They stopped at a roadside café for some coffee. Benoir was grumbling about the thirty per cent of one’s income which had to be given to the French government as tax, and how happy the people in Monaco were because they didn’t have to pay tax. If he were in Monaco he’d have saved that money. They parked near the Pont-Neuf and walked towards the Notre-Dame, towards the bridge, which gave a clear view of all of Paris. Nila wanted to stand on that bridge and look at the Seine. Whenever she did that, she saw Joan d’Arc’s ashes floating in the water. She was sure she caught a fleeting glimpse of Joan d’Arc’s image in the water. Suddenly a question flew into her mind like a feather: did the Ganga and the Seine have anything in common? The water in the Ganga was also muddy. Then she looked at the bridge instead and her mind flew back to the Ganga. No! The Ganga was unbridled and the Seine was like an aquarium; one couldn’t spend one’s life with the Seine. All the waters in the world were not the same. Her mind drifted to Catherine Grand who had also stood here once, just like Nila. She was also from Calcutta, the daughter of a French official in Chandannagar. She was breathtakingly beautiful and the youth of Calcutta lost their night’s sleep because of her. Such a beauty was married off to an elderly English officer, Francis Grand. The French Revolution was still in the future. A French youth, Phillippe, fell madly in love with her, scaled the walls of her house and went into her bedroom at night. Everyone came to know of it. Francis sued him and made him pay a heavy fine. It was a huge scandal and Catherine had to become the mistress of her French lover. She changed hands and her fate didn’t improve when she came from Calcutta to London and then to Paris as his mistress. She must have been as old as Nila when she came there. She stayed in the Hôtel de Ville and one day she walked to this very bridge and stood there like Nila. A lout pulled at her clothes and a few others stood and laughed. Catherine changed hands again and again and finally rolled into the lap of Talleyrand as his mistress. At the time Talleyrand was the foreign secretary. But it was Catherine who conducted most of his business with the foreign ambassadors. That too became a scandal in Paris and finally Napoleon pulled him up. Then Catherine pulled a fast one over her lover. She bowed to Napoleon and declared that she was carrying Talleyrand’s child in her womb. Napoleon was crazy for an heir then and he was even considering giving a divorce to Josephine, his dear wife, and marrying Marie Louise. Immediately he commanded Talleyrand to marry his mistress and his command had to be obeyed. Eventually, the girl who spoke French with a Calcutta accent became a minister’s wife at a ripe age, after spending many years as different men’s mistress. But if she hadn’t played that little trick, she’d have died a mistress. Nila felt that after two hundred years it was Catherine again who was standing with her on the bridge.
Benoir’s touch brought Nila back to her senses. He said, ‘It looks like bad weather. Let’s go home.’
Nila looked at the storm clouds in the sky and danced for joy. ‘This is great weather. Why do you call it bad? Let’s get wet in the rain.’
Nila wanted to get drenched but Benoir wasn’t born under the scalding hot sun and rain was no welcome shower to him. When they reached home, Benoir wanted sex and Nila poetry. She picked up Baudelaire’s Fleur du Mal, sat on the sofa and asked, ‘Why did Baudelaire write about the Malabar woman?’
Benoir took the book away, hugged Nila and looked into her eyes lovingly as he said, ‘Because Baudelaire fell in love with her. Do you know what he did to her?’ A hot kiss fell on her lips. Benoir had brought warmth from the south, all the heat of the sun so that he could burn her up.
She picked up the book again and said, ‘But Baudelaire never went to Malabar.’
Benoir snatched the book away again, smiled sweetly and said, ‘Who has told you that?’
‘Did he go there?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘No, he didn’t. In 1841, on the 9th of June Baudelaire’s stepfather forced him into a ship bound for India. When the ship was near Mauritius, Baudelaire jumped off; he didn’t want to go to India. The following year, in February, he came back to Paris. He never set foot in Malabar.’
‘You seem to know a lot about our Baudelaire.’
Nila spread out her silky black hair and lay down. Perfume wafted from her body and it was driving Benoir crazy; he wanted to write restless, manic love poems deep inside her. Nila took the book from his hands and began to turn the pages. Benoir asked, ‘Is Malabar in India?’
‘You don’t know where Malabar is?’
‘No.’ Benoir’s answer came without a trace of regret, almost with a sense of pride at his ignorance.
Nila said, ‘Strange!’
‘Why strange?’
‘Strange because you have never wondered where this Malabar is, about which your poet has written, or wondered if he saw the Malabar woman in Malabar or in his dreams?’
Benoir got up and sat on the other sofa. He hadn’t thought of all this because he had other things to think of.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, ‘Pascale, Jacqueline?’
Suddenly, without any preamble, Benoir asked, ‘Do you know when the Notre-Dame was built?’
‘In 1334.’
‘No, even before that.’
‘The work started in the twelfth century and ended in 1334.’
‘When in the twelfth century?’
‘I don’t know.’
Benoir flashed a smile and said, ‘You only have that one Taj Mahal. I didn’t see anything really ancient in India. There’s the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, but that was built by the British.’
Nila sat up and asked, ‘Have you heard of Mohenjodaro and Harappa?’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a civilization. It flourished in India, two thousand five hundred years before the birth of your Christ.’
Benoir shrugged. He wasn’t supposed to know all this.
Nila said, ‘Don’t think because it’s about India you don’t have to know it. This is history.’
‘And why do I have to know history?’ Benoir got up from the sofa noisily, walked around, heaved a loud sigh and shouted, ‘Do you think everyone has to know everything? I know about things which interest me. You think you know it all. You are very arrogant, Nila.’
Nila laughed and spoke softly, ‘Is that a bad thing? If you have the knowledge, why should you cower? You should proudly say yes, I know.’
Benoir pulled her up from the sofa, threw the book on the floor, dragged her to the study, slapped the computer and said, ‘The world revolves around computers now. If you are so proud of your knowledge, then tell me the true value of ten base two terminator? You don’t know? It’s five hundred Ohms. How many i and q are there on the keyboard? You don’t know, it’s five. How many bytes in the Mac address? I know you don’t know; your knowledge is useless. There are six bytes.’
He held her in a tight grip, dragged her back to the drawing room and threw her on to the sofa again.
Nila laughed. As she laughed, she said, ‘Please pick up that book for me?’
Benoir was breathing heavily. He wouldn’t do it.
Nila asked, ‘Who threw it, me or you?’
Benoir said, ‘I did.’
‘Then pick it up like a good boy. You are not a naughty boy that you have a God-given right to throw things around, or are you?’ Nila was laughing.
Benoir screamed, ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Because I have the God-given right to laugh.’ Nila lay down on the sofa as before, spreading her hair and perfume around. Benoir sat on the sofa behind her. He lowered his voice and said, ‘Nila turn around and look at me. I have to talk to you; it’s urgent.’
Nila spoke slowly, gently, ‘First, please pick up my book for me; I feel like reading a poem and it is urgent.’
‘More urgent than listening to me?’ Benoir sounded surprised.
Nila said, ‘Yes, much more.’
‘You just want to show off! This is what happens. People come into our country and they become obsesse
d with our art and culture.’
Nila looked out into the sunny evening and said, ‘I am obsessed because poetry is in my blood.’
‘In your blood, ha, ha, ha.’ Benoir laughed strangely.
‘Our poets wrote poetry even when your France was a land under snow. Just imagine, while your ancestors were fighting over a piece of raw flesh, my forefathers were spouting poetry.’
Benoir moved like lightning, picked up the book and threw it outside the window, ‘You and your blood and your pride. Read, for all I care.’
He left. The tranquil woman laughed sweetly and shut her eyes. A dream flew in and perched on her eyes. She saw herself on the Malabar coast, the wind blowing in her hair, in her sari, as she laughed with all the colours of the sunset on her body. She ran barefoot and played hide and seek with the water as it touched her beautiful body and the wind whispered in her ears, ‘O Malabar woman . . .’
She wafted in the warm breeze, walked into the nearest bookstore and looked for Fleur du Mal. The glass display case showed off Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Paul Eluard, Paul Valerie. She leaned forward, opened the shelf and asked, ‘Why are they locked inside?’
‘It’s the Poetry Week.’ The shopkeeper was indifferent.
‘Isn’t every week, every day meant for poetry?’
He smiled, ‘The days of poetry are numbered, mademoiselle.’
Nila had never felt that in Calcutta. Every day, every minute was for poetry. It was the poet who grabbed everyone’s attention on the stage, whom every person on the streets saluted and whom everyone gave a second glance. Every youth wrote poetry, whether they fell in love or not, whether it rained or not. A drunken lout would be forgiven all his sins if he was a poet. Some said there were more poets in Calcutta than crows. When Nila fell in love with Sushanta, she also wrote poetry. She had thought France was the home of poetry, but here they had to declare a week especially for it, to sell poetry books and print them. Nila clicked her tongue and felt sorry for the country. As she returned home with the book clasped to her heart, she wished Molina would open the door to her, sit her down and feed her her favourite dishes. She’d fan her gently, brush aside the stray hairs on her brow and say, ‘Eat up, you’ve grown so thin. It’s been ages since you ate my cooking.’ Nila’s mouth watered. She walked home in a stupor and knocked on the door. No one waited for Nila. She had to let herself in. As she called, ‘Ma, Ma,’ the sound of her own voice startled her.
The Chimera Days
Nila was in a trance, in Malabar, and the room was bathed in a dim glow. Sushanta, bathed and clean-smelling like an Epicurean husband, reached for her aroused nipples. Drowning in languorous pleasure, Nila acquiesced to their lovemaking. Sushanta lay spent and tired after an orgasm.
The clouds parted and Nila’s illusion shattered; the piercing eyes of the wolf tore her to bits. She shivered, cold. When she tried to draw up the sheets at her feet, they were snatched away by the wolf, as if her fingers were being snatched away by a maniac. Nila screamed. It was Sunil in front of her eyes.
‘You have a high fever; don’t cover up.’
Slowly she buried her head in the pillow and spoke feebly, ‘What are you doing here?’
Sunil laughed his peculiar laugh.
Nila lay in a foetal position, tense, as she heard him say, ‘Do you keep in touch with Kishan? He has spoken to the lawyers about a divorce.’
Sunil spewed out many more words that fell randomly around the foetus; he wasn’t getting along with Chaitali and so he was quite upset these days. They slept in the same bed, but scarcely touched. Chaitali could understand that this was no way for a man to live. He paused and then continued in his thin voice, ‘Actually it was a mistake marrying her; she is very different. She is angry that I have stood guarantee for this house and she doesn’t want me to look for a job for you. She says I shouldn’t neglect them so much and shouldn’t pay so much attention to you; all this jabbering all day long . . . Ouf . . .’
There was a sound at the door. Quickly Sunil got dressed, threw a sheet over the foetus and opened the door to Benoir. A warm hand touched the foetus. Meanwhile Sunil waved goodbye and walked out casually. He kept Nikhil’s letter from Calcutta on the table.
Benoir had brought her a gift, all wrapped up, and a single red rose.
Nila’s voice came from a great distance, ‘That man raped me.’
Benoir gathered Nila, all the heat in her to his bosom and burst into sobs. She wiped away his tears and said, ‘I don’t know, perhaps I wanted it . . . I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘But I know, you were just angry with me.’
Benoir’s voice was brimming with emotion as he said, ‘I am beside you now and I won’t let anyone touch you. I’ll give you everything, everything.’
‘Really? Promise?’ She looked dishevelled, as if she’d weathered a sandstorm and needed help, begged for it.
Benoir promised her he’d never leave her.
When she untied the ribbon and unwrapped the package, out came all the books of Baudelaire’s poetry. Nila’s chapped, burning lips were drenched with kisses. She wanted to drown, to plunge into deeper waters. But Benoir said, ‘Get well first.’
Nila took his hand and placed it on her brow; she wanted it to stay there, wanted him to say how high her fever was. Nila wanted Benoir to fuss over her the way Molina had when she had had fever, to put a cold poultice on her brow, to wrap a towel around her neck, bring her to the edge of the bed and pour cold water on her head. Nila wanted him to bring a bunch of grapes and sit on her bed and feed them to her one by one.
Benoir took his hand away from her forehead and asked, ‘Are you feeling ill?’
Nila said she was fine. She quelled her wishes and asked, ‘Do I have a very high fever?’
‘I don’t know. Do you want to check? Let me get the thermometer for you.’
He brought it from the bathroom and came towards her. Nila instinctively opened her mouth. He gaped at her open mouth and handed her the instrument with a smile that said, with this I lay my life at your feet. Nila noted the smile, put the thermometer in her mouth and gulped down the desires that almost popped out of her mouth at the same time.
The same night Benoir went and packed two suitcases and came back to Nila. She meant everything to him and this was his final decision.
‘What about that other relationship?’
He said he’d wind it up slowly.
She didn’t want to ask him how slowly. Benoir coming away to her like this made Nila tremble more than her fever did; she trembled with joy. It was obvious that Benoir loved her. She had nothing more to ask of him. Nila lay on his chest and closed her eyes in deep satisfaction. It had been worth it to have spent so much on this house. She had dreamed of living in it with Benoir and now the dream was close at hand. Her days of uncertainty were over. Nila could walk with her head held high now. Kishan’s meanness, Sunil’s pity, could all be discarded in one fell sweep. She had Benoir. He was hers and she wasn’t his mistress. So what if he didn’t bathe her head or feed her grapes, he loved her—this was the Western way of loving—bringing her the thermometer was no less than doing all that.
Benoir cooked some meat from a can, heated the contents and poured it on a plate. He sliced up the baguette, lay the table with silverware, poured them some wine and called Nila when it was ready. She looked at his smiling face in the candlelight. She found the lamb smelly and didn’t feel like eating it although Benoir licked his fingers with apparent enjoyment. Nila agreed with him and picked at her food, because she didn’t want to disappoint this new, domesticated Benoir.
Benoir talked about his childhood. Nila was absorbed in the stories. When he was six, he had gone to Italy with his parents by rail. They’d walked on the crowded streets of Rome. There had been a festival. A small boy stood leaning against a pillar and he had pulled Benoir’s hand and said, ‘Come, let’s go to see the fireworks.’ Benoir hadn’t gone, but later he always felt he should have. He saw the fireworks from a dis
tance and felt sorry he didn’t go.
The next night he talked of his childhood again and told her the same stories.
Living together often meant hearing the same stories again and again and it gave her some sort of pleasure too, hearing about his childhood and adolescence. He told her about when he was praised by his teachers, when he hit a friend on the nose and confessed to the priest at the church in Orléans. His younger sister, Valerie, wasn’t as good at her studies as he was and so was always jealous of him; when they were children she often tore up his books and buried them in the ground. Even now she envied him. She was married and had a child, who, she claimed, was better behaved than Jacqueline.
At night Benoir came to bed, naked. He frowned at Nila, fully clothed. ‘How can you sleep with so many clothes on?’
‘I can. I am not used to sleeping in the buff like you.’
Suddenly Nila felt it was a hint and Benoir wanted to fondle her naked body. But he held her close and told her the story of Saint Exupéry’s little prince well until midnight and his penis hung limp on his tranquil body. The next night he told her stories of a fox and a tiger. When the story ended, he went and stood at the window.
Nila asked, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘There must be something.’
Without taking his eyes off the window, he said, ‘Jacqueline must be missing me a lot.’
‘Why don’t you go there and meet her tomorrow?’
He came back from the window, kissed Nila with bright eyes and said, ‘Really? Can I?’
‘Sure. If you feel like it, why shouldn’t you?’
‘That’s true,’ he said, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
Nila’s fever shot up in the night and she moaned all night long. The next morning, when the fever subsided, she asked Benoir to fetch her some amoxycillin from the pharmacy nearby. No, that wasn’t possible unless the doctor prescribed it. Nila went into the kitchen after Benoir left for work and found he had washed and left the place spic and span. She spent the whole day looking at the clock, waiting for him to come back home. As she waited, Danielle called.
French Lover Page 26