French Lover

by Nasrin, Taslima

  Nila pointed to a girl and asked, ‘Take for example this girl, she’s about sixteen or seventeen and she just came out of that house over there. Where do you think she’s going at this hour of the night?’

  Kishan answered, ‘Perhaps to a bar, or a disco. She’ll talk through the night, dance and have fun.’

  Nila looked at Kishan with round eyes, ‘And her parents wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘If on a Friday night girls of this age sit at home, if they don’t have a boyfriend or sleep with a boy, it’s then that parents would be worried. They’d wonder if something was wrong with her, physically or mentally. If the girl goes out, the parents sleep in peace and if she stays at home they’d have a sleepless night. Besides, most of them leave home at this age. They stay alone or with a boyfriend.’

  ‘Without marrying them?’ Nila asked again.

  ‘Sure. These days no one marries and even if they do it’s not until much later—after living together for five or even ten years or after children come along.’

  ‘Education?’ Nila’s curiosity was aroused.

  ‘In this country you don’t need money to study, the government pays for it. The girls study and work part time—they get by.’

  Nila said, ‘It’s a free life.’

  ‘Yes. Over here they believe in enjoying life, in whatever way.’ Kishan twisted his lips and crinkled his nose. ‘Bullshit! Do you know when these girls lose their virginity? At age five or six when they play doctors and nurses. Even before they’re twenty they must have bedded a hundred boys. There are no principles, really. If they love someone today, tomorrow they leave him—there are no enduring ties. They don’t know how to settle down, when and with whom. They don’t know it and they can’t do it.’

  Nila heard the splish-splash of water somewhere in her heart, ‘Kishan, let’s go to that bridge, let’s walk on that Ponf a while. Why don’t we bend down and take a look at the Seine, see how the waves are breaking and how the lights from the distant towers of the Notre-Dame are crowning the waves.’

  Kishan didn’t stop the car. He held the steering wheel. Nila realized that he who held the steering held all the power. But Kishan had to stop when thousands of roller skaters came charging from the Republic crossing, flying like thousands of butterflies. Nila looked with wonderstruck eyes at these young people flying on their wheeled shoes. She had never heard such a vibrant call of youthful life, such display of young energy.

  ‘Why are they doing this?’

  ‘Just for fun.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Fun, fun,’ Kishan had to scream.

  ‘Just for fun?’

  ‘Just.’

  Nila got out of the car and feasted her eyes on the speeding people. They left her behind and rushed ahead, in the flash of an eye, at the speed of light, with the energy of life, and immobile Nila, stationary Nila looked on, her eyes full of surprise and awe.

  When Kishan called her, she had to get into the dark car again although she felt like walking or running on the streets; she wanted the speed of a cascade on her body and she wanted to exult in the feeling of youth all night long.

  ‘So wonderful! There was no darkness; everything was light, bright and alive,’ Nila said again and again.

  Once they reached home, Kishan had to look for a parking spot from this end of the road to the other, from this alley to that and finally he found one after an hour.

  Nila got down and said, ‘Why are you keeping the car on the street and not in the garage?’

  ‘Does anyone have a garage? Everyone parks on the street.’

  Nila had never seen cars lying about on the streets of Calcutta. Anirban’s ambassador had a dent on the bumper and the doors were rusty and yet it was kept in a garage which had huge padlocks on the door.

  ‘All these cars parked on both sides of the road—will they stay here all night?’

  Kishan nodded, yes they will, they always have.

  ‘No one steals them?’

  ‘Why would they?’

  Nila thought, indeed why would they. This was not a land of thieves and robbers.

  When life was so monotonous, the chances of an unfortunate event were less but it did happen in Nila’s uneventful life. She slipped in the bathroom and hit her forehead on the corner of the bathtub. There was a steady stream of blood. Fortunately, she had the strength to call Kishan. He rushed home and quickly took Nila to the Lariboisière Hôpital, near the Gare du Nord. Nila was used to the hospitals in Calcutta with their swarming patients. Here, there were hardly five or six people in the waiting room dressed in immaculate clothes. They looked nothing like patients and more like guests at a banquet. Nila’s sari was soaked in blood and a thin towel was wrapped around her wound—she was the living image of the outpatients room at Nilratan Hospital.

  One by one they were summoned inside. When Nila was called in, the nurse said she’d have to take off her clothes, wear a front-open tunic and lie down on the examination table. Nila couldn’t understand why she’d have to take off her clothes for a head X-ray. That was another hassle—she’d have to lie on the X-ray table, stark naked. Nila asked why would she have to be naked for an X-ray of her head. They said it had to be done—they’ll take X-rays of her chest as well. But why would she have to be naked for that? They said she had to, for an X-ray of chest, stomach, legs or even toenails, she’d have to strip—that was the rule. Nila’s father, Anirban, was a doctor and Nila had gone to the hospital many times. She had seen all the departments and once she even had to have an X-ray of her chest, but she didn’t have to take her clothes off. This rule of stripping over here made her writhe in shame. It wasn’t possible for her to strip and walk around before the nurse and the doctor with all her private parts showing. She was told that in that case they would not be able to treat her. The nurse and the doctor failed to understand why Nila was refusing treatment. Ashamed, she finally had to utter the word ‘shame’. But they still couldn’t understand the simple fact that she was feeling shy. When she repeated herself, the nurse and the doctor looked amazed.

  ‘Shy of whom?’

  ‘You. Him.’

  ‘Why?’

  Nila didn’t answer that one. Instead she wore her clothes and walked out of the place and informed Kishan that she was unable to accept the obscene proposal of the hospital.

  Kishan grinned with his buckteeth and pushed her towards the X-ray room; he advised her to strip.

  ‘You wouldn’t mind?’ Nila asked.

  Kishan was at his magnanimous best when he said it wasn’t wrong to take her clothes off in front of the doctor.

  Nila swallowed her shame and X-rayed her head. Her head received two stitches. She didn’t have to strip for that.

  There was a mark from a long-ago cut on Kishan’s chin. Nila had never said that it detracted from his looks in any way. But Kishan often soulfully commented on the tiny mark on her forehead, which was usually covered by the fall of her hair, and said that her fiery beauty of old had gone.

  Once the wound healed, it took her a while to take the medicines and recover fully. She spent the spare time after cooking and cleaning by reading books. The days were passing in their own fashion, lying on the ground, face down. One day, after his business picked up with the new name of Gandhi, Kishan wanted to take Nila to Gallerie Lafayette.

  As they entered the place Nila was duly startled.

  ‘We-ll, I thought it was a gallery and there’d be pictures in it.’ It was a store, a hundred under the same roof. Her eyes lifted to the colourful ceiling high up and she didn’t want to look away from that amazing beauty. Kishan’s nudge made her walk straight again. It was more like a golden palace. Nila had never seen such a beautiful store or even a palace for that matter.

  Kishan went on and on, ‘Buy this, buy that, buy some shoes, some clothes.’ In spite of the mark on her forehead, Nila was still beautiful and her cooking was improving every day. Since Nila was his wife, his property, his wealth, since her life was in his hands a
nd if she looked beautiful people would praise him, since Nila’s recovery brought him the praises of how he’d looked after his wife, since everything of Nila’s was actually his, Kishan’s generosity knew no bounds.

  In the shoe store the attendant asked for Nila’s shoe size. But she didn’t know it. How could she? In Calcutta she was used to picking up the shoes or sandals that fitted her. If a size eight fit her one month, the next month she’d find the size seven too large for her. Were her feet shrinking? Oh no, it was the shoe size that wasn’t constant. The shoemakers just put whatever numbers that came to mind. When someone wanted to buy shoes, they’d just come to the shop, try out a few and take the one that fitted them—that was how it went.

  Kishan picked up a pair of boots from the shelf and told her to try them on.

  ‘But these are for men,’ Nila pointed out.

  ‘These are women’s,’ Kishan said and the attendant confirmed it. Once the shoes were bought, Nila came to the clothes shop and there again she was in trouble. She reached for the trousers and Kishan said, ‘Those are men’s.’

  ‘These shirts?’ Those were also men’s.

  Nila was curious, ‘What’s the difference between men’s and women’s clothes?’

  In Calcutta the differences between men’s and women’s clothes and shoes were many. Saris, salwars and slippers were for women and dhotis, shirts, T-shirts, trousers, ties, socks and shoes were for men. The difference was apparent. In this country men and women wore the same kind of clothes and it was hard to tell the difference. The buttons would be on different sides, the chest a bit narrower—one had to look very hard to be able to tell them apart. Kishan felt they were hugely different, at the waist, hips, length and breadth. The gold jewellery shops were the least crowded and Nila was drawn to one.

  ‘Why is the gold reddish in colour?’

  ‘That’s what 18K gold looks like.’

  ‘Only 18K? But why? We wear 22K.’

  ‘People here don’t wear much gold and neither do they like it much. They prefer precious stones.’

  These people were so rich and yet they didn’t like gold. But in a poor country like India gold was an imperative. Gold spelt class and status. Without gold a wedding was incomplete. For Nila’s wedding Anirban gave eighty grams of glittering gold. He probably thought that streams of joy flowed from the gold and held his daughter in its grip. Every Indian woman was attracted by gold, as was Nila. But she wasn’t interested in buying the reddish 18K gold.

  She wanted to buy perfume. In the perfume section she lost herself. There were so many perfumes in the world! This was the birthplace of all perfumes. Nila liked Givenchy’s Organza and Kishan voted for Christian Dior’s Poison. So which one should they buy? Easy—they’d buy Poison.

  ‘Why is Poison so expensive here? It’s much cheaper in Calcutta.’

  ‘That’s because those are fakes. Here they are real, okay?’

  Nila floundered in the crowd of ‘real’—everything was real, good and pretty.

  Although they bought the perfume, Nila didn’t want to budge from there. She was looking for a particular perfume—Evening in Paris. Although she hunted high and low, she couldn’t find that tiny blue bottle of Evening in Paris. Instead, her eyes fell on a bottle of Chanel no. 5. She’d buy that, with her own money. Kishan was surprised. ‘For whom?’

  ‘For dada.’

  Sunil had told her that a friend of his was going to Calcutta and she could send something if she wanted to.

  Kishan said, ‘For Nikhil? Why don’t you pick something from the cheaper ones?’

  Nila was adamant; she’d buy Chanel no. 5 because that’s what he liked. Kishan took the bottle from her hands, returned it to the sales attendant and dragged her from the shop. In an undertone he said, ‘You have no sense at all.’

  Nila spoke calmly. ‘Actually dada had given me two hundred dollars to buy just this perfume and send him.’

  ‘Just this one and nothing else will do?’

  ‘Yes, this and nothing else.’

  Nila cashed her dollars and bought the Chanel no. 5. She found it gave her a strange kind of pleasure to buy something with her own money. It was much more than getting a bag full of gifts from Kishan.

  When they returned, Kishan sat with his Scotch and Nila doused herself with the Poison as she hummed, ‘I’ve drank of the dreaded cup, knowing all too well; I’ve waived away my life in the hope of living.’

  ‘What’s that song?’ Kishan asked.

  ‘Rabindrasangeet.’

  ‘That Bengali chap who got the Nobel Prize?’

  ‘Yes, it was written by that Bengali chap. That same guy wrote a beautiful song about this same poison and I’m singing it.’

  ‘This same poison?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘Why don’t you translate it for me?’

  Nila laughed and said, ‘There are some songs that are untranslatable.’

  Kishan sighed and said, ‘There are some people who are untranslatable.’

  Nila stood by the kitchen and as her perfume wafted all over the room, she said, ‘There are some people who can be translated very easily.’

  When Kishan finished his dinner and went to bed, Nila sat down to write to Molina.

  ‘You’d wondered how I’d run my home all alone over here. Just come here once and take a look. True, there are no maids. But there’s no need either. The place is full of machines and the only work is in switching them on. Do you know Ma, I cook. But don’t worry too much. It’s no trouble at all. Today Kishan has bought me many things and made it very clear that he has bought them. That’s life, isn’t it? We are almost prisoners of these “things”, aren’t we? I’ve seen you too—if Baba bought you two saris you’d be over the moon. You would cook him something special, serve him and sit by him when he ate. Perhaps you did it for love and that can’t be bought with things. Or can it? I don’t know. Tonight I cooked daal makhani for Kishan. He really loves it.

  ‘Paris is a stunningly beautiful city. Today, when we drove past the opera I thought it’s a good thing I got married to Kishan or I would never have seen this city. And it’d be a shame to die without seeing this place.

  ‘Ma, you have wasted your entire life trying to please other people. Now you should think of yourself, enjoy your own life. After grandfather died, the inheritance was split up and you got a fair amount of money from selling your share. Who are you saving it for? Spend it—on yourself. Life isn’t forever. The people here have enough to eat and good clothes to wear. So they enjoy life to the hilt. They laugh heartily. And we are afraid to laugh because we are in fear. Why? Because some stupid man somewhere has said that if you laugh too much you’ll pay for it with tears.’

  She wrote this far, added a PS and wrote, ‘I’m sending a Chanel no. 5 for dada. It’s a very expensive perfume. This wasn’t bought with Kishan’s money. I paid for it myself with the money I’d saved by giving tuitions.’

  ‘Can I please have some money? I’d like to go out alone since you don’t have the time.’

  ‘Alone? Are you crazy?’

  ‘Why can’t I go out alone? Am I a small child?’

  Kishan caressed her cheeks and said, ‘To me, of course, you are a small child.’

  Nila laughed, ‘But I’m not a small child to myself.’

  ‘What are you then—a big child?’ Kishan also laughed.

  ‘I am twenty-seven and a mature adult.’

  ‘And do you have to walk the streets if you are a mature adult?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be walking around. I might go to Sunil’s house, have tea in a café or visit a museum or a bookstore. Perhaps I’d want to see the opera from the inside. I read some books when I knew I’d be coming here. I want to see those places.’ Nila looked out of the window listlessly as she spoke.

  ‘You want to do all this alone?’ Kishan’s tiny, beady eyes grew as big as potatoes.

  ‘Well, since you don’t have the time . . . I thought I might even just wa
lk around a bit, even if I don’t go anywhere.’ Her voice was dejected.

  ‘Walk? But why?’

  ‘No reason—just like that.’

  ‘Does anyone ever walk for no reason? Look, just take a look,’ Kishan dragged her to the window, ‘Those people there—do you think they are walking there for no reason? They all have reasons, they are all busy. So am I. If I didn’t keep busy, we wouldn’t have food to eat or a roof over our heads. One day I’ll show you how the refugees live on the streets, even on winter nights. Then you’ll know that it doesn’t make sense to waste time for no reason.’

  Nila wound the corner of her sari around her finger and said, ‘Actually, my time weighs heavily on me. I haven’t been educated to just sit at home. If I found myself a job . . .’

  ‘Job? Why on earth? Am I not earning enough?’ Kishan asked in stunned surprise.

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘This “not having the time”—it’s for the sake of this household alone. If I didn’t work, where would you live, what would you eat?’ His voice rose higher as he spoke.

  ‘Are you doing all this for me? You were working even before we got married. You haven’t started working simply to be able to take care of me, have you?’ Nila’s voice was strangely calm.

  Kishan sat down upon the sofa and said, ‘Oh Nila, you have quite a way with words. Where did you learn to talk like that?’

  ‘Nowhere. Everyone can talk like this.’

  Kishan shook his head violently and said, ‘No, no, no. Indian wives can’t talk like this.’

  In the same calm tone, Nila said, ‘Which Indian wife doesn’t speak like this—your grandmothers, right?’

  ‘None of them,’ Kishan screamed.

  ‘You should have married a dumb girl who’d silently do the housework and never protest at anything, who doesn’t have a soul to call her own and cannot read or write, who didn’t have her wits about her and didn’t dream a single dream.’ Nila spoke slowly and succinctly.

  Kishan’s voice rose by another octave as he shouted, ‘Why are you so proud of your education? It’s not as if you’re a doctor or an engineer. What can you do with your degree in Bengali literature? You can’t earn a single franc. You’ll have to depend on me all your life—you have no other choice. So quit that ego. If you had any sense you’d see how pointless it is.’