French Lover

by Nasrin, Taslima

  ‘No, I wouldn’t because I know you wouldn’t like it if I slept with her.’

  ‘Suppose I like it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I would like it if you sleep with Pascale tonight, have sex with her.’

  ‘How is that you want that suddenly? You can’t even stand her, you are so jealous of her.’

  ‘You have suffered enough thinking I am jealous of her. As of now, I am like the Indian woman of your dreams, patient, tolerant, competent and generous to a fault.’

  Benoir sat there glumly for a while and then left silently. He came back with two bottles of wine and a bunch of roses. He gave them to Nila and spoke softly, ‘I love you and that’s the greatest truth.’

  Nila smelt the flowers and said, ‘In this country flowers don’t have a scent; they just look good. In India the roses smell terrific.’

  ‘These are hybrid varieties. All the scent goes away in the process.’ Benoir ran his fingers through her hair and said, ‘There is nothing contrived about you. That’s why I love you more every day.’

  He made Nila sit beside him and slowly told her about his conversations with Pascale the night before. He had said that after much soul searching he’d realized his love for her was that of a friend and his everlasting passion was for Nila. He realized he shouldn’t have spent the night there. He had not wanted to hurt her at all. Pascale had told him to stop dallying and choose one of the two relationships. Although it was a very difficult decision to walk away from a neat and beautiful family, Benoir had chosen Nila. Now he’d have to go for a divorce with Pascale on mutual consent. In this country divorce took some time to be effected and both parties’ lawyers would have to work out the details. They could resolve the matter of dividing their possessions quite easily. Sometimes Benoir and Pascale would have to interact about Jacqueline. Pascale said she’d find a job and until then, she had to depend on Benoir, much against her wish. He would have to be responsible for Jacqueline as her father, since that was the rule in this country. But she would grow up pretty soon and once she was fifteen she’d leave home and be on her own.

  He didn’t leave it at that. He picked up Pascale’s photo from his desk, dropped it into an empty suitcase saying he’d return it to its owner one of these days.

  That same week, on Friday, Nila got a letter from Kishanlal by registered post: it was a legal notice initiating divorce proceedings. She sat holding the letter and listening to the hammering of her own heart for a long time. For a while the lights dimmed and flickered before her eyes. Benoir steadied them again, ‘Don’t you have faith in me?’

  He took Nila’s hands in his and said, ‘Nila, no one will love you the way I love you, no one.’ Nila’s hands looked too black against Benoir’s.

  ‘I have given you everything, Nila, including myself. What else do you want!’ Benoir’s blue eyes were as deep as the ocean.

  The hammering of her heart stopped. Benoir turned her face towards him and the insignificant stalk of grass gazed in awestruck wonder at the massive tree.

  The night she received the letter, Nila called Calcutta for the first time since she had left home. She wanted to let them know about the divorce, acknowledge receipt of Anirban’s and Nikhil’s letters and let them know that she was alive and well.

  ‘You? Has the sun risen in the west today?’ Nikhil exclaimed when he heard her voice.

  Nila said, ‘The sun doesn’t rise in the east or the west. It stays put in one place and makes everyone else dance to its tune.’

  ‘So tell me, how are you? I heard you are living with a foreigner?’

  ‘Did Sunil say that? He must have given you my phone number and address?’

  Nila informed him that the paperwork for her divorce with Kishanlal was already under way. She was happy with the foreigner and they were getting married soon. So let no one spread rumours in Calcutta that Nila was a fallen woman.

  ‘How are you, dada? Are you getting married soon?’

  ‘We are seeing some girls. Last month we saw five.’

  ‘Did you like anyone?’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘All five were dark. My luck!’

  Nila said, ‘But you are dark.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if a man is dark.’

  Nila said to herself, ‘That’s true. It doesn’t matter if the man is dark, ugly, grotesque, corrupt, a lout, a rascal, a monster or a debauchee.’

  A Big Day

  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 s
tyle 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.

  Perturbed

  ‘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 audienc
e 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.’