The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(39)

“Excusez-moi, Monsieur,” she says as she approaches him.

He is wiping the plastic-encased menus with a damp white rag and looks up at her, waiting for her to continue.

“Do you speak English?” she asks, her eyes pleading that the answer be yes.

He nods, and Sophie lets out the breath she has been holding.

In a small voice, Sophie says, “I’m looking for someone who used to spend time here many years ago, and maybe she still does, but I am wondering if you happen to know her.”

Sophie hands over the photograph, and the man wipes his hands on the white kitchen towel tucked into his black trousers before taking it from her.

He shakes his head. “She is quite beautiful, but it is hard for me to say.” He gestures around the room. “So many people come every day.”

“This is an old photo,” Sophie offers. “She would be about twenty years older than in this.” Her voice trails off at the end, like she is asking rather than telling.

The man shakes his head. “I could hardly recall someone I met yesterday and certainly could not guess what age would do to a person.”

Sophie’s shoulders slump. Even though she knows this search is a long shot, dead ends are disappointing all the same. Perhaps the universe is also reminding her that if Nita wanted to be found, then she would have made it easy. Sophie and Rajiv had lived in the same house with the same phone number since Nita left, as did all their other relatives in India. Finding them would have required no effort, and the fact that she had never reached out to Sophie is difficult to swallow. But Sophie pushes past those thoughts because things are different now that Papa is gone, and surely Nita would want to know that. Surely Nita would want to help her daughter, if only Sophie could find her.





24


NITA


1999


Nita’s art had so consistently gravitated toward Sophie that Mathieu pressed her on who the girl was one day.

“She haunts you, I can see.” He lazed on the couch in the apartment they now shared. “Just like the woman in my paintings.”

Nita sat on a stool in front of an easel in the area that used to serve as their dining nook. The small table had now been pushed against the wall to make room for the makeshift studio the two of them used when painting at home. Two easels stood back to back so that they could work together but not distract each other. She stared at the brown eyes pleading with her from the canvas, asking what she had done to make Nita run away.

The painting Mathieu had given her rested against the wall behind them, the picture still facing away. Nita knew it wasn’t something he would ever want to display in his home, but she wasn’t ready to part with it. It was the thing that had led her to Mathieu, and that seemed worth saving.

Nita gestured toward the canvas. “Will you tell me her story?”

Mathieu exhaled sharply. She was sure he was going to dismiss her question like he had the times she’d tried to broach it before. Nita had never pushed too hard because she felt the weight of her own secrets that she wasn’t ready to share with him.

Today, however, Mathieu peeked out from behind the easel and nodded. He stood up, took her hand, and led her to the couch. She sat with erect posture, bracing herself for whatever he was going to say.

“She was my first love,” he said with a sigh and wistful smile. “You never forget your first.”

Nita realized she’d never had a first love, at least not in the way he meant it. She’d had a husband, but that was different. She wondered if the way she felt about Mathieu was love. She had nothing to compare it to but suspected that it wasn’t. At least not yet. And she didn’t know if it would be someday. She hadn’t grown up dreaming of romantic love for another person. Her parents did not have it. She hadn’t had it with Rajiv. Her friends hadn’t had it with their husbands. It wasn’t sought after in her community the way it was in France or in Hollywood movies. Nita had assumed she would go her entire life and not have that kind of love, but she didn’t mind because she’d never longed for it. The love she had seen in India was the love for one’s child.

That love seemed universal, no matter where a person was from. She’d seen it in Paris as much as she had in Ahmedabad. Her parents had shown her that kind of love, and she’d never questioned whether they would sacrifice every ounce of themselves for her. Nita had wanted to feel that love for Sophie. Rajiv had it. Year after year, she saw it expanding in him like an unhindered banyan tree, its branches and leaves reaching farther with each passing season, and she did not know how she could get to that same place.

She looked at Mathieu, waiting for him to continue.

“We met when I was twenty-six and she was a mere twenty-one. She was so innocent, and seeing life through her eyes gave me and my art a renewed sense of purpose. We fell in love instantly and planned the rest of our lives together. She made me feel true joy for the first time in my life. It’s an interesting feeling, you know. Joy. It’s completely surrendering yourself to a place from which you can only fall. There is no better place than joy, but it escapes us all at some point. And after joy comes pain. Toujours. I would have pledged my life to her. Non, I did pledge my life to her. But her family wanted more for her than a starving artist. She was to be with a lawyer or banker or investor. Her family did not want her to have the struggling life she would have had with me. And it turned out after several years, the romantic sheen had worn off for her, as well. You know,” he said, running a hand over his head, “that is a genuine pain. Realizing you are not enough for someone after you have revealed your true self to that person. Such a thing will haunt every fiber of your being for the rest of your life.”