French Lover (28 page)

Life was very discrete. No one wanted to dwell on the past. Monsieur and Madame Dupont had their own lives; their children were grown up and their duties were over. If the child was physically and mentally fit, he was supposed to bother you less. If there was good news, they’d be happy to know it by a phone call or a letter.
Benoir’s new love was also good news for them. Benoir brought them the news personally. They weren’t here to judge how Nila looked or how she behaved. Whatever she was, if his son was happy with her, they wanted nothing more. They didn’t poke their nose into other people’s lives, like Bengalis did. His parents told her stories of Benoir’s childhood and they missed the last train to Paris and had to stay over. In Benoir’s old room, the bed was small, the table and cupboard were small in which, tiny clothes still hung neatly. Benoir spent the night on that bed with Nila, reminiscing and romancing. Nila felt their cries of orgasm would disturb the other two people in the house. Benoir didn’t bother about it.

The next morning they left Orléans, the city of Joan d’Arc’s memories and the lively Duponts. Nila looked out of the windows from the train and saw the neatly ordered villages, the farmlands, homesteads and the healthy looking cows. Farmers sped by in fast cars, beer cans in hand, joyous, celebrating. No one grazed cattle; machines sowed seeds, harvested the crops and gathered them. Whenever Nila left Calcutta she saw emaciated cows harnessed by emaciated farmers, who sowed seeds by hand and reaped the harvest by hand. After working hard all round the year they seldom got two square meals a day. And here the government gave farmers lots of money
not
to farm, or raise cattle, sheep or pigs. They had so much that the markets overflowed. In this country it was cheaper to buy produce from other countries than to produce it themselves. A farmer could tweak his moustache and say that on his land, if he farmed, he would earn so much money and the government would say I’ll give twice that if you don’t farm.

Suddenly Nila laughed.

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘Sometimes I find it very funny, Benoir. People’s situations can be so different in two parts of the world. Here there’s a surplus of wealth and there a total lack of it. Someone struggles while others have fun. The whole thing is a joke.’

Nila was lost in thought.

Benoir nudged her thoughts and said, ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Not much to tell.’

‘Still . . .’

Benoir’s tone was demanding, the demands of a lover. Being his lover meant sharing her thoughts as much as giving her body to him.

‘I’m thinking of Sartre,’ Nila said.

‘Our Jean Paul Sartre?’

‘Yes, your Jean Paul Sartre.’

Benoir laughed, ‘And I thought you’re thinking about your poor farmers.’

Nila was silent. A little later she said, ‘Sartre said life is pointless but it has to be made worthwhile. How does one do that? A girl or a boy is born into a poor family; he doesn’t get an education, suffers from starvation, works hard all day long to get himself one square meal. Perhaps he had the talent to be a great scientist or a great writer or philosopher. But how would he use that talent? Where is his chance to make life worthwhile? If he doesn’t have food to eat or clothes to wear, what is life if not a series of pain?’

Nila thought of Molina. Did Molina have the capacity to make her life more meaningful? She had been a prisoner in her husband’s home; she had had invisible chains on her mind and body, the chains of society, and she hadn’t known how to break free. There were millions of such Molinas the world over, who didn’t know how to set themselves free.

Benoir laughed again. ‘What nonsense! Everyone doesn’t make their lives worthwhile the same way. My life is worth it for Jacqueline. My parents weren’t rich and they struggled a lot; in their lives I brought meaning, wealth. Besides, one can reap the harvest of this life in the next. Why would life be pointless?’

Nila laughed loudly.

‘Why are you laughing?’

She was still laughing as she said, ‘You believe in life after death?’

‘Sure. Don’t you?’

‘No.’

Benoir said, ‘But why? You have heaven and hell in your religion too.’

Nila laughed and said, ‘Long ago a Bengali author said, “Where is heaven and where is hell—who says they are far away? In the midst of man resides heaven and hell, both”.’

Benoir sat up straight and asked gravely, ‘Don’t you believe in God?’

Nila was firm. ‘No.’

Benoir leaned back. ‘Strange.’

He told her that he had always known India was famous for its spirituality. It was as ancient as the country itself.

Nila said, ‘Did you read about India’s Charbak school of philosophy in your books? In those days the most popular philosophy was the Lokayat. These Lokayits didn’t believe in the soul or in God, or heaven and hell. For many years India was ruled by the British. They wanted to make us believe that we were very mediocre people, not equal to them in knowledge, sophistication or anything and we were fit to be slaves and nothing else. Of course, this wasn’t true. It was said just to fool the people of India. So, when the freedom movement started, some fundamentalist pundits wanted to glorify the Indian past. They dug up Indian history to prove how great we were. To oppose the rationalism or materialism of the West, they began to claim that ancient sages had said life was temporal, illusion and maya. This was entirely to revoke a self-esteem that we had lost and the Westerners took this to be the true image of India.’

At this point Nila was afraid Benoir would ask, ‘If India really believes in materialism, then why is the country still so poor? Why are most people below the poverty line?’

Nila formulated an answer to this possible question: ‘That is because two hundred years of British rule has crippled the economy.’ Question: ‘They left fifty years ago.’ Answer: ‘Fifty years isn’t long enough to build a nation.’ Benoir could point out that after the Second World War Germany was nowhere. Fifty years later it was the richest nation in Europe. Nila would raise the question of America’s Marshall plan.

Nila’s head was spinning. The fear of Benoir’s questions crouched low in her head. She felt something was wrong somewhere. Her country lay there alone, like Molina’s sick and withered body.
There was no one to nurse her. Nila turned into a bird and flew there, she rained over the sunburnt, drought-stricken lands. Nila began to feel she, too, was chained. If only she could unshackle herself and bow low before her country! She didn’t know why she was living in this cruel, foreign land. The more she saw this country, the stranger it seemed. What would this country give her? Security? Of what—happiness or life? Sometimes Nila felt there was no point in living! There was no point in happiness.

Benoir stroked her fingers and said, ‘So you want to tell me that you don’t believe the Lord has designed us for one another?’

Nila didn’t take her eyes off the window. ‘No.’

The following week passed like that of an ordinary housewife for Nila. At seven in the morning Benoir’s alarm clock woke them both. Once she said to him, ‘The radio bursts like a bomb and I jump out of my skin. I don’t get enough sleep.’ He said, ‘You sleep too much. It’s not good. It’ll make you fat.’

Nila was scared of growing fat and so woke to the radio every morning and went into the kitchen. She made a different breakfast every day, so he wouldn’t get bored. Once he kissed her on the lips and left for work, she cleaned the house, bought his favourite things from the store nearby and cooked them, watched the clock and jumped when the phone rang. Benoir would ask her what she did all day, Nila described her day in detail. Finally he’d ask her if she loved him and she’d say yes. Benoir needed this reassurance quite a few times in the day. In the evening when he came back from work, he kissed her; then he sat before the TV and came to the table when she called him for dinner. One day there was a documentary on India and Benoir jumped up, ‘Come quickly, it’s India.’ Nila had to see a sex workers’ procession in Sonagachi. The film was basically about their fight for rights. Benoir saw it and said, ‘Gosh, there are so many prostitutes in your country?’ Nila tried to distract him, ‘I’ve brought mussels for you today.’ Benoir said, ‘Mmmm, mmmm,’ even before seeing it. Nila played a Hariprasad Chaurasia album in an effort to confound Benoir with the beauty of Indian classical music. But he said, ‘Nila, please don’t mind, but I am changing this.’ He played a French music CD instead.

‘Didn’t you like Chaurasia?’

‘Well Nila, its not my cup of tea.’

Of course, he drank his French cup of tea alone. One day when he saw Nila use her fingers to eat, his eyes became round with surprise
as if he was looking at a savage. Embarrassed, Nila quickly washed her hands and picked up a knife and fork. Benoir consoled her and said, ‘Oh, go ahead, don’t feel shy. We too have picked up the fork only recently. Our ancestors used their fingers, like you. Say a thousand years ago, there was no silverware.’

Every night Nila set the table with Benoir’s favourite dishes and he praised them. He liked the mutton curry Nila made one night and so she repeated it. In bed, Benoir drowned in Nila’s body. He began a new game. The entire time they made love, Nila had to speak in Bengali, saying I love you, I want you, deeper within me and many more sexual innuendoes. He couldn’t understand any of it but it sounded different and that’s what he enjoyed. In order to please him Nila began to say them and her own voice sounded strange to her because she wasn’t used to saying these things in Bengali. Nila tried to overcome her ineptitude and she practised while dusting, cleaning, cooking or cleaning the window. Benoir often said, the Indian woman’s body was more mysterious; it had a different feel to it. And this difference gave him a pleasure that Pascale never could. Nila was glad to hear she could at least give him a taste of difference, which Pascale couldn’t. After their stormy love making, Benoir kissed her goodnight. At dawn the radio’s riotous wakening brought another kiss. Nila took some time to learn the different kisses for the different times of day. This was the least one could do when one had a French lover.

One evening they went to the Picasso museum and the Pompidour. Nila didn’t show any excitement over Picasso’s work. When Benoir asked her, she said except for the one with two girls running by the seashore, she didn’t like any of them. Benoir said one had to have the sense to appreciate them. Nila didn’t have the sense and so she had just gaped at Picasso’s work.

‘Such a great artist, a great man, Picasso . . .’

Nila said, ‘He may have been famous, but as a person he was nothing great. Françoise has written what his life was like. He protested against Spain’s civil war and yet had a warring household himself: Olga, Marie Théresè, Dora, Françoise, Jacqueline, he cheated them all.’

‘You seem to know a lot about our Picasso.’

‘He is not yours, he is Spain’s.’

‘Oh, all the same; the West’s nonetheless.’

Nila realized she was from the East, the exact opposite of the West. When she saw the modern art at Pompidour, Nila couldn’t believe they were called works of art. The first work she came to was a dress made of beef. The meat was sliced thinly and sewed together to make the dress. There was even a photo of a girl wearing the dress. There was a torn piece of paper with some scribbles on it which was framed and hung up as art. Old, torn cloth, broken radios, torn tyres, empty cigarette packets and much more were picked up from the rubbish heap was gathered there and called ‘art’. Nila stood before a blue canvas and tried to figure out if there was a single brush stroke on it, or even a dot. There wasn’t. But it was ‘art’. She asked Benoir how this could be art when there was nothing on the canvas. Benoir said it must be art or it wouldn’t be here. Nila couldn’t make sense of it. She lost faith in modern art and felt like going back to the Louvre to see more classical art. The next day she went there and feasted her eyes on the art of Egypt, Greece and Africa. Nila said, ‘Now there is no colonialism. Why don’t they return these precious pieces to their respective countries!’

Benoir said, ‘These things have survived because we have preserved them. In their own countries they wouldn’t have lasted.’ Nila asked, ‘What would have happened?’ She mused that they’d have dug up the pyramids and brought them here.

One evening Nila and Benoir had dinner with Morounis. She lived in the posh area of Avenue de President Wilson. The house was a gift from her French father.

On their way back, Benoir said, ‘Morounis is very lucky.’

Nila said, ‘Luck isn’t everything. She made it because she had the talent.’

Every evening Pascale called. When Nila answered, she said, ‘This is Pascale. May I speak to Benoir?’ Nila gave the phone to Benoir. On Thursday evening, after her call, Benoir went to Rue de Rennes and informed her at night that he was staying over.

He came back the next day. After some desultory conversation Nila asked, ‘Didn’t you sleep with Pascale last night?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean, why?’

‘You love her. Why wouldn’t you sleep with her?’

‘Since the day I fell in love with you I have only slept with you, not with her. I haven’t touched her since we returned from the Riviera.’

‘But you said you loved me even when you went there.’

‘Nila, why are you complicating everything? Do you want me to have nothing to do with Jacqueline?’

‘Of course not. All I want to know is what’s your problem in having sexual relations with two women? You believe in having sex if you love someone; that’s why you slept with me.’

‘I didn’t sleep with Pascale because you wouldn’t like it.’

‘You have curbed your desires because I won’t like it?’ Nila clicked her tongue sympathetically.

‘Besides, Pascale also doesn’t want to sleep with me.’

‘How do you know that? Did you ask her? You wanted it and she said no, right?’

‘Nila, you talk too much.’

‘Not too much. Answer my question. What would you have done if she had said okay? You held back because she said no, but if she wanted it you’d have made love to her, wouldn’t you?’

‘No, I wouldn’t because I know you wouldn’t like it if I slept with her.’

‘Suppose I like it?’

‘What?’

‘I would like it if you sleep with Pascale tonight, have sex with her.’

‘How is that you want that suddenly? You can’t even stand her, you are so jealous of her.’

‘You have suffered enough thinking I am jealous of her. As of now, I am like the Indian woman of your dreams, patient, tolerant, competent and generous to a fault.’

Benoir sat there glumly for a while and then left silently. He came back with two bottles of wine and a bunch of roses. He gave them to Nila and spoke softly, ‘I love you and that’s the greatest truth.’

Nila smelt the flowers and said, ‘In this country flowers don’t have a scent; they just look good. In India the roses smell terrific.’

‘These are hybrid varieties. All the scent goes away in the process.’ Benoir ran his fingers through her hair and said, ‘There is nothing contrived about you. That’s why I love you more every day.’

He made Nila sit beside him and slowly told her about his conversations with Pascale the night before. He had said that after much soul searching he’d realized his love for her was that of a friend and his everlasting passion was for Nila. He realized he shouldn’t have spent the night there. He had not wanted to hurt her at all. Pascale had told him to stop dallying and choose one of the two relationships. Although it was a very difficult decision to walk away from a neat and beautiful family, Benoir had chosen Nila. Now he’d have to go for a divorce with Pascale on mutual consent. In this country divorce took some time to be effected and both parties’ lawyers would have to work out the details. They could resolve the matter of dividing their possessions quite easily. Sometimes Benoir and Pascale would have to interact about Jacqueline. Pascale said she’d find a job and until then, she had to depend on Benoir, much against her wish. He would have to be responsible for Jacqueline as her father, since that was the rule in this country. But she would grow up pretty soon and once she was fifteen she’d leave home and be on her own.

He didn’t leave it at that. He picked up Pascale’s photo from his desk, dropped it into an empty suitcase saying he’d return it to its owner one of these days.

That same week, on Friday, Nila got a letter from Kishanlal by registered post: it was a legal notice initiating divorce proceedings. She sat holding the letter and listening to the hammering of her own heart for a long time. For a while the lights dimmed and flickered
before her eyes. Benoir steadied them again, ‘Don’t you have faith in me?’

He took Nila’s hands in his and said, ‘Nila, no one will love you the way I love you, no one.’ Nila’s hands looked too black against Benoir’s.

‘I have given you everything, Nila, including myself. What else do you want!’ Benoir’s blue eyes were as deep as the ocean.

The hammering of her heart stopped. Benoir turned her face towards him and the insignificant stalk of grass gazed in awestruck wonder at the massive tree.

The night she received the letter, Nila called Calcutta for the first time since she had left home. She wanted to let them know about the divorce, acknowledge receipt of Anirban’s and Nikhil’s letters and let them know that she was alive and well.

‘You? Has the sun risen in the west today?’ Nikhil exclaimed when he heard her voice.

Nila said, ‘The sun doesn’t rise in the east or the west. It stays put in one place and makes everyone else dance to its tune.’

‘So tell me, how are you? I heard you are living with a foreigner?’

‘Did Sunil say that? He must have given you my phone number and address?’

Nila informed him that the paperwork for her divorce with Kishanlal was already under way. She was happy with the foreigner and they were getting married soon. So let no one spread rumours in Calcutta that Nila was a fallen woman.

‘How are you, dada? Are you getting married soon?’

‘We are seeing some girls. Last month we saw five.’

‘Did you like anyone?’

‘No way.’

‘Why?’

‘All five were dark. My luck!’

Nila said, ‘But you are dark.’

‘It doesn’t matter if a man is dark.’

Nila said to herself, ‘That’s true. It doesn’t matter if the man is dark, ugly, grotesque, corrupt, a lout, a rascal, a monster or a debauchee.’