doctor, what’s cooking?’

Bachhu laughed, ‘Gravy.’

‘Gravy for what?’

‘Everything.’

‘What do you mean everything? Fish or mutton, which one?’

‘The same gravy for chicken, beef, lamb, fish and vegetables.’

‘Oh dear me. Why would you have the same curry for everything?’ Nila asked.

‘That’s the way it is, didi.’

‘But then, this is not true Indian food.’

‘Not exactly Indian. But it is Indian food tailored to the French taste.’

Bachhu told her that he had done the same work in Germany as well and there it was suited to the German palate.

Nila said, ‘It’s quite a sight: men chopping onions and cooking and cleaning. I have never seen this in all my life.’

Bachhu poured the bowl of onions into the oil and said, ‘I had never poured myself a glass of water. Someone would pour it out and then I drank from the glass. I never knew what a kitchen looked like or what it was all about. I learnt it all when I came to Europe.’

The onions began to brown in the oil and Nila raised her voice above the sizzle as she said, ‘In a way it’s a good thing, don’t you think? Now you know what women suffer in the kitchen.’

Bachhu sautéed the onions and looked away from the smoke, smiled sweetly and said, ‘Didi, come here one day and teach us some dishes.’

‘I am no better in the kitchen. I’d never gone in there either. I always thought it was the mothers who did it.’

It was the mother’s job. Molina’s job. That’s what Nila had known. All her life she had seen Molina cooking and bringing the food to the table and then serving it to her husband and children. They talked as they ate. Molina stood by the table just in case someone needed something—more salt or gravy or water or something, anything. Nila tried to remember if she had ever actually seen Molina eating with someone. No, she hadn’t.

Nila wanted to go out into the bright sunny day without any warm clothes. Kishan pulled her back into the heated room and explained to his novice of a bride that the sun had no warmth here. She
understood the truth of it when she stood in the sun, wrapped up from head to toe and still felt the sharp wintry needles pierce her whole body. Nila looked for a post office to mail her letter to Molina. Her chin wobbled from the cold. In this city you never really had to look for anything. Everything was close at hand—you just had to open your eyes and look around. At the post office she saw the long queue and as she tried to avoid it and headed for the front, Kishan impatiently pulled her back by the hem of her coat and whispered, ‘Whenever you see a queue in this country, respect it. This is the land of equality. The one who comes first is served first.’

But they didn’t have to stand in the long queue. There were machines in the post office. When she placed the letter on a yellow machine, it told her what the postage on it would be. She put in the money and the stamps came out. She stuck the stamps on to the letter and dropped it into another machine. That was it! A matter of minutes. It was magic. There was such magic at every street corner in the city. You put in a card and the machine spewed out money, you put in coins and got hot tea, coffee or a cold drink from the bowels of the machine, or little toy cars, chocolates, biscuits. Nila wanted to see more of the city and more such magic.

Kishan wanted to buy a gift for Nila. They had a lifetime to explore the city.

‘What is the gift?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

Kishan got into the car with a spring in his step. The car drove by the Montparnasse, through Rue de Rennes keeping Saint-Germaine-des-Pres to the left and along Boulevard Saint Germaine—Nila watched in awestruck wonder as the sparkling cafés, restaurants and cinemas whizzed past. She wanted to get off the car and walk like so many others, stop at a café and drink some tea and watch the people, the beautiful people.

Kishan parked the car in Saint Michelle and went into Jibarre. It was a sea of books. Nila drowned in the sea without a trace. This was not an ocean she knew. She owned a little pond of the familiar waters, which she had left behind at home in Calcutta. She fingered the books by Balzac, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Maupassant, Albert
Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, glanced through Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Paul Eluard. She had read them in Bengali translations. When she picked up the books in the original French, she felt strange. In a trance, Nila handled the books one by one, smelt them, hugged them to her heart. Kishan was calling out to her, but she didn’t hear him.

He had to almost drag her out of Jibarre. Nila’s eyes were still glazed, in a trance and she felt euphoric. ‘I must learn this language.’

Kishan walked towards the car rapidly as he said, ‘Of course you must. You have to learn the language of the country where you live.’

Nila said, ‘I want to learn it so that I can read their literature.’

‘Oh, I have heard that you’re a bookworm.’ Kishan cackled and his lips twisted.

In Calcutta Nila had the notoriety of being a bookworm. Once she started reading, she forgot to eat or bathe and even forgot her own name—at least that’s what her friends and family claimed.