French Lover (2 page)

The black man has been set free—why am I being held back. She asked from her corner, ‘Excuse me, what exactly is the problem? Is my passport fake?’

The younger man did not answer.

‘Is my visa fake?’

No answer.

‘Is the currency fake?’

He screamed, ‘Hey Red-sari, shut up!’

Red-sari shut her mouth.

The older man, who had all her treasures, came back into the room. The man who was chewing gum earlier (but not now) was also with him. The wrinkles on his forehead were gone as well. One by one, her valued treasures were thrown into Nila’s hands and there was an additional piece of paper, sort of like a question paper. Now she had to go to the younger man.

He twitched his brows and said, ‘Lucky you! If Monsieur Bess wasn’t so kind, you would have had it.’

Like his nostrils his lips also puffed up. He gestured her to go the way she had come. It was that glass cubicle again and the same Bucktooth. She handed him the form duly filled up: it was a declaration that she was speaking the truth and at the end of a month she would leave the country; she wouldn’t take recourse to any illegal measures in order to stay on in that country and if she did, the punishment would be severe.

Nila cleared the fence, desperately concealing her dark skin, red silk sari, the sindoor on her forehead and hair, gold ornaments, the blue passport and the loose currency. She had been given a reprieve, which could easily have been denied. Monsieur Bess may not have been so kind. She may have had to return to that same house in Calcutta, staring at the same sky and the same clouds—that house where she had said her last goodbyes. When Nila, the pauper, came out with her two suitcases, it was past noon and almost dusk.

Kishanlal, Sunil and Chaitali were waiting still there. When they spotted Nila, three half-dead souls pounced and fell almost on top of her. The short, stout Kishanlal wearing boots, suit, tie and a coat on top of it all, grabbed the luggage trolley and said, ‘What’s the matter—what took you so long? We have been waiting here since early morning.’

Sunil, tall, fair and lanky—the matchmaker—gave a broad smile and said, ‘We had almost given up hope.’

Chaitali was trying to neaten the smudged bindi on Nila’s forehead as she said, ‘Must have been a terrible journey.’

The moment she left the airport, the sharp, wintry needles pierced her to the bone. Chaitali took the extra coat off her own shoulders and draped it around Nila. For someone who had just
come in from the burning heat, the wintry needles seemed to weave a wrapper of elation around her body.

Sunil said, ‘We’d have waited for two more minutes and then called Calcutta to check if they sent you back by the return flight.’

Nila said, ‘It was all because I haven’t taken my husband’s last name. Otherwise I’d have come out long ago, just like everyone else.’

Sunil bent down and got into the car as he said, ‘Oh no, even if you had the same names, everything would have been the same.’

Nila relaxed in the seat beside the driver and said, ‘If I had more dollars it would have been okay.’

Sunil cleared his throat, coughed and then laughed, ‘Not at all. They would have still caused you the same misery.’

A thousand questions arose in Nila’s eyes, ‘The passport and the visa—they are all genuine. Why then?’

Sunil laughed and so did Kishan. It was as if the question demanded that one answer—ha, ha.

Nila wasn’t happy with that. ‘What was the reason for that misbehaviour?’

‘The reason is the colour of your skin—it’s not white enough.’

Before Sunil finished speaking, Chaitali added, ‘And your passport—it’s not of a rich country.’

Nila didn’t think she was all that dark and in comparison with the Senegalese, she could be called very fair indeed. She crinkled her fair nose and eyes, described that man’s stretching and drinking and then said, ‘He seemed to get away.’ Nila’s voice resounded with indignation, mainly at the Senegalese’s getting away.

She examined her own face in the car window and said, ‘I didn’t expect to see dark-skinned people in Paris.’

Kishan, Sunil and Chaitali all hated the black people: they were the root cause of all misery. They just sat idle and took the government’s dole and indulged in antisocial activities. Because of them, the almost-whites like them had to suffer.

Sunil was the first to speak, ‘These blacks have made our lives hell.’

For a while they bashed these people verbally, in pure Bangla.
In a group of Bengalis, the non-Bengali Kishanlal stuck out.

He eyed her: red, juicy piece of meat. Whoever said that vegetarians didn’t like meat! When she sensed his lusty eyes on her, Nila immediately tensed, just as she always did when the roadside romeos whistled at her. She covered her bare arms with her sari and then realized that this was, after all, her husband and there was no need to hide from him. She had slept with him for only two weeks after the marriage in her Calcutta home. After the sex, they both turned the other way and slept. Except for a few urgent matters discussed in broken English and Hindi, Nila hadn’t even talked much with her husband. Before Nila said yes to the match, Molina had said, ‘Should you marry a non-Bengali boy whom we don’t even know very well? Why don’t we wait and look for a good Bengali boy?’

‘Forget it, Ma—we’ve seen enough Bengali boys, haven’t we?’ Nila had gulped the tears and spoken.

Just those two weeks—within that time Kishan arranged for the passport, visa, tickets and then came back to Paris via Delhi.

Nila was supposed to fly after finishing her university exams. Her father, Anirban, insisted on her wearing her wedding sari and jewellery on the flight—perhaps men knew best what would appeal to other men. Kishan was her closest friend, he was her husband and she’d have to spend her life making him happy. Yet, there weren’t any sweet glances or words exchanged between them except for a few questions like why they were driving on the wrong side of the road and some answers in monosyllables. The outburst of conversation was all in Bangla and addressed to the rear seat of the car.

‘Tell me, the people at the airport—don’t they know English very well?’

Chaitali’s smooth voice was heavy as she said, ‘Of course they know English; but they won’t speak it. You’ve just come here—wait a while and see how racist these people are.’

Sunil tapped Kishan’s head and said, ‘What’s the matter—why are you so quiet?’

Kishan twirled his black moustache between his fingers and said, ‘Oh, I’m letting the poor Bengalis have their say first.’

‘Ha, ha.’

Once the car entered the city of Paris, Nila’s hunger and thirst vanished. All the ill-will that she bore towards the blue-uniformed men, Chewing-gum, Bucktooth disappeared. As the car passed Hôtel de Ville, Palais Royale, the Louvre and ambled along the Seine over the Boulevard Saint Michelle and headed for the Pont-Neuf, Nila asked herself, ‘Is this heaven?’ Then she answered herself, ‘Yes, it is.’

Nila felt like a guest in Kishanlal’s home. It was a huge flat with French windows, heavy curtains and a balcony with flowerpots. The carpet was sky blue; Nila sank into the soft cushions on the sofa. In front of her there were bottles of wine, a female statuette and instead of fans, chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The metal box pasted on the wall was spreading heat into the whole room. Chaitali rushed her into taking a look at the whole house—this was the living room and this was the bedroom; that room over there was of no use except to tuck in excess baggage or people. The kitchen was here and the bathroom and the shower were there. Chaitali told her that the place was all set, really. There were machines to dust, wash, dry and even to beat the eggs, whip it, boil it and then to cut into pieces! Nila had once dreamt of a simple household with Sushanta, first it would be a small home and then a better place—it would always be a struggle to make ends meet; they’d love each other in the dim light of the lamp in the room and laugh at the materialistic world outside. The day Sushanta’s persistence yielded fruit and he got a job in the suburban school, they would light the room with a thousand lamps and have a festival of music all night long! Oh no, not a thousand lamps, they were going to have the festival by moonlight, outdoors.

Nila had her share of dreams about the hard life sustained only on love. Perhaps every Bengali was born with that desire. But at twenty-seven her life was topsy-turvy, the tree of her dreams lay uprooted, the thousand lamps were blown out, a ghostly pall had come down on the music festival and the moonlight was covered by a chunk of clouds—Nila was flown on this destructive wind into a shining household with everything she could need.

Nila asked, ‘Are there no maids?’

Kishan and Sunil had already opened the bottles. Chaitali slipped
into that group and said, ‘Hello there, Kishan’s wife is asking about maids!’

Sunil guffawed and a smile played about Kishan’s moustached lips too.

They told her, in this foreign country there were no maids to do the household chores; there were no poor people here who would do those things. If she called in someone to clean the place, they’d charge her at least fifty francs for an hour’s work.

Nila counted on her fingers and raised her brow, ‘Three hundred rupees? In Calcutta the people who work in the house day and night don’t get that kind of money.’

Both Sunil and Kishan reminded Nila that this was Paris, not Calcutta.

‘So I’ll have to do everything myself?’ Nila sat on the edge of the sofa.

Kishan was pouring alcohol into Chaitali’s glass and he said, ‘Are you scared?’

Nila glanced around the room and said, ‘No, not really. The house seems quite well organized.’

‘There’s nothing much to do, except to keep the house the way it is.’ Kishan laughed.

Nila gobbled down two slices of bread and then two glasses of water to appease her hunger and rushed into the bathroom to have a hot shower. The sindoor on her forehead and the dark circles around her eyes were washed away. Clean and fresh with her hair wound in a towel, she stood by the window to take in the sky and the heaven beneath it. Kishan scolded her, ‘What’s this. You’re a bride, you can’t dress this way. Wear a sari and jewellery—people will come to see you later this evening.’

Nila took off her jeans and draped a silk sari on her body. She donned gold bangles on her wrists, heavy gold earrings on her ears and a gold necklace around her throat. She brushed some powder on her face, drew a line of kohl around her eyes, wore a sindoor bindi on her forehead and drew the sindoor in the parting of her hair, applied some dark lipstick and then looked at herself in the mirror. This
sindoor was supposed to be for Sushanta. A bitter smile played on Nila’s lips—where was Sushanta now! He must be enjoying life. For a whole year he went around with Nila, everyone thought they’d be married soon. But finally he ditched her because they weren’t from the same caste. Sushanta was a high-caste Brahmin: he could make love to Nilanjana Mandal of the scheduled caste, but marriage—never! Perhaps it wasn’t Sushanta who had the problems but his parents. But he seemed to give up his choice quite easily and settle for the girl his parents chose for him. After that Nila had felt she had to leave Calcutta, the sharp talons of memory were ripping her to shreds every day. She got married to Kishan instead and then wondered if she had done so in order to live or was this a different kind of death, or did she do it because one
had
to get married; otherwise people would frown upon her. Perhaps she did it to defend herself against nasty conjectures about why she didn’t marry until so late and also to prove to everyone that she wasn’t deaf or lame and could still get a good match.

In the evening seven guests came to the house. Of them, six were non-Bengali Indians and one was French: Odil. Tariq Ismail’s wife was Gujarati, two others came with their wives: Babu Gogini and Rajesh Sharma. Sanal Edamaruku wasn’t married. Nila accepted the gifts they had brought—the colourful bouquet from Minakshi, the sari from Sahana Gogini and the one, solitary red rose and two noisy kisses on either cheek from Odil. They all pulled up some chairs and sat down. Nila was the only newcomer in that house—she was the stranger.

Kishan was shaking the bottle of Moët and Chandon as he said, ‘I have just this one wife, everyone—so I think today I can drown myself in champagne.’ He pressed the cork of the bottle lightly with his thumb and the cork flew open with a deafening sound. Nila was drenched in champagne. Kishan poured out the remainder into glasses.

Babu Gogini raised his glass and said, ‘Welcome to France.’ The rest of the people immediately raised their glasses and clinked them with each other’s and said the same thing, ‘Welcome.’ For a while
there were great exclamations over Nila, ‘Oh, what lovely eyes—they literally talk.’ Sahana leaned to the left, looked at Nila and poked Babu, ‘Doesn’t she look a little like the film actress Rekha?’ Nila sat stiffly before the razor sharp gazes of the Goginis. Babu leaned to the right and whispered, ‘No, not like Rekha; I’d say a little like Meenakshi Seshadri.’

‘No,’ Sanal jumped up, leaped over three or four people, squatted down in front of Nila and said, ‘No, she doesn’t look like Rekha or Meenakshi. Our bhabhi looks like,’ he put on as sombre an expression as he could, ‘exactly like Nilanjana Mandal.’

Everyone laughed.

Sanal was a physicist. He had been in the country for ten years and wasn’t married. He lived alone and had bought a house in Noisee. He was around six feet tall with a toned body and long hair that reached his shoulders. When Sanal shook his head and talked, his hair swung back and forth. Nila looked at Sanal and then at Kishan. She gave Sanal eighty-five on one hundred and Kishan fifteen. Nila thought she could easily have married Sanal. But she didn’t. Fate ordained strange things for everyone. Did it really ordain anything at all? If only Sunil had sent Sanal Edamaruku to Calcutta to get married, Nila’s life would have been different. But that’s not what happened.

Nila whispered to Chaitali, ‘That man, the French girl’s husband, what does he do?’

‘He writes. He lived in London, but now he’s married the French girl and stays here. He’s written quite a nice book! I don’t remember the name . . .’ Chaitali rubbed her middle finger against her thumb and tried to recollect, ‘It’s name is . . . Sunil, what’s Tariq’s book called?’

Sunil answered swiftly, ‘
Why I Am Not a Muslim
.’

‘Yes,
Why I Am Not a Muslim
.’

Nila said, ‘Like Bertrand Russell’s
Why Am I Not a Christian
. Tell me, has anyone ever written a book,
Why I Am Not a Hindu
?’

Chaitali shrugged and shook her head slowly—not to her knowledge.

Sunil was engrossed in summarizing the qualities of the whisky. He took a minute off it and said, ‘Yes. It’s by Mr Sunil Chakravarty.’

Ha, ha.

‘Kishan, what is all this? Fetch the malt, quick.’

Kishan brought out a bottle of Glenfiddich in one hand and a bottle of Lafroige in the other as he swayed towards them.

The crowd went crazy.

‘We’ll wind up with Springbank.’

‘Oaao ho,’ Sanal whistled.

The conversation flowed between English, French and Hindi. Gradually the voices rose, one by one. Nila sat in a corner of the sofa, close to Chaitali—Nila, the bride, the doll, the visitor. Everyone went into the kitchen and poured themselves orange juice, water or whatever it was that they needed. Nila and Sahana were drinking orange juice. Some had their whisky with water and some had it on ice. Tariq drank his neat. At least twice he’d remarked, ‘The taste of whisky is ruined if you mix it with water. This is the problem with Indians—they don’t know how to drink and yet they have to’

Rajesh said, ‘We don’t really drink for the sake of drinking. We drink so that we can get drunk, however that may be.’

‘I agree with you, my friend.’ Babu Gogini guffawed.

Sahana nudged him and said, ‘Why are you laughing like the devil? Are you drunk already?’

Sanal caught her out, ‘Why did you say “like the devil”—have you ever seen the devil laugh?’

‘I have, I have. I’ve seen La Jaconda laugh.’

The room was filled with laughter. Nila wondered whether Odil declared that smile, made famous by Da Vinci, as a devilish one simply to make people laugh or was that truly her belief. She couldn’t find out because Sanal had already leaped up to her again.

He poured a little vodka into her glass, which had only orange juice, shook it and said, ‘Now drink this screwdriver like a good girl, our new bride. By tomorrow it’ll tighten all the screws that are loose in your head.’

There was another roll of laughter. When Kishan laughed, his shovel-teeth were exposed. Babu Gogini had a golden smile. Two teeth in the upper row were made of gold and they sparkled when he smiled. Tariq Ismail laughed with his lips closed and his whole body
shook from head to toe. Chaitali covered her mouth with her left hand and Sanal laughed loudly, haha, hoho. Odil’s laugh showed only her pink upper gums and neither teeth nor sound. Rajesh’s moustache and beard covered his whole face and when he laughed, all of it just stretched a little and the teeth were hidden in the hair. Sunil sucked in his breath when he laughed—air only went in and never came out.

Amidst such gusts of laughter, Babu Gogini had the urge to ask everyone a question: why do Frenchmen have such large mouths and small hands?

No one knew the answer to that.

Babu Gogini said solemnly, ‘Because French women have tiny breasts and huge nipples.’

No one except Odil and Sanal laughed at that one.

Minakshi turned away and Sahana got up to go inside.

One question led to another. Sanal asked, ‘Do you know what gender is Law?’

Everyone was silent. Sanal said, ‘Feminine gender.’ He then sat there quietly until someone was curious enough to ask him for an explanation. Odil did that.

‘Law is feminine because it has holes.’

Chaitali asked if anyone wanted more orange juice. There were desperate attempts to change the topic.

Kishan smiled and said to Nila, ‘Today you’re on leave, but from tomorrow you’ll have to get down to housework, okay?’

Kishan’s comment didn’t embarrass Nila at all.

Chaitali butted in, ‘The house isn’t just hers. Both of you will have to get on with the housework.’

Kishan did a bottoms up and said, ‘I am not good at all this.’

Nila asked, ‘And I have to be?’

‘You do. You’re a woman.’

Everyone in the room laughed—that was that for the educated girl.

Kishan looked at Nila with half-closed eyes and said, ‘Come closer. You’re my wife and you’re sitting so far away.’

Everyone almost pushed Nila towards Kishan.

Kishan knocked on his glass and drew all eyes upon Nila as he
said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my wife here is quite a beauty, isn’t she?’

‘Certainly, sure.’ The voices were unanimous.

Kishan patted Nila on the back and said, ‘After all, she is
my
bride.’

Tariq said, ‘Kishan really needed a wife like this.’

‘Why so?’

‘So beautiful, so good—so totally Indian. Foreigners are no good! They are good for a little lovemaking, but not for marriage. For marriage it has to be an Indian.’ Tariq spoke in pure Hindi.

Chaitali shouted, ‘Will someone please translate what Tariq said for Odil’s benefit?’

Odil was immersed in a whispered conversation with Babu and Sahana. He looked up and said, ‘Has someone said anything odious about me?’

Sanal said, ‘No, no, not odious at all. Whatever he said is true, but it is all made up.’

Tariq laughed and said, ‘I have seen many women, but none so beautiful as my wife.’

Odil’s pink-gummed smile was in place for a long time.

No one noticed, but the roomful of people broke up into smaller groups. Rajesh and Tariq were in one group.

‘India’s economy is going in for a massive change in the next ten years.’

‘Nonsense! It’s a poor country and it’ll stay poor—the country is corrupt from top to bottom.’

‘All of Silicon Valley is in the hands of the Indians and even Europe is trying to lure software professionals from India.’

‘Only a handful of people have money in their hands—the rest are all dying of hunger.’

‘I have never seen a man die of hunger in India. It is all Western propaganda.’

‘Population is killing the country.’

‘But why! Human resource is a great strength, if it is used properly. Once the factories of Europe almost closed down and they had to fall back on labourers from other countries.’

In another group Kishan and Babu Gogini were frothing at the mouth: ‘Congress is gone. Not even in a hundred years will they be able to come back to power.’

‘But the BJP also can’t be relied upon. Vajpayee is our only hope.’

‘The Left and Right wings are all the same. Do you know Jacques Chiraq has taken a huge bribe for his party?’

‘It’s not as if Jasper’s party doesn’t have thieves.’

‘The rate at which Jose Bovain is gaining popularity, he’s sure to win if he contests this election.’