The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(47)

Nita finally found the strength to move and turned around to face him.

She could only eke out one word.

“Mathieu?”

The expression on her face conveyed everything else she couldn’t say at that moment.

He made eye contact with her for the second time that night, this time without having his face pressed between another woman’s legs. His eyes seemed to be asking what she was so upset about and suggesting she was overreacting.

Nita’s hands clenched into fists. She put aside the Indian instinct she had been raised with to not speak out and found her words.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” She stomped toward him, fists balled so tightly that her fingernails almost pierced half moons into her skin.

He placed the corkscrew on the counter.

“Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas chez toi?” he asked her. What’s wrong with you?

“Me? Me?!” Her body began to shake. “You just had your dick and tongue and whatever else inside of that—that—thing, and you are asking what’s wrong with me!?”

“Ma chérie, it is not what you think,” he said, adopting the sweet voice he had used with her when they first met. A voice she now identified as the act that it had been when she had first heard it.

Her eyes widened at the thought of him trying to explain away something she had literally witnessed minutes earlier. He came around the kitchen counter and moved toward her. She folded her arms across her chest, taking a step back.

“Ma chérie, she is the dealer I use,” he said, as if this served as a fine explanation.

Nita shrugged him off as he tried to caress her arm.

“What difference does that make?”

Mathieu tilted his head down, gazing at her through his long thick lashes. His best attempt at an innocent puppy look. “We have worked out an arrangement. This way I don’t need to pay her for our drugs, and everyone is happy.”

Nita felt the walls closing in on her. She brushed past him toward the front door to create more distance.

“Our drugs? Our drugs? When did I ever say I wanted any drugs? And when did you ever say that you were trading sex for pills?”

Mathieu shrugged. “Il n’y a pas assez d’argent. Je pensais que cela pourrait être un bon compromis.” There is not enough money. I thought this would be a good compromise.

“Compromise? Compromise? You are having sex with someone else! How can you do that?” Tears began to prick her eyes, but she did not want to give him the satisfaction.

“It does not mean anything. It was easier than having to find the money.”

“You thought those pills were so damned important that you should whore yourself out to have them?”

The sweet look on Mathieu’s face while he was trying to curry her favor vanished. In its place was the dark, emotionless expression she had seen when she first opened the bedroom door that night.

He narrowed his eyes and focused his gaze on her. “I’m not the only whore in this room.”

Nita’s eyes widened at his insult.

Mathieu took a small step closer to her. “Funny that someone who takes her clothes off and lets people paint her for money has such high morals.”

A tiny gasp escaped Nita’s lips, as if she had been slapped. Her mind started racing, and she felt like she could not breathe. She wanted to hurl an insult at him that would hurt him as much as he had hurt her, but she was still reeling from what he had said to her. Mostly because part of her agreed with him. She hated who she had become. She did think she had demeaned herself, but she didn’t know a way out. And she never forgot that he had led her down that path. If he hadn’t, might she have returned home to Rajiv and Sophie? Might she have spared herself all the shame she now felt whenever she saw her reflection in a mirror? She grabbed her coat and purse, still damp from the rain, and opened the door.

The anger in her face had receded, replaced by hurt and sadness, the tears now dangerously close to sliding down her cheeks. “I don’t know who you are,” she said.

“Je m’en fous.” I don’t give a fuck.

To herself she thought, I don’t know who I am.

She turned away so he wouldn’t see her pain and closed the apartment door behind her.





29


SOPHIE


2019


Sophie leaves Taj Palace around ten thirty that night, and, despite Manoj’s warning, goes straight to Bistro Laurent. By the time she arrives at the small street in the second arrondissement, close to eleven, she realizes she is among the few people still walking the streets that late on a weeknight. Perhaps she should have waited until the morning. The soles of her shoes against the sidewalk ring out into the empty night. She pulls her shawl tighter around her and keeps her head down as she walks. Several of the retailers on the street, like the boulanger, p?tissier, and fromager, are closed, given the hour. Many of the cafés as well. She hears a few voices coming from Bistro Laurent and is relieved to see it is still open.

She takes a deep breath before going inside. The few patrons turn to look at her as she enters. The restaurant is quite empty, but that is not unusual for this time on a weeknight. During the day, this area would likely be bustling with wayward tourists but has more of an eerie quality at night, when it is quiet and sullen. There is a tall, wiry man in his early twenties leaning against the door to the kitchen. He wears a white half apron, so she knows he is staff and probably the best person to ask.