The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(44)

With the drizzle turning into actual rain droplets and foot traffic stopping almost entirely, Nita decided to close the stall and share the good news with Mathieu. Even in his funk, she thought he would be able to appreciate this milestone in her artistic career.

As she walked along the river, passing other bouquinistes who were closing their shops as well, she couldn’t help but smile at each of them. Having made her first sale, she felt like she now had a silent bond with the others who trudged out daily and earned their living selling art and wares along the Seine. She was now one of them, and it felt amazing.

As she neared their apartment in the Marais, she stopped in a local wine merchant and bought a bottle of Bordeaux so she and Mathieu could celebrate. She recognized a label that Mathieu had purchased before and handed the cashier fifty-four francs from the cash she had just received. This was the first bottle of wine she had ever purchased, and she realized that she was starting to become more French. Back in India, if things had been tight with finances, it would never even have occurred to her to spend some of her money on something frivolous, like a celebratory drink. Her family was far too practical for that. But here, she focused on living in the present and didn’t worry about how the future would unfold.

She shook the rain off her coat before entering the apartment and hanging it on the hook behind their front door. She pulled the wine out of the now damp brown paper sack and could not wait to share her news with Mathieu. She heard some rustling in the bedroom, so at least she knew he was awake. That was a step in the right direction. Certainly, seeing the Bordeaux would help motivate him at least from the bed to the living area, where they could toast to her success. The French were far too civilized to drink wine in bed. She made her way to the bedroom with the bottle in hand, hoping this was going to be a turning point for them and both would focus on their art again and Mathieu would get back to being his old self.

She pushed open the bedroom door and saw Mathieu’s face buried between the legs of a tattooed blonde girl who arched her head back while she moaned in pleasure.





27


SOPHIE


2019


She arrives at Taj Palace just after five in the evening and immediately heads to the kitchen, dons an apron, and ties back her hair so it is away from her face. Today, it is only Manoj with her.

She is anxious and agitated because she would rather be at Bistro Laurent but washes her hands and then approaches him. “What can I do to help?”

Manoj barely looks up from the haricots verts he is expertly chopping into bite-size pieces, his knife moving quickly back and forth in a rocking motion. He has a deftness in his work that Sophie admires. She is finding she enjoys cooking here under Manoj’s tutelage much more than she had the cooking lessons that her fois had barked at her to prepare her for her marriage to Kiran. Those lessons had been forced, whereas these felt earned.

“You could get started on the cucumber and tomato.”

Sophie glances at the counter behind Manoj and sees a pile of cucumbers and tomatoes that need to be washed, seeded, and chopped for the kachumber salad. She has been on salad duty since Naresh Uncle hired her. Manoj kept the real cooking within his control, still not fully accepting the arrangement of having Sophie join him in the kitchen. Occasionally when Naresh Uncle was around, Manoj had her make some rotlis or naan, but even those tasks were easy to master.

“Do you ever take a night off?” Sophie asks him while she prepares the salad.

Manoj laughs. “I need to be here.”

“When do you find time to see your friends?”

“Here and there. I’m more of a loner, anyway. Growing up, we really focused on the family.” He glances over his shoulder at her in a way that makes clear he thinks of her as an outsider.

Sophie can relate to prioritizing family over friends. Papa was her world, and everything else had come second.

“Was it strange growing up here?” she asks him.

He shrugs. “No, why would it be?”

Sophie puts her knife down and turns to face him. “It’s a different country, different language. It must be strange, no?”

“Not to me. It’s the country I was born in and the language I grew up with.”

“But there are so few Indian people! It’s not odd to you?”

He shrugs again. “What would be odd to me is being around only Indian people.”

Sophie turns back to chopping the tomatoes. She wonders if Nita had felt the same way as Manoj and that’s why she decided to leave. Ahmedabad has millions of people, all of them Indian. The diversity in Ahmedabad seems based on caste alone, and other than the handful of servants that cross her path, even caste differences are not a part of her daily life. Sophie has never thought twice about it, but perhaps there are people who crave more differences in the people around them.

“Have you ever been to India?” she asks.

Manoj shakes his head. “Papa went back about ten years ago, when his papa passed away. I had never met my grandparents, so it didn’t make sense for me to go with him. Besides, someone needed to stay back and keep an eye on the restaurant.” He gestures around him and then heads to the small pantry in the back to gather some spices for the shaaks, seemingly not interested in continuing the conversation.

Sophie cannot imagine a life in which she had never met her grandparents or relatives. Even if her fois drive her mad, they are family, and she can’t fathom her childhood without them. Her entire existence had revolved around family until she came to France last week.