French Lover (7 page)

These people were so rich and yet they didn’t like gold. But in a poor country like India gold was an imperative. Gold spelt class and status. Without gold a wedding was incomplete. For Nila’s wedding Anirban gave eighty grams of glittering gold. He probably thought that streams of joy flowed from the gold and held his daughter in its grip. Every Indian woman was attracted by gold, as was Nila. But she wasn’t interested in buying the reddish 18K gold.

She wanted to buy perfume. In the perfume section she lost herself. There were so many perfumes in the world! This was the birthplace of all perfumes. Nila liked Givenchy’s Organza and Kishan voted for Christian Dior’s Poison. So which one should they buy? Easy—they’d buy Poison.

‘Why is Poison so expensive here? It’s much cheaper in Calcutta.’

‘That’s because those are fakes. Here they are real, okay?’

Nila floundered in the crowd of ‘real’—everything was real, good and pretty.

Although they bought the perfume, Nila didn’t want to budge from there. She was looking for a particular perfume—Evening in Paris. Although she hunted high and low, she couldn’t find that tiny blue bottle of Evening in Paris. Instead, her eyes fell on a bottle of Chanel no. 5. She’d buy that, with her own money. Kishan was surprised. ‘For whom?’

‘For dada.’

Sunil had told her that a friend of his was going to Calcutta and she could send something if she wanted to.

Kishan said, ‘For Nikhil? Why don’t you pick something from the cheaper ones?’

Nila was adamant; she’d buy Chanel no. 5 because that’s what he liked. Kishan took the bottle from her hands, returned it to the sales
attendant and dragged her from the shop. In an undertone he said, ‘You have no sense at all.’

Nila spoke calmly. ‘Actually dada had given me two hundred dollars to buy just this perfume and send him.’

‘Just this one and nothing else will do?’

‘Yes, this and nothing else.’

Nila cashed her dollars and bought the Chanel no. 5. She found it gave her a strange kind of pleasure to buy something with her own money. It was much more than getting a bag full of gifts from Kishan.

When they returned, Kishan sat with his Scotch and Nila doused herself with the Poison as she hummed, ‘I’ve drank of the dreaded cup, knowing all too well; I’ve waived away my life in the hope of living.’

‘What’s that song?’ Kishan asked.

‘Rabindrasangeet.’

‘That Bengali chap who got the Nobel Prize?’

‘Yes, it was written by that Bengali chap. That same guy wrote a beautiful song about this same poison and I’m singing it.’

‘This same poison?’

‘The very one.’

‘Why don’t you translate it for me?’

Nila laughed and said, ‘There are some songs that are untranslatable.’

Kishan sighed and said, ‘There are some people who are untranslatable.’

Nila stood by the kitchen and as her perfume wafted all over the room, she said, ‘There are some people who can be translated very easily.’

When Kishan finished his dinner and went to bed, Nila sat down to write to Molina.

‘You’d wondered how I’d run my home all alone over here. Just come here once and take a look. True, there are no maids. But there’s no need either. The place is full of machines and the only work is in switching them on. Do you know Ma, I cook. But don’t worry too much. It’s no trouble at all. Today Kishan has bought me many things
and made it very clear that
he
has bought them. That’s life, isn’t it? We are almost prisoners of these “things”, aren’t we? I’ve seen you too—if Baba bought you two saris you’d be over the moon. You would cook him something special, serve him and sit by him when he ate. Perhaps you did it for love and that can’t be bought with things. Or can it? I don’t know. Tonight I cooked daal makhani for Kishan. He really loves it.

‘Paris is a stunningly beautiful city. Today, when we drove past the opera I thought it’s a good thing I got married to Kishan or I would never have seen this city. And it’d be a shame to die without seeing this place.

‘Ma, you have wasted your entire life trying to please other people. Now you should think of yourself, enjoy your own life. After grandfather died, the inheritance was split up and you got a fair amount of money from selling your share. Who are you saving it for? Spend it—on yourself. Life isn’t forever. The people here have enough to eat and good clothes to wear. So they enjoy life to the hilt. They laugh heartily. And we are afraid to laugh because we are in fear. Why? Because some stupid man somewhere has said that if you laugh too much you’ll pay for it with tears.’

She wrote this far, added a PS and wrote, ‘I’m sending a Chanel no. 5 for dada. It’s a very expensive perfume. This wasn’t bought with Kishan’s money. I paid for it myself with the money I’d saved by giving tuitions.’

‘Can I please have some money? I’d like to go out alone since you don’t have the time.’

‘Alone? Are you crazy?’

‘Why can’t I go out alone? Am I a small child?’

Kishan caressed her cheeks and said, ‘To me, of course, you are a small child.’

Nila laughed, ‘But I’m not a small child to myself.’

‘What are you then—a big child?’ Kishan also laughed.

‘I am twenty-seven and a mature adult.’

‘And do you have to walk the streets if you are a mature adult?’

‘It doesn’t have to be walking around. I might go to Sunil’s house,
have tea in a café or visit a museum or a bookstore. Perhaps I’d want to see the opera from the inside. I read some books when I knew I’d be coming here. I want to see those places.’ Nila looked out of the window listlessly as she spoke.

‘You want to do all this alone?’ Kishan’s tiny, beady eyes grew as big as potatoes.

‘Well, since you don’t have the time . . . I thought I might even just walk around a bit, even if I don’t go anywhere.’ Her voice was dejected.

‘Walk? But why?’

‘No reason—just like that.’

‘Does anyone ever walk for no reason? Look, just take a look,’ Kishan dragged her to the window, ‘Those people there—do you think they are walking there for no reason? They all have reasons, they are all busy. So am I. If I didn’t keep busy, we wouldn’t have food to eat or a roof over our heads. One day I’ll show you how the refugees live on the streets, even on winter nights. Then you’ll know that it doesn’t make sense to waste time for no reason.’

Nila wound the corner of her sari around her finger and said, ‘Actually, my time weighs heavily on me. I haven’t been educated to just sit at home. If I found myself a job . . .’

‘Job? Why on earth? Am I not earning enough?’ Kishan asked in stunned surprise.

‘Yes, you are.’

‘This “not having the time”—it’s for the sake of this household alone. If I didn’t work, where would you live, what would you eat?’ His voice rose higher as he spoke.

‘Are you doing all this for me? You were working even before we got married. You haven’t started working simply to be able to take care of me, have you?’ Nila’s voice was strangely calm.

Kishan sat down upon the sofa and said, ‘Oh Nila, you have quite a way with words. Where did you learn to talk like that?’

‘Nowhere. Everyone can talk like this.’

Kishan shook his head violently and said, ‘No, no, no. Indian wives can’t talk like this.’

In the same calm tone, Nila said, ‘Which Indian wife doesn’t
speak like this—your grandmothers, right?’

‘None of them,’ Kishan screamed.

‘You should have married a dumb girl who’d silently do the housework and never protest at anything, who doesn’t have a soul to call her own and cannot read or write, who didn’t have her wits about her and didn’t dream a single dream.’ Nila spoke slowly and succinctly.

Kishan’s voice rose by another octave as he shouted, ‘Why are you so proud of your education? It’s not as if you’re a doctor or an engineer. What can you do with your degree in Bengali literature? You can’t earn a single franc. You’ll have to depend on me all your life—you have no other choice. So quit that ego. If you had any sense you’d see how pointless it is.’

Kishan got up. Without any reason, he paced the floor. He walked with resounding steps. Then he drank water—one glass, another glass. Finally he spoke gravely, ‘Listen, both Sunil and Chaitali work. They are never at home in the day. Why would you go to a café—make yourself a cup of tea at home and drink it. Why spend money outside? I don’t go to museums, or movies, but if you are so keen on it, I’ll take you when I have the time.’

He left. His steps sounded loudly on the stairs.

The bunch of keys was on the table. Nila took them in her hands many times—Kishan had advised her to use them only if the house was on fire.

‘When will you have some free time?’

Nila was stroking Kishan’s head as she asked him one Saturday morning.

Kishan edged closer towards Nila, threw his right arm over her and said, ‘I have just this Saturday and Sunday to give you some time. All week long I work hard. There’s just these two days for leisure. I want to enjoy my wife’s touch all day long.’ Kishan laughed, trying to hide his buckteeth. This smile was his best. He probably thought this was a lover’s smile. This was how all lovers smiled at their women when they first fell in love.

‘All day you’ll just lie around and do nothing?’ Nila asked. She was restless.

Kishan shook his head—nothing else.

‘Once you’d told me the weekend was for cleaning the house, doing the laundry.’

‘That’s true.’ Kishan was sleepy.

All day long Nila cleaned the house diligently, watered the plants and cooked. She wasn’t used to doing all this, but she did. As she worked Nila wondered if she was doing all this because she loved Kishan or to please him, so that he would be able to love her. There had to be a reason to love someone. His reasons were perhaps her cooking and cleaning. She couldn’t expect him to love her out of the blue, just because she was his wife. Nila could sing very well, she was well read. But these were no reasons for Kishan to love her because he didn’t understand Bengali. If she abused him in this language, he’d not even know she was calling him names and just smile sweetly. If she spouted poetry in this language he’d sit with just as impassive a face. This language was as worthless in this house as broken shards of glass.

After lying around all day, Kishan came to the sofa for the second round of lolling about, and put on a Hindi film in the VCR. Nila had finished cleaning the carpet and she was wiping the glass in the window. She finished it, cooked and then showered. Not just qualities, beauty was needed as well and so she did her face, wore a nice sari and came and sat in front of him: Nila the wife, Nila the beauty, Nila the homemaker.

‘How do I look?’ She leaned closer to him and asked.

‘Nice.’

‘Let’s invite them over once?’

‘Whom?’

‘Sunil and his family.’

‘Where’s the time?’

‘Call them tonight.’

‘You can’t invite people like that. You need to tell them at least two weeks in advance. But why are you suddenly thinking of them?’

‘It’s been ages since I spoke in Bengali.’

‘Hm, that’s true. You should have married a Bengali.’

‘It’s a good thing I didn’t marry one—they can’t be trusted.’

Kishan smiled his lover’s smile, ‘Why don’t you try and pick up Punjabi while you sit at home?’

‘How?’

‘Listen to Punjabi songs, watch movies, talk to me a little—it’ll be easy.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to learn French?’

‘If you have the brains to do it, why not.’

Both Kishan and Nila knew that she couldn’t learn French by sitting at home and going out with him every now and then. So she changed the subject and said, ‘Well, the other day you turned down the invitation to Sanal’s. So let’s invite him over tonight.’

‘Nah. That boy doesn’t know his manners. Didn’t you see how he was fooling around with you that night?’

‘Fooling around?’

‘What else? Even Rajesh commented later that he shouldn’t have done all this. He always covets the other man’s wife. Every time an Indian bride arrives, Sanal pounces on her. I don’t understand why he doesn’t get one for himself instead of eyeing other men’s properties.’

Nila could clearly see that Kishan’s eyes were bright with jealousy. The previous Sunday when Sanal had invited Nila and Kishan, he’d responded with ‘Sure’. Later he said, ‘Let’s see,’ and even later, ‘Perhaps it won’t be possible.’ Eventually he’d said, ‘Sorry mate, I have some urgent work and I have to go to Lyon.’ But of course, he didn’t go to Lyon.

‘That night he shouldn’t have poured you that drink. If anyone had to do it, it should’ve been me. I will see to my wife’s needs.’ Kishan’s hackles rose as he spoke.

Nila said, ‘What rubbish. He’s a friend of yours. He was just joking with his sister-in-law.’

‘You wouldn’t understand. This isn’t just joking. In these fifteen years I have heard some scary stories about Indian men: eloping with others’ wives or having illicit relationships.’ Kishan wrinkled his nose, forehead and lips with distaste. Nila moved away from the wrinkled Kishan and stood by the window, ‘Then, let’s have dinner at your restaurant.’

‘You must be out of your mind. I spend the whole week in that
place. I won’t go there tonight. Of course, next week I’ll take you there, to have some fish and meat.’

Nila turned around and walked towards him, one step at a time, ‘Is that a promise?’

‘Of course it’s a promise.’

Kishan pulled Nila’s right arm, placed it on his head and said, ‘An Indian girl has something else in her touch—she tastes altogether different.’

Nila stroked Kishan’s hair and bald pate with a tiny smile on her lips and asked, ‘And how do foreign women taste?’

Kishan shrugged.

She leaned over his face and said, ‘Did any of them run their fingers through your hair like this?’

Kishan shut his eyes. The big fat cat shut its eyes. Purrrrrr.

‘Why don’t you tell me, did someone do this?’

‘They don’t understand these things.’

‘How do you know that?’

The eyes stayed shut. ‘I know, I know—who doesn’t!’

On Monday morning Kishan took Nila to the police station at Îl de la Cité and applied for her citizenship. When they came out after two hours, Nila wanted to go to the Notre-Dame, but Kishan didn’t. Nila wanted to walk along the Seine, but Kishan didn’t. Îl de la Cité is an old colony and a group of fishing folk called the Parisee lived there. The Romans came and conquered the place and built houses along the Seine. Some remnants of those buildings still stand on that bank of the river. Did you know that Paris was named after those original inhabitants? Earlier it was called Lutetia. Kishan didn’t know this and neither did he want to know. He was in a hurry to go to the restaurant. He dropped her home and left. In his hurry he forgot his little address book. Nila picked up the tiny blue notebook and read all the entries from A to Z. Most of the names were unfamiliar. Nila’s name wasn’t there, but Nikhil’s was and beside it their Ballygunge phone number. There were five numbers against Sunil’s name, of his house, two of the clinic, one of his mobile and the last of his Calcutta home.