The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(38)

“He believes it to be true.”

“Seems like he’s gotten rather chatty, having you with him constantly now,” Simon said.

Nita had moved in with Mathieu on January 1, deciding she should start her new year embracing her new life. It hadn’t been difficult to transfer her meager belongings, including the painting he had given her, to his place. He had made no attempt to display it and had instead rested it with the image facing the wall, as if haunted by its return.

“He said you seem smitten,” Nita said.

Simon could not hide his smile. “I have met a new woman who doesn’t run from my bastardized form of the French language.”

It was Nita’s turn to laugh. “Your French still surpasses my own.”

“Men find a woman trying to speak their language charming. Women, on the other hand, find it tacky and trite when their language is being mangled!”

“You seem to have charmed her still.”

“For now, yes.”

“Tell me about her.”

Simon’s eyes lit up. “Call me superstitious, but I don’t like to jinx myself by talking about it so early. Let’s see if it lasts first.”

Nita respected his privacy and went back to people watching. She was happy that he had met someone. He deserved to be with someone special, and she could tell by the way he approached the conversation that this woman already had a place in Simon’s heart. It would only be a matter of time before Mathieu and Nita would meet her. Of that, Nita was sure.

Today was one of those rare moments in which she was living the life in Paris of which she had dreamed. She had spent the day working on a painting and then posing for Simon’s classes, which had become like free art lessons, given how much she absorbed from him and the other students. Now, she was sitting in a café at which she had become a regular with a view of Notre-Dame, watching the myriad of people passing by on the street. She would go home to a man who devoured her mind and body with the same fervor. She hoped that in this moment, Rajiv and Sophie were as at peace in Ahmedabad as Nita was in Paris.





23


SOPHIE


2019


Naresh Uncle had been kind enough to give Sophie an advance on her wages, so she has been able to secure a room at Le Canard Volant beyond the couple nights that Cecile was able to help her with in the beginning. She is now sharing a room with five other girls and is surprised by how many people she’s met at the hostel who have come to Paris to pursue creative endeavors, whether they be art, writing, or food. She has never had such dreams or ideals and cannot recall her friends in India having those types of impractical ambitions either. Her friends enjoy dancing or cooking or art as hobbies, but none would consider stepping outside the confines of their prescribed lives to leave Ahmedabad and pursue such an uncertain career, giving up the comfortable and privileged lives into which they were born. This desire for a life beyond the one you were given seems far more Western than Eastern in her mind, and she does not fully understand it. It seems much simpler to fall in line with what is planned for you, especially when you are given so much as part of it, but she now realizes it is easy to be content when you are born into the upper caste. Clearly Nita felt differently and must have had some part of that Western idealism inside of her to have chosen the path she did.

While Sophie sits in Le Comptoir, perusing the menu with so many foreign words, she wonders why she had the misfortune of ending up with a mummy who was such a rare exception to the Indian rules. She is in the café where Cecile mentioned Nita and her friends used to spend time all those years ago, and Sophie can tell that, like many of the places she has seen while walking around the city, it has not changed much in the twenty years since Nita would have come here. Indian cities are constantly striving to modernize and adapt to stay relevant, Ahmedabad included, but Parisians seem to favor tradition, and for that Sophie is grateful because it heightens her chances. The café has small chairs with rounded red padded backs against dark-brown wood frames. Between sets of chairs are small bistro tables. The patrons seem mostly French, which Sophie finds surprising, given the café’s proximity to Notre-Dame.

Sophie scans the room for someone who looks old enough to have worked there when Nita would have first arrived but has not seen anyone of that age yet, so she chooses a small corner table with a clear view of the employees going back and forth to the kitchen. A lanky, dark-haired waiter who appears to be younger than Sophie arrives, and she manages to order a tea for herself, but she is unsure of the flavor she selected, given her inability to converse with the young man. He brings a small metal pot with steaming water and a tea bag wrapped in a paper pouch with a medley of flowers on it. Sophie is not used to the tea in France, which is more herbal and floral than the spicy, bold chai she grew up drinking. Papa had his chai twice a day, and she could set her watch by it: seven thirty in the morning after his yoga, prayers, and meditation, and then again at four o’clock in the afternoon. Sophie adopted his tea habit, but she is more flexible on this trip to France because she has less control over her schedule.

Finally, she sees an elderly man cross through the swinging door and take a seat on a barstool behind the back counter. He walks with the comfort of someone who has spent most of his life in this bistro and considers it a second home.

Sophie reaches into her purse and pulls out the photo she showed Cecile when she first arrived. She carries it with her everywhere.