French Lover (27 page)

‘Oh, you are sleeping. Okay, I won’t disturb you.’

Nila acted like she’d just woken up and said, ‘Oh, it’s you! Have you just come back?’

‘It’s been quite a while. I didn’t wake you because you were sleeping.’

Nila glanced at the clock and yawned, ‘It’s pretty late; I couldn’t wait any longer . . .’

Benoir’s voice was fresh, ‘There were many bills at the house and I took care of them.’

Nila spoke sleepily, ‘You could have just stayed over.’

Benoir spoke as he took his shoes off, ‘I thought as much. But it was Pascale who said, go on, Nila must be waiting for you.’

Nila wasn’t sleepy now, ‘Why does she send you away to another woman? Does she love you or not?’

‘Of course she does.’

‘Then, doesn’t it bother her that you are living with me? I wouldn’t have been able to say, go to your other lover. How can she do it?’

‘She is a very good girl, Nila.’ Benoir was firm, ‘I haven’t seen a better woman in the whole world.’

‘Then why have you left her?’

‘You know why, don’t you? It’s for you.’

‘And what is your wish? Where do you want to live and with whom?’

‘I am doing just what I want to do.’ Benoir sat on the chair. He looked into Nila’s eyes. He sat in the dark and the light from the small bedside lamp was on Nila.

Nila said, ‘I feel you are still unsure about what you want.’

‘I have told you many times what I want. I have said I cannot live without you.’ Benoir’s tone was gentle.

‘Why won’t you live? Will you stop eating, sleeping, drinking or
working? What in your life will come to a stop?’

‘Perhaps I’ll do everything, but it wouldn’t be the same. I’ll be like the living dead. Don’t you believe me? Don’t you know how much I love you, how much love it takes to leave a happy family and come away? I have never had a fight with Pascale. I told her all about you and she has accepted it; I didn’t hide anything from her. She is my best friend, Nila. She loves me very much and because she loves me, she doesn’t stop me from doing what I want to do. Have you seen a greater sacrifice for a loved one? Only Pascale can do it. I love her and respect her. I have left the people I love the most, my Pascale and my Jacqueline, all for you and that doesn’t make you happy?’

Nila held up a book in front of her eyes. Benoir’s voice was harsh, ‘Keep that book away, I can’t see your eyes.’

‘Why do you have to see my eyes?’

‘I am talking to you. Answer me. Aren’t you happy that I have left my wife and daughter and come to you? Tell me.’

Nila kept the book in front of her face and said, ‘Why do you say you have left them? You haven’t. She is still your wife. You talk on the phone everyday and you go to her often. This is not leaving. The ring symbolizing your love is still on your finger, her photo is on your desk.’

Benoir got up, sat in front of Nila, snatched away the book with his left hand and said, ‘Tell me what you want! Do you want me to go back there?’

‘If you want to go, sure. I won’t stop you. I didn’t ask you to come here. You came on your own. When you were in that house, our relationship wasn’t bad. Where’s the difference?’

Benoir heaved a sigh and said, ‘If it was another man in my place, he’d have said there’s work pressure, a meeting or a working dinner and so he was late. I don’t hide anything and tell you the truth. This is how you reward it? I can’t understand why you are so narrow-minded, Nila.’

Nila spoke calmly, ‘My mind isn’t narrow, it’s quite broad and that’s why I’m telling you to go and stay with Pascale. Live happily with her, the way you always did. You haven’t left her. You’ll never leave her and you know why? Because you love her.’

Benoir pressed his elbows down on his knees and lowered his head onto his hands.

Nila placed a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘I know you tell the truth. And I feel for Pascale. If you were my husband and you left me for another woman, I can imagine how much pain I would be in. Don’t make her suffer any more. Don’t give yourself so much pain. I will suffer a little when you go but I am used to it. My mother was also used to suffering.’

Benoir got up and switched on the bright lights. Nila’s heart thumped loudly; any moment now he would start packing his suitcase. Any moment now her only succour would walk out, leaving her alone. Benoir sat on the bed, facing Nila and said, ‘Tell me honestly, do you really mean these things? Do you really want me to go away?’

Nila didn’t answer.

Benoir smiled. ‘I know you don’t mean them. You can’t. You love me and you don’t want to lose me.’

A lump of misery came and lodged itself in her throat. Nila bit her lips and tried to swallow it. Benoir hugged her close and swayed, right and left, saying je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.

Nila knew what it was to be alone. If Benoir left she’d trip over her own shadow in that house. No one would hug her, hold her or say je t’aime. Her lover was surrendering himself to her; she, at least, didn’t have the strength or the courage to push him away.

Benoir said, ‘The day I threw your book and left, I thought our relationship was over. I even said sorry to Pascale. But every time I imagined my life without you, I felt stifled. You are my life Nila. That’s when I knew. I knew that we were created for one another. I had wanted to kill myself. I even toyed with a knife. Then Pascale took me to a doctor.’

‘What kind of doctor?’

‘Psychiatrist.’

Nila was aghast. She untangled herself gently from his embrace, looked into his lowered eyes and asked, ‘The doctor advised you to come here with Baudelaire’s books and one rose?’

Benoir smiled bitterly. ‘Do you think I didn’t want to come here, that I came here because the doctor told me to?’

Nila was afraid, perhaps one day the doctor would say to Benoir, ‘Go and live happily with Pascale,’ and that’s exactly what he would do.

Benoir asked, ‘What’s the matter? Do you think I am not stable enough?’

Nila laughed. ‘Not at all. I think I am crazy and I need to see a doctor very soon.’

‘Why, what’s wrong with you?’

Nila said, ‘I feel short of breath quite often.’

Benoir woke Nila slowly and whispered in her ears, ‘Do you want to go some place with me?’

‘Where?’

‘Tell me if you want to go first.’

‘At this time of the night?’

‘Yes. If you agree, I’ll take you there right away.’

‘All right. Now tell me where.’

‘To the seventh heaven.’

Benoir took her to the seventh heaven; she flew like a feather. Nila thought no one would ever be able to give her the pleasure that Benoir gave her.

She imagined her future in Benoir’s harem and felt contented.

Their tour of the seventh heaven ended and so did the night. Nila’s tired body had hardly drowned itself in sleep when Benoir’s alarm clock dragged them up. Wanda jumped up on Nila and she shot off the bed. With the horrid smell of the dog in her nose and the radio yelling away in her ears, Nila flew to the fourteenth heaven in an instant. She made coffee for Benoir and set the bread, butter and jam on the table. He just sipped the coffee and rushed off.

‘What’s the hurry?’

‘I have to take the metro.’

‘Why? Where is the car?’

‘Oh, I didn’t tell you. I gave the car to Pascale; she’ll use it.’ Benoir’s tone was calm and collected.

Nila set the water on the boil for her tea and asked, ‘What will
you
use?’

‘The metro and buses for the time being.’

‘And later?’

‘Actually, Nila, I prefer the metro and buses. You know how difficult it is with a car in Paris; parking is hell and you get a ticket for every little thing.’

Nila nodded. She knew where the problem was. She clicked her tongue and said, ‘So Pascale will have a bad time with the car.’

‘She needs it more than I do. She has to drop Jacqueline to school and pick her up again.’

‘Oh.’

Benoir threw her a sarcastic glance, ‘I guess you are not happy to hear this?’

‘You have told me and I have heard. That is all. There’s nothing to be happy or unhappy about.’

Benoir pulled on a T-shirt over his blue jeans. He seldom wore ties or shirts. He said he’d wear the shirts Nila gave him when they went out somewhere. The ties lay unused. The eau de cologne too. He wore Aramis because that was the name of one of the three musketeers.

He doused himself in perfume and stood before Nila and said, ‘Listen carefully: I have told you before that although I have left Pascale, I have to bear her expenses. She was not able to give Jacqueline enough time because of her work and so I had asked her to quit her job in Strassburg. So she did. I have to pay for the expenses of that establishment. Pascale and Jacqueline are entirely my responsibility; is that clear?’

It was.

She wanted to say, ‘I don’t work either. Who is responsible for me?’

But she reined in the words yet again.

After Benoir left, Nila went into the study and picked up J.M. Coetzee’s
Disgrace
. The title of the book drew her; she hadn’t read anything by the same author. As she read, her glance slipped to Pascale’s photo again and again. She fixed her gaze on the book, on every letter
in it and finished nearly half the book when she realized her mind was on Pascale and not on the book. She went to the balcony and took some deep breaths. She wasn’t living with Benoir alone, she was living with his whole family; it was too crowded.

Benoir called, ‘Have you fed Wanda?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘It slipped my mind.’

‘What do you have on your mind these days! Anyway, feed her the way I have told you . . . she’s a small dog and . . .’

‘And what? I am jealous of her too?’

‘No. I thought she must be suffering.’

Nila hung up and poured out three kinds of food from three cans into the bowls in front of Wanda and filled the water cup with water.

She went to the balcony again and breathed deeply.

A little later Benoir called again and asked, ‘Did you feed her?’

‘No.’ Nila’s tone was cold.

Benoir sounded worked up, ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t because I have eaten up all her food.’ Nila sounded cool and normal.

‘What are you saying?’

‘I am telling you the truth. I come from a poor country and I’m not used to giving such good food to pets; we don’t get to eat such things ourselves. I couldn’t help myself; I ate it up.’

Click.

Along with the telephone’s click there was the sound of breaking glass. Nila went to check what it was about and she found Wanda standing on the desk, wagging her tail and Pascale’s photo frame lay in pieces on the ground. Nila didn’t pick it up. She left it like that and walked out. She bumped into the police, taking out a corpse from the flat next door. It was Madame Suzanne Duget’s. Nila and Madame Duget used to wish each other bonjour whenever they met on the stairs. One day Suzanne had taken the conversation further and asked her if it bothered her that she listened to music until late in the night. Nila had said it didn’t bother her at all. Madame Duget told her that
it was impossible to while away her time if she didn’t have music to see her through. Nila spoke to the police and found out that Suzanne had lain there, dead, for a few days. The concierge got a bad smell when she came to clean the corridor and called the police. They broke the lock and found Suzanne’s decomposed, swollen corpse. Nila looked at Suzanne’s deformed face and shuddered. She leaned against the walls with her eyes closed for a long time before running out into the George Brassein Park, beside the lake and lying face down on the grass.

A couple of hours later she went out into the city and wandered around aimlessly. In the evening she returned home with a new photo frame. She put Pascale’s photo into it, swept away the glass and cooked some duck—Benoir was fond of duck.

Benoir returned from work in the evening and said he had spoken to his mother that day. He had promised them he’d bring Nila to meet them soon; if possible, that day.

Nila felt as if he was going there to seek his parents’ approval on his choice of a bride. She dressed accordingly. She did her hair, her face, wore high heels, a black dress and left the house holding Benoir’s hand.

From Gare d’Austerlitz to Orleons. Benoir talked all the way for that one hour; he said that if he wasn’t serious about Nila, he wouldn’t have taken her to see his mother. He repeated what he had said earlier, that he wasn’t unhappy in his family life before; on the contrary, it was a very happy unit and his friends often said they’d never seen a more perfect couple before. Pascale never crossed him; she loved him like a dutiful wife and did everything to please him. So there was no reason to think that he was unhappy with his wife and gone to another woman. Benoir’s story was not like other people’s; it was different. Nila’s sudden appearance in Benoir’s life, like a lightning flash, changed everything. But Benoir wasn’t so heartless that he’d forsake Pascale completely. His whole month’s salary would go from his office directly to Pascale’s account; he’d just keep a little bit for his own expenses. He was making this sacrifice for Nila’s sake. And the following weekend he’d have to stay over at Rue de Rennes because
Pascale and Jacqueline wanted it.

Nila sighed, ‘I’m trying to understand.’ She had gathered enough breath in her lungs and could spare a sigh or two, here and there.

Benoir’s father waited at the station with his car. He picked up both of them and drove home. There, Benoir’s mother welcomed Benoir and his lover: kisses on both cheeks. Nila almost called her ‘Ma’, mistaking her as the mother-in-law; she changed it to Madame Dupont in good time.

Madame Corinne Dupont was plump, jolly and middle-aged. She had been a factory worker once, now she was retired. Monsieur Dupont made Nila sit next to him and told her his life story; he was one of the baby boomers of the forties, a result of what the soldiers did to their wives in Europe once they returned from the Second World War. When he was fifteen, he also entered a factory like Corinne. Then he quit it because he didn’t like it and went to Marseilles where he worked in a ship for two years. He drove a taxi for some time, then he cultivated grapes in the Alsace and eventually joined the police force. Now he was retired because his back caused him some trouble from time to time. He was contented, eating, sleeping, playing solitaire on the computer, smoking his pipe and dreaming of buying a Porsche. He poured out four glasses of wine and fetched a shoebox full of old photos. He showed her photos of his grandfather, great grandfather, scores of relatives and eventually of Benoir as a baby. Benoir had come home after two and a half years. He left home when he was thirteen. He studied in a Catholic school and then he passed his baccalauréat. Since then the government paid for his education. He kept in touch with his parents mostly through letters. He came home after he started seeing Pascale. They liked her very much. They came here once again after Jacqueline was born and now again with Nila. It was just an hour’s journey from Paris and yet Benoir didn’t have the time to visit his parents, not even on holidays.