French Lover (29 page)

Nila wanted to celebrate Benoir’s twenty-sixth birthday in style. She drew up a list of invitees for that day’s dinner party.

1. Morounis

2. Frederique

3. Danielle

4. Natalie

5. Nicole

6. Michelle

7. Rita

8. Mojammel

9. Mojammel’s friends (3 or 4)

10. Sanal Edamaraku

11. Babu Gogini

12. Babu Gogini’s wife

13. Tariq

14. Odil

15. Chaitali

16. Sunil

Morounis and Frederique said they would come. Danielle said she had to go to school on Tuesday evenings and so she wouldn’t be there. She had recently joined a new school where she had classes three days a week, learning ‘how to be a writer’. Natalie was going to the solarium and so she wasn’t free either.

What was a solarium? It was where they took in artificial rays to tan their bodies. Of Nicole, Michelle and Rita, two were not in Paris and the last one said she was supposed to have coffee with a friend on that day and this rendezvous had been fixed for the last four months and so it couldn’t be called off. Mojammel jumped up when he got the invitation, ‘Didi, where were you all this while? We have missed
you! I even looked for you at the box-factory.’ He was even more excited when Nila extended the invitation to his friends as well. Sanal said he’d come. He also said Babu Gogini and his wife were in Hyderabad. She got hold of Tariq’s phone number and was told that Tariq and Odil would try to come. Although she had thought of Chaitali and Sunil at first, on second thoughts she cancelled those two names. All together her guests were seven in number. When she asked Benoir whom he wanted to invite among his friends or relations, he said no one stayed in Paris in August. Paris was empty. Pascale was going to the Canary Islands. Benoir also wanted to go there but this time he wasn’t going because of Nila.

She got busy organizing the party. Mojammel called her and offered to help her with the shopping and the cooking by coming a little early. Nila agreed.

On the big day, Mojammel and Jewel arrived by afternoon. Nila had met Jewel in Kishan’s restaurant; he had a childlike face. Jewel began to chop the onions. There was no ginger at home and Mojammel ran to fetch it. He came back with the ginger and a gift packet for Benoir. Jewel was petite, fair and childish. He chopped the onions and the garlic painstakingly and asked if he should go ahead and cook the meat. Jewel worked in the restaurant and knew how to cook. Nila fried the fish. She had arranged for a huge menu. The three Bengalis enjoyed themselves in the kitchen, as if it were a picnic. They swayed to the beat of Rabindrasangeet as they cooked and time flew. Close to evening, Tariq called to say that his son’s schizophrenic fits had increased and so he didn’t feel like coming.

‘There’s so much food.’ Nila hung up.

Mojammel said he had recently met a boy called Modibo and asked if he should invite him. Mojammel scratched his head and said, ‘But he is black.’ Modibo had recently arrived from Mali. The poor boy stayed underground for fear of the police and he often didn’t eat very well.

Nila was in a generous mood. ‘Why just Modibo, call Jodibo, Sodibo, everyone.’

Benoir got dressed in time, in a new shirt gifted by Nila and a tie.
Nila wore a Baluchari sari. Once the guests arrived, champagne flowed and Tracy Chapman’s
Revolution
played in the background. Benoir was the centre of attention. It was customary here to open the gifts immediately. Sanal gave him an Indian statuette in the Ellora-Ajanta style of erotic sculpture. Mojammel’s packet revealed a Brut. Benoir exclaimed over each gift delightedly and thanked everyone though Nila knew that the eau de toilette, Brut, wasn’t Benoir’s cup of tea. Nila’s gift was the smallest, wrapped in a red paper. She asked him not to open it right then. There was loud laughter in the room and Sanal winked. Nila gave him a dry kiss, not French but Bengali and said, ‘This kiss has a little less slaver and lust.’

Sanal expressed his view on birthdays. ‘It’s a very sad day because it reminds you that you are one year closer to death.’ On his birthdays Sanal mourned, he was the sole invitee and he sat in a room with all the doors and windows shut. The rules of gaiety were that you had to fast all day, keep the phone off the hook and lose your TV remote. Modibo, with his large, pitch black, illegal, immigrant eyes and rounded nose, stayed in the background like Tracy Chapman. He held a glass and even when the champagne was over, his mouth was shut. Nila studied Modibo. Sanal spoke in crisp Hindi. ‘Who has invited this monkey here?’ His comment brought a gust of laughter from Mojammel and Jewel. Nila poured more champagne in Modibo’s glass and said, ‘I have.’

Benoir claimed Bordeaux wine went well with Bengali cuisine. One bottle after another was finished. The evening was cheerful. Around midnight, Morounis, Frederique and Sanal left. Before going Sanal congratulated Nila because her French had come a long way.

Nila answered him with a merci beacoup. There was a round of applause from all present.

Nila held the fort with Mojammel, Jewel and Modibo even after Benoir retired to bed. Mojammel told her about Bachhu, the cook. He didn’t get his papers in France and so he was off to Italy. He had to pay the agent a hefty amount to get his papers for Italy. The agent told him what to do, when to run and when to jump. Just before entering Italy, Bachhu had jumped off the train in the dark—as was the rule. Once the train was gone, he was supposed to run on the tracks and
hide in the bushes if another train came along. He did all this and went some way but he was accidentally hit from behind by another train and that was the end of him.

Nila felt a shiver run down her spine.

She poured more wine as they heard Jewel’s story of arriving in the country. He had gone to Moscow from Dhaka. From Moscow he stowed away on a truck carrying vegetables to a city in Romania and from there he crossed the border to the Czech Republic and crossed over into Germany over snowy mountains. Jewel’s brother Rubel was with him. Neither of them had seen snow in their lives. Rubel took his shoes off thinking he could run faster that way. But he fell into the snow and it was over . . .

Nila came back to reality when she heard Benoir call her. He lay in the bedroom, his brow crinkled.

‘Who are these people? Why are you talking to them for so long? Can’t you see I am lying here alone?’

Wanda sat on his chest. Nila said, ‘You are not alone; you have Wanda.’

Benoir stared at her nastily. Nila said, ‘Come to that room.’

‘Why should I go there? You are talking in a strange language.’

‘Bengali. I haven’t spoken Bengali for ages and I am enjoying the taste of it on my tongue.’

‘But you don’t speak Bengali when I ask you to.’

‘You don’t understand Bengali, Benoir. You are not a Bengali.’

‘So you should have told me earlier that you’ve arranged for a Bengali chat session.’

If that was it, why would she invite Morounis, Frederique and Sanal, leave alone Modibo? He doesn’t even know there’s a language called Bengali in this world. Nila didn’t reply and went back to the other room to hear the rest of Jewel’s story. The police came and picked up Rubel. He had to have both legs amputated since the blood circulation had stopped and gangrene had set in. The German government treated him and then sent him back home. He had sold their land, collected lakhs of rupees and left Dhaka with dreams of a golden future and he came back there, physically, economically and
mentally crippled.

Mojammel said, ‘Rubel was twenty years old.’

Jewel ran with his shoes on and so he escaped the frost-bite and the police. He ran away to France from Germany. The police could pounce on him any day and deport him; his life was uncertain at best. If he had to go back, he only hoped, it wouldn’t be as a cripple.

Modibo was also there to build his future. He had grown up beside the Niger river in Timbuktu. His thick lips hung like his uncertain future. He was living in dark, rejected housing estates, on food donated by the church and with the fear of the police haunting him every moment. He had strength and courage, but these were also growing more and more frail as each day passed.

At this point, Benoir walked out of the house, leaving everyone dumbfounded. Nila ran after him. ‘Where are you going, so late in the night.’ But before she could reach him, he was off at the speed of light.

Modibo had to end his story early and they had to leave. Benoir’s abrupt departure left a heavy atmosphere in its wake, which affected everyone.

Benoir called after fifteen minutes, asked if the men had left and then came back home.

‘Did they plan to stay the whole night? Your chatting session showed no signs of ending. The whole day is spoilt. Pascale wanted to treat me to dinner and I refused, for your sake. This was the first time Jacqueline saw I wasn’t there for my birthday. Pascale has missed me all day today and wept for me. And I was subjected to this joke of yours.’

Nila said, ‘I didn’t ask you not to go there.’

‘You didn’t but you don’t like my going there either. If I go, you’ll ask me if I’ve slept with Pascale. That’s all you have on your mind.’ Benoir poured himself some wine, sat on the sofa in front of the bed and drank it.

‘And I don’t understand you sometimes. What is this you’ve given me? What’s this key for?’ Benoir threw the key at Nila.

Nila handed him the piece of paper from the dealer that said Reno, Model authentic 14, 139G/Km, five doors and she said, ‘Go and pick up the car any time tomorrow.’

Nila went to bed. She was tired.

‘What do you know of cars? Why did you buy it on your own? You should have told me.’ Benoir screamed at her all day.

‘Why? Is the car a lemon? Doesn’t it run?’

‘You could have bought a better one for this price. You were cheated.’

Nila laughed and said, ‘Benoir, I have been cheated all my life. I am used to it.’

She hugged him and asked, ‘Aren’t you happy?’

He disentangled her arms, went and sat at a distance and said, ‘Listen, don’t ever do this again, don’t invite strange people into the house without asking me first. Paris isn’t what it used to be.’

Benoir had ten days’ leave. He didn’t know what to do with it. He called and asked about his wife and child twice a day. They had reached the islands and were swimming in the sea and staying in a good hotel.

Paris was deserted and so was Benoir. He had never spent the August holidays in Paris.

Nila said, ‘Let’s go to the Mutualité, there’s a function there.’

‘Oh no, feminist functions. They’ll merely crib in their smooth voices, we want this, we want that; they can never be satisfied. Just a bunch of gay and ugly women getting together.’

That day’s agenda was that advertisements should not use women’s bodies with sexual intent and no commercial organization should tickle the people’s fantasies through their ads; those organizations and their brands would be banned by the attendees at the function. Nila didn’t find the whole sexual thing unattractive at all. Since there was more sexual freedom, Nila felt, sex crimes were less here. The ease with which women could walk around here, was impossible to find in India. Nila could dress as she pleased. If she wanted to be
naked, why shouldn’t she have the freedom? Even if women covered themselves, even if ads were sexless, men would get aroused. It was more important for people to respect one another. Nila thought if only Mithu’s lifeless body could be placed at the Mutualite today, if the audience could be told about Molina’s life! No one had taken Molina or Mithu for sex objects. No one had reached for them in lust! Yet, they had spent each moment of their lives in an indescribable pain. Nila felt sexuality was a kind of asset. It was because sexuality existed and because she could give him that gratification, that Benoir loved Nila. Without that, Nila would have had to spend her life in the vacuous loneliness of Molina or end her life like Mithu. Benoir would have rather caressed Wanda than Nila, if the latter didn’t have breasts and thighs and if he didn’t get immense pleasure in her pelvic circle. Nila was hungry for love and sexuality was important to get that love. Suddenly she saw Sunil’s face in her mind’s eye and felt like throwing up.

‘I am supposed to attend this meeting. If you don’t come, I have to go alone.’

‘You want to go alone? And I am supposed to waste my leave, sitting at home all alone?’

Nila didn’t go to the Mutualite.

The day passed in heavy silence. The next one was no better. The day after that Benoir went to his place at Rue de Rennes, to collect some papers he said. At home Nila felt lonely and walked out. She wandered around and went into the Catacomb.

When Benoir came back, she looked at his unhappy face and said, ‘Let’s go to Italy.’ Benoir said he didn’t have the money to go abroad. He had spent a lot in sending his wife and daughter to the Canaries.

‘That’s no problem. I have money.’

‘So you go to Italy.’

‘How could you think I’ll go alone?’

Benoir sounded downcast, ‘I’ll go when I have the money.’

‘But that wouldn’t be the same as going now, together.’

‘Nila, it’s my dream: we’ll go somewhere far away and lose ourselves, just you and me with no known face around. We’ll stay lost
in each other day and night. I want nothing more than that. But dreams don’t come true.’

Nila looked into his dreamy eyes and asked, ‘Don’t you feel I am close to you? Why do you differentiate between my money and yours? I don’t. I can never think like that.’

Benoir smiled wanly. ‘All right, since you are so keen, let’s go.’

They looked up ads for dog sitters in a magazine and placed Wanda in the care of one at the rate of fifty francs per day. The whole of this month, business boomed for dog and cat sitters.

Nila held the carte bleue. Benoir’s yellowed teeth smiled wide when a pair of tickets for Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice dropped into his hands.

‘Italy, Italy bleu, bleu. Oh Nila, you really love me so much! I am really lucky to have your love.’

A spate of French kisses took their toll on Nila.

From the airport they went into a suite of the five star hotel Galleo in old Rome. They ate at Cuisino Italiano, toured the Colosseum, saw the markers of Roman civilization or uncivilization, threw coins into the Fontana de Trevi. Benoir stood on the Spanish Stairs and wondered if he had stood just there when he was a child. In the church of Vatican Benoir bowed his head and crossed himself. He dragged Nila away from the Sistine Chapel to show her more wondrous ruins all over Rome. They came back to the hotel and Benoir sat enjoying his Chateau Margot as he looked at Nila, just out of the shower, and said, ‘You look like a virginal beauty from heaven.’

Nila said, ‘I am a non-virginal, non-beauty of this earth.’

Benoir pulled her on to his lap and said, ‘Oh gorgeous damsel, won’t you taste this heavenly liquid? If you only knew what you are missing.’

Nila drank in the intoxicating blue eyes and said, ‘I don’t care if I lose Chateau Margot, as long as I don’t lose you.’

Benoir kissed her lips, her chin, breasts and nipples. He held Chateau Margot in one hand and Nila in the other and looked deliriously happy.

Nila was terribly excited when they went to Florence. She could
gaze upon ‘David’ to her heart’s content, David of her dreams.

They finished the Uffizi and then Nila went round Michelangelo’s ‘David’. She spent hours looking at him. Benoir rushed her, ‘Why are you taking so long? Let’s go.’

‘Have you noticed something—David is not flawless. Look at his right hand; it’s too large.’ Nila didn’t take her eyes off David as she spoke.

Benoir said, ‘That happens. My penis is also comparatively too large. You’ve said yourself that you really like that in me.’

Nila laughed as she said, ‘So I did.’

After they left the museum, Benoir said, ‘You just wasted the whole day here.’

He took the driver’s seat of the rented car, heaved a long sigh and asked, ‘So, where would madame wish to go now?’

‘Wherever you wish.’

‘My wish hardly ever matters. Tell me where you want to go.’

‘Your wish hardly matters? Didn’t you want to visit the museum?’

‘I don’t really like all these museums. I went because you like it.’

‘So let’s go wherever you’d like to go.’

‘No, there isn’t any time.’

‘If we had the time, where would you have gone?’

‘What’s the point of talking about it? Tell me Nila, why don’t you drive?’

‘I don’t know how to drive.’

‘But you said you have a car in Calcutta.’

‘We do, and the driver drives it.’

‘You are very rich, aren’t you?’

‘It’s a poor country. Whoever has a car, hires a driver. It doesn’t cost much.’

‘You said there are maids in your house. You must be terribly rich.’

‘It’s the same—maids don’t cost much either. Almost everything is very cheap there.’

‘Humans too, possibly. Do you have slavery there?’

‘No.’

‘So, you’ve hired me as your driver. Tell me where you want to
go and I’ll take you there. There’s the map and we can look up any address there.’

Nila didn’t speak.

Benoir drove around aimlessly and said, ‘Nila, you want to buy love with money.’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps I think of you as a gigolo.’

‘Don’t be vulgar.’

‘I spend money because I love you. Are you afraid thinking you’ll have to give something in return? Don’t be. You don’t have to give anything.’

Benoir’s jaws hardened. ‘You are very selfish. You have come on a holiday to Italy and you’ve brought me along to drive you around. You don’t love me Nila, you are using me. It’s just I who love you, insanely.’

They spent the next two days in Florence in an uncomfortable silence and then they went to Venice. There she didn’t hire a car, there was no need for one. There was water all around. Nila was relieved to note that at least Benoir would no longer feel the humiliation of being a driver. What now? Let’s take a gondola. They went by gondolas and saw the Venetian palaces, ruined buildings, prisons, everything. There were no Venetians in Venice—they had all gone to Padova or to villages nearby. The escalating prices in Venice made life difficult for them. The Americans and rich people from Japan had bought most of the houses in Venice. These houses stayed locked all round the year except for a few months when they wanted to float around in gondolas.

Nila halted on the Bridge of Sighs. ‘Do you know, Wordsworth has written poetry about this Bridge of Sighs. The prisoners sighed upon this bridge as they were led away from the palace and into the prison; they looked at the blue lagoon for the last time.’

Nila exclaimed again among a hundred pigeons as she stood on the square behind the palace and the pigeons flew away.

‘Why are you shooing them away? Let them eat.’

‘I’m shooing them away because I am jealous.’

‘You envy the pigeons too?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t fly like them.’

Benoir walked away to a café, alone. Nila stood there amidst flocks of pigeons flying back down, alone.

That night, lying in the hotel room, Nila explained a unique Bengali word called ‘
abhimaan
’ which couldn’t really be translated into any other language. Did it have a counterpart in French?

Benoir didn’t get a chance to reply—his mobile rang. It was Pascale.

He finished his phone call, came back to Nila who was almost asleep, and drank his fill of a different brand of liquor, a different body, different colour, different gestures, different waves.

Benoir covered her body with his, played the games of hide and seek and tag, and suddenly heaved himself forcefully, deep into Nila’s mysterious difference.

‘Do you feel me? Can you sense me?’

Benoir brought his mouth close to Nila’s and said, ‘Tell me you love me, tell me, tell me you love me a lot, insanely. Say je t’aime à la folie, say à la folie. Say I am everything to you. Tell me you can’t live without me, you won’t ever love anyone else. Tell me, Nila, tell me.’

Nila pulled away. Benoir’s mouth smelt of dead rats. His mouth often smelt like that; only, Nila had never found it odious before. Or, perhaps, Nila thought, she may even have liked the smell once.