French Lover (12 page)

She tried to look sideways at Danielle and gauge how affected she was at this display of her friend’s ineptitude. She was impassive. Nila now realized it was also impossible to chew the bland chunk of meat. She tried sprinkling it with salt and pepper, like everyone else. But the meat was still tasteless. Everyone else was exclaiming over it. Nila ate some mashed potato and half a lettuce leaf and got the smell of the meat out of her mouth. Then the cheese set her back to square one. Meanwhile, everyone had torn off pieces of the baguette and kept it beside their plates. With experienced and civilized fingers, they pierced the cheese with their fork, picked up a bite of the baguette on to it and expertly passed it into their mouth. The baguette was lolling on the dusty table. It was impossible for Nila to eat it.

Nila didn’t want coffee; did they have tea? No. So she had to gulp down the water. She wasn’t used to sitting around at the table after her meal was over. She was restless but she didn’t dare go and sit on the sofa again. One had to sit around at the table after the meal. Nila noticed that they’d spent around five hours at the dining table alone. She noted that Bengalis and the French had five in common, the former spent five hours to cook and five minutes to eat and the French cooked in five minutes and ate over five hours.

Suddenly Nicole raised her glass in a toast to Nila. Why? There was going to be a documentary on India in a few minutes on TV. Everyone turned their chairs around. Nila was pushed to the front and all eyes, including the pets’, was on the TV set.

The entire screen was filled by an empty steel plate with holes in
it. The camera zoomed out, the plate grew smaller and the screen was filled with bare feet, walking. Now it zoomed out further, bare feet, bare bodies, an eight-year-old boy walked, with snot hanging from his nose. He shoved the empty plate at the people around him, begging. There were more beggars behind this one. The streets were crowded with a broken tram rattling away, the dilapidated buses and trucks were shoving their nose into the crowds, and amidst it all were scattered a few starving cows, some chewing cud by the roadside and some tied to bullock carts. The pavements were spilling over with beggars. The same boy with the broken plate returned home. A shack made of dry leaves was what passed for a home. It was by a pond and he had to walk across a rickety bridge to get to it. His siblings were leaning into the cooking pot.

Nila broke the silence in the room and said, ‘They must be showing a very poor household indeed.’

‘Shhhh.’ She was asked to shut up.

The cooking pot filled the screen—it was empty. The mother was walking across the rickety bridge to fetch some water from the pond. She brought the water and lit the fire beside the rail tracks. Every time a train passed by, the fire went out. The mother shielded her eyes from the smoke as she cooked the rice. The camera caught the cooking pot again, with the children hanging around it and the mother pushing them away. The next scene showed the young beggar boy urinating under the open sky and below him was the pond.

As soon as the film ended, Rita spoke first. ‘Wow, wonderful camera work.’

Nila leaned across the sofa, pulled out a magazine and pretended to read it intently. She knew she was hiding. Her ears were open and she heard Rita’s excitement.

‘Did you notice the background score when the camera zoomed in on the cooking pot? Isn’t it that song by Edith Piaf?’

‘Which one?
La vie, l’amour
?’

‘No,
L’Oie Blessée
.’

Nila’s eyes were still on the
Vogue
: a beautiful girl lay naked by the ocean, her eyes brimming with lust and at her feet was a bottle of perfume, Opium.

She looked up from the magazine when she heard the sounds of chairs being pushed back—time to leave. She was desperate to leave; so she jumped up and got into her green jacket. In case Danielle accused her of rudeness, she kept her head bent but managed to utter, ‘A bientôt.’ But that wasn’t all. She had to kiss them all on their cheeks, except Maria because she gave Nila and Danielle a ride. They’d have to kiss her when she dropped them off.

Danielle also kissed the three of them and said, ‘A bientôt.’

Rita said, ‘It was my good fortune that I watched a documentary on India with an Indian beside me.’

Nila smiled because she was supposed to, or she’d be called rude and arrogant. In the car, Nila sat at the back and Danielle sat beside Maria in the front.

When they reached home, it was late. Danielle undressed and hit the bed.

Nila wasn’t sleepy. Still she lay down, with all her clothes on.

Danielle said, ‘Why are you sighing? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why are you so quiet?’

‘What should I say?’

Danielle touched Nila’s shoulder, ‘Is there nothing to say? What did you think of Nicole and her friends?’

‘They’re nice.’

‘I can tell you’re upset Nila. It’s very obvious.’

‘I’m just feeling very angry with myself.’

Danielle turned Nila to face her, ‘Why?’

‘I should never have gone to Nicole’s.’

‘Why not?’

In response to her question, Nila just lay deep in thought for a long time. When the question began to buzz in her ears insistently, she sighed and replied, ‘Didn’t you see what a fool I made of myself over there? I don’t really fit in. Perhaps I was better suited to be Kishan’s bride, the archetypal housewife who’ll cook, clean and sometimes talk to an Indian or two. Actually I am not cut out for this society.’

Danielle sat up, ‘What’s wrong with you. I took you to a nice place to make you feel better and you are just complaining.’

Nila said in the same sad tone, ‘Did you really like that documentary?’

‘Sure. Didn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know the significance of such an important channel showing a film on India?’

‘Danielle,’ Nila’s voice broke, ‘India doesn’t just have all that poverty. There are many rich people, many middle-class families . . .’

Danielle laughed, ‘But the TV channel wouldn’t be interested in the rich people of India! If they want riches, they’ll show Bill Gates. Besides, it’s good for India if they focus on the poverty, she’ll get more aid.’

Danielle tucked two pillows behind her back, reclined on them and rolled a cigarette and lit up. She took a long drag, exhaled, combed her fingers through Nila’s hair and said, ‘You can’t deny the fact that India is a poor country. You can’t deny that there are such families in India as the one they showed today. There are so many people all over the world living such subhuman lives, Nila. Something should be done for them, especially by the richer countries. It’s true, there are the rich in India as well. But we already know how they live. Instead when they show us poverty, we sit up and think. Not everyone, but at least those who want to think, those who have a heart, they do think. You know Nila, this is almost like a whiplash for us.’

Suddenly Nila’s cringing, shamed thoughts were free of the beggar’s shanty. She took Danielle’s hand in her own and said, ‘You are so wonderful. The more I see you, the more I’m impressed.’

Danielle stroked Nila’s fingers and it felt good.

‘Why are you in bed with so many clothes; you can’t sleep comfortably.’

Nila turned around, ‘I’m not used to sleeping in the buff.’

She pulled the cover over herself and curled up. Danielle’s fingers climbed her arms and reached her scalp via her neck. Nila always dozed off if someone stroked her head. Molina used to do it often and Nila would fall asleep. In this faraway land Danielle was like a
mother to her. Nila’s sleep went for a toss when Danielle’s fingers danced on her breasts.

She pushed her hands away and laughed, ‘Tickling me, are you?’

‘No.’ The tone was mirthless.

Nila turned and looked at Danielle. Her eyes held no teasing sparkle.

‘D’you know, my mother used to stroke my hair like this and I love it when someone does that.’

‘You like that? Here, let me. You have such lovely hair, such beautiful skin.’

‘How can I have beautiful skin, it isn’t white.’

‘That’s why it’s beautiful.’

‘You like brown skin?’

‘Very much.’

Danielle kept running her fingers through Nila’s hair. Nila turned and faced Danielle and curled into her like a child. She had slept like that many a night with Molina. Her past suddenly flooded through that tiny window and touched her.

Nila’s voice was sad, ‘But Danielle, I have nothing to offer.’

‘Who said that? I like your artlessness the most.’

Danielle’s fingers climbed over her temples, around her nose and descended on her lips.

‘Your lips are beautiful. I want to kiss them.’

‘Kiss? On the lips?’

‘Why not?’

‘No.’

‘What does that mean—you don’t want it?’

Nila shook her head—she didn’t want it.

‘Your feet are stone cold.’ Danielle reached out and stroked her feet with her own.

Danielle’s fingers didn’t leave her body, her feet didn’t let go of Nila’s feet. Nila turned over and spoke sleepily, ‘Let’s go to sleep, it’s quite late.’

‘So what. Tomorrow is Sunday.’

There was no hurry to wake up the next day. So Danielle’s fingers roamed Nila’s body. They roamed all over and came to her thighs.
The more Nila pressed them together, the more the fingers prised them apart. Finally Nila jumped off the bed and sat on the chair, ‘Danielle, what are you up to?’

‘Why? Don’t you want it too?’ Danielle was surprised.

‘Want what?’

‘Sex.’

‘What?’

‘I thought you wanted it too.’

‘How did you think that?’

Danielle said, ‘You held my hand in the street.’

‘So?’

‘So I thought you liked me.’

Nila stared at her in open amazement, ‘I liked you and so I held your hands in the streets. But sex . . . what’s this? How can two women . . .?’

Danielle smiled, ‘Who told you they can’t?’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’

Nila had not only never heard it, she couldn’t even stretch her imagination as far as and come up with a mental image that vaguely resembled such a possibility. Danielle was also surprised, ‘You didn’t guess that I was homosexual?’

How could she? Homosexuals didn’t look any different and Danielle looked like just another girl to Nila.

‘No, I didn’t.’

Nila was still confused. Before her eyes, the room began to spin, it flew in the air, the bed flew in the air. When she came back to it, Danielle’s rapacious tongue licked her for the rest of the night. Nila lay there, speechless, breathless.

Nila could hardly believe she was living this life. It was passing in a dream and when she woke up, she thought, she’d find herself back in Calcutta in her own room where the sparrows chirped at dawn and she’d talk to them silently. After she broke up with Sushanta, Nila used to spend sleepless nights and doze in the day. Sometimes she slept all through the day and woke up with strange dreams. Once she dreamed that she was running in a jungle and a lion was chasing her. She turned around and it wasn’t a lion any more but a hundred snakes. Nila ran and fell into a vast ocean. She sank to the bottom and found the lion sitting there. It didn’t do anything to her. Behind it there was a huge tree and on top of it a house. She entered the house and found Molina sleeping there. She opened the window in that room and looked out at the busy Chowringhee. When she came down to the street hurriedly she found the hundred snakes sitting there. In an instant the street was devoid of people. Just the snakes, and Nila. That day Nila woke up to find she was bathed in sweat and her heart was hammering away. Every time she thought of that dream, her heart pounded with fear.

On Sunday Nila woke and found she was naked. Danielle stood in front of the basin, brushing her teeth. She watched Danielle’s body as she lay there and thought it was a living sculpture by Rodin. It was a body that could drive any man insane. But Danielle had never let a man touch her and never would. She claimed the male body was ugly and didn’t excite her. The female body did. Nila’s body did. Nila looked at Danielle’s body and didn’t feel that she wanted to love that body, kiss it. When Danielle finished brushing and kept the toothbrush aside, Nila noticed it was pink—the same as hers.

‘Danielle, is your toothbrush also the same colour as mine?’

‘I don’t have a toothbrush.’ Danielle’s answer was simple.

‘Then what do you use to brush your teeth?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Whose is this then?’

‘Yours.’

Nila sat up, ‘You used my toothbrush?’

Danielle bent down and opened her mouth under the tap; the water streamed into it. She spat it out and said nonchalantly, ‘Yes, yours.’

‘You’ve brushed with someone else’s toothbrush—on purpose? Or was it a mistake?’

‘I knew it.’ Danielle’s tone was calm as if it was very natural. She seemed surprised that Nila was so agitated about it.

‘Danielle, this is the first time I’ve seen someone use another person’s toothbrush.’

Nila dived into her bedclothes.

Danielle put the water on the boil for her coffee. When she made her coffee and sat on the chair drinking it, wearing a T-shirt, Nila poked her head out and asked, ‘Do you never brush your teeth?’

Danielle’s tone was still unruffled, ‘I do, sometimes, when I feel like it.’

‘When was the last time?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Nila wanted to laugh. Then she wanted to cover herself and weep, weep for herself. But she did neither. Danielle went out and came back with the journal
Liberation
and four croissants. Nila was still in bed. When Danielle was drinking her coffee and having her croissant, Nila said, ‘I want tea.’

‘Have it.’

‘Make some?’

‘Make it yourself.’

Nila pouted indulgently, ‘I don’t feel like it.’

Danielle didn’t have the capacity to pamper Nila. She had to get up, make her tea, drink it as she watched the tiny bit of sky that she could see from that window, and finally go downstairs and buy two toothbrushes: one for Danielle and one for herself. She threw the old one into the trash and brushed her teeth with the new one. When
Danielle suggested going to the market in Port de Sinequorte, she had to agree.

Danielle said, ‘You’ll like that place.’

‘Why?’

‘There are many black-and brown-skinned people there.’

Nila went to the market selling cheap, second-hand goods and found that she didn’t like this multicoloured crowd at all. In fact, she felt uneasy. In front of her eyes, a little black boy picked up a watch, dropped it in his pocket and walked away. Another boy pretended to try on a pair of sunglasses and walked off with it without paying for it.

Danielle dug into a pile of old clothes and bought two dresses as Nila stared at this strange world. A few men in dark glasses stood under a bridge with black bags at their feet. There was some talk of the police coming and the men disappeared. Nila asked what was going on there.

‘Illegal business.’

Nila couldn’t fathom why people did illegal business in this wonderful city where everything was so good. Her curious eyes followed the crowd and settled on a dark man who was shaking a ball around in two small boxes. He shook them fast, dropped the ball into one and covered them. You’d have to guess which one had the ball. Gambling. You paid a hundred francs to guess. If you were right, he’d give you back two hundred. If you were wrong you got nothing. Even as she stood there she watched two men play. One got a hundred francs and one lost. When the ball was being dropped Nila saw clearly which box it went under and she screamed, ‘I know, I know which one it is.’ Danielle said, ‘Don’t Nila, you’ll lose.’

‘But why not. I know which one it is.’

Nila gave a hundred francs to the dark man, he lifted the box and the ball wasn’t there. She tried again and lost again. Again and again. In two minutes Nila lost four hundred francs and came away. Danielle was leaning against a wall, smoking.

‘You lost, right?’

Nila’s eyes were pleading.

‘I knew it.’

‘How?’

‘Because these are frauds. It’s an illegal business, just to con people.’

Suddenly a few people broke away from that crowd and vanished. The group dispersed.

Danielle said, ‘See how they run from the police.’

Nila wrinkled her nose, ‘Where do these men come from?’

‘Africa, Asia, South America.’

Nila said, ‘I don’t think any of these men are from India.’

‘Most of them are from the Middle East.’

‘Oh.’

Nila was relieved. Or at least she thought she was. Nila knew only too well that India didn’t lack con men. On the streets, offices, courts of law and even in the parliament people were cheating others.

On Sunday Paris came alive with markets, selling food, clothes, furniture, everything. After losing four hundred francs, the two of them quit that area quickly.

Danielle wanted to go into an alley in Montparnasse where some people sold paintings every Sunday. The two sides of the street were lined with tents where artists, who couldn’t sell their paintings otherwise, displayed their wares. As she looked at them, Nila flew back in time: once she had also painted for the love of it.

Danielle noted Nila’s thoughtful eyes and said indulgently, ‘Why don’t you try it again.’

‘It’s no use.’

‘Try it. You haven’t come to Paris to make packing boxes. If this city of artists can’t give you back what you lost, no place in the world can.’

‘Danielle, I don’t have the talent of an artist.’

‘How are you so sure?’

‘I am.’

‘Nila, you never know who has it and who doesn’t. Today Van Gogh’s paintings sell for millions and when he lived, no one bought them. The man died in penury.’

As they walked towards Musée d’Orsay Danielle spoke of her own life. In Montreal she had begun to study law. She dropped it and
chased horses. She used to ride and teach riding. But she soon tired of it too. So she just came away to Paris and at first took up a job in a Levis factory. But when Levis left the country, Danielle used to sit on the footpaths and watch the amazing beauty of this city and go round buying books from second-hand stores and read them lying in fields. As she read, she wanted to write. Gradually what she wrote began to be printed. Danielle had also written a book. It was about her father, Pierre Leroux. She’d mailed the manuscript to a few publishers. One of them had replied saying that with a few changes, it could be printed.

They spent the whole day at the Musée d’Orsay and on their way back Danielle loaned her money to buy an easel, paint and brushes. Suddenly Nila had wings and Paris was a dream.

Back home Nila was still in a trance and Danielle’s hungry fingers and tongue roamed her body. The fingers knew every inch of the body, the lips and behind them another lip within which slept the magic bee: one touch and the bee spouted honey and swept away all, all. Nila wasn’t a swimmer. She clung to Danielle, the expert swimmer, and crossed the ocean. Danielle swam ashore and whispered to Nila, ‘Wake my magic bee.’ Nila didn’t. She feared that bee, she hated it.

Nila wanted to know when Danielle had realized that she desired women. Danielle said it was when she was still in school, twelve years old. She fell in love with a teacher and she’d stare at her face for hours.

‘Then?’

Joselyn was married with three children. After school Danielle went to Joselyn’s house every day. She’d scale the wall and peep inside and stare at Joselyn.

‘Then?’

One day Joselyn spotted the two eager eyes at the window. That day there was no one else in the house. She called Danielle into the house. When Joselyn touched her and kissed her, she trembled. When Joselyn took her clothes off and undressed Danielle, she trembled.

‘Then?’

Then Danielle didn’t remember the details. But she remembered rolling on Joselyn’s bed in the grip of a tremendous ecstasy.

The relationship ended after she left school. When she was fourteen, Danielle left home and started living in a commune. There were five women and two men living together. Of the five, Danielle had sexual relations with two of the women. During her stay there Danielle frequented gay bars and if she fancied someone, she went with them or brought them home to the commune. With the break of dawn the ties broke. If they ever met up in the day, sometimes they wouldn’t even remember having spent the night in each other’s arms.

‘Then?’

Pierre Leroux died. Two months later Clara, Danielle’s mother also died. The brother and sister divided their inheritance. With her share she bought a house in Montreal and lived alone. She wasn’t in touch with any of her family, not even her brother Phillippe.

‘Then?’

Then there were three or four relationships. They lived together and then broke up. When there was no one, there was always the gay bar. That was her life. As far as work went, she did odd jobs. But there was another excitement, that of revolution. She used to attend several meetings fighting for gay rights and screamed her lungs off at protests.

‘Then?’

Then Nicole, who had come to the Concordia University to lecture on social history, made friends with Danielle and they slept together. When Nicole came back to Paris, Danielle missed her terribly. She realized it wasn’t just a sexual relationship, it was love. That’s what brought her to Paris. She lived with Nicole for four years. In those four years the love and the sex flew out the window. But the friendship stayed.

Danielle lit another cigarette and said, ‘Has this ever happened to you: an event in your past is completely wiped out from your memory, say something that happened twenty years ago, and then suddenly one day it comes back to you?’

Nila shook her head, she’d never felt that.

‘When I was six years old, my father raped me. Eight years ago, when I was sitting in Montreal, it came back to me one day suddenly as I was watching a snowstorm.’

Nila sat up, stunned. Her eyes were full of disbelief, ‘Did it
really happen or was it someone else’s story that you suddenly imagined had happened in your life?’ She shook Danielle’s shoulders.

‘It happened. I remember very clearly, Mother had gone out on an errand and I was alone at home playing with my dog. Father picked me up and put me down on the bed and raped me. He stuffed his shirt into my mouth to stop my screams.’

‘Your own father?’

‘My own father.’

In her trance, one day Nila began to paint in Paris—oil colours. A group of girls dancing in the field, sky dark with clouds. Danielle studied it from all angles and said, ‘Too much of Matisse.’

‘Not at all. Matisse did collages and this is a painting. Besides these girls are not even holding hands.’

‘There’s something sad about it.’

‘It’s a happy moment. They’re happy as peacocks.’

Danielle frowned, ‘Then why is it cloudy? Make it a bright sunny day. Cloudy days are sad.’

Nila gazed at the painting lovingly and rattled on, ‘The girls are dancing just as peacocks dance when they spot storm clouds. Their bodies are burnt in the summer sun. The rains have gathered in the sky after a long time and the girls have run out of their homes joyfully into the light breeze outside. They’ll dance in the rain, wet their bodies and cool themselves, cleanse themselves.’

Nila became erratic at work as her painting gained momentum.

Danielle had quit that job and taken up another one with the publisher who’d showed an interest in her manuscript. She read books and reviewed them.

Hardship made Nila open her suitcase one day, and hunt for her jewellery. But it wasn’t there. She’d brought everything else from Kishanlal’s house, but forgotten her jewellery. When Danielle heard it, she said, ‘You can’t afford to be so careless Nila. I’ve noticed, you spend rashly when you have money and when it runs out you depend on others.’

‘Do you want to get rid of me? Why don’t you?’

‘I don’t want to. But I think you should continue with your job for a while.’

‘I don’t like such menial jobs.’

‘No one likes them. But one has to eat. If you don’t like menial jobs, look for a better one—you have to search.’

So one morning Nila went in search of a good job. She would buy some dailies, and note down some phone numbers. When she went out, she bought the dailies, but couldn’t go as far as look at the ads or note the phone numbers. She got lost in a huge procession. A joyful parade marched through Paris with red and blue balloons and Nila marched with them until Joan d’Arc. Nila had seen many parades in Calcutta, but nothing like this one. Overwhelmed and electrified, she bowed before Joan d’Arc and placed flowers at her feet, like everyone else.

When she came home and told Danielle about her expedition, the latter’s eyebrows shot up, ‘Terrible!’