The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(54)

She feared becoming homeless or worse. Maybe she’d already become worse. Rajiv was offering her a way out. A step back into the comfort she was born to have. It was February 17, and their anniversary was on April 8. In less than two months, she could go to him and erase everything she had done since August. Her thoughts bounced from one to another with the quickness of a shuttlecock until she let a restless sleep overtake her.



The next day, she awoke to Simon rummaging around in the kitchen. The smell of coffee tickled her nose, and she rose, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, a drastic change from the drab, dreary, overcast weather of the last couple days.

Simon set a steaming mug on the small table next to the couch. “Thought you could use some of this after a night on that rickety sofa.”

Nita adjusted her shoulders a couple times, trying to work out the knots that had formed during the night.

Simon laughed. “You should have taken me up on my offer to sleep on the bed.”

Nita smiled. “I could certainly not impose on you more than I already have.”

“It’s nothing. Really.” He sat at the small bistro table near the couch. “I grabbed a couple croissants from the bakery downstairs, so hopefully you won’t mind taking just one more thing. I certainly don’t need to be eating both!” He patted his trim stomach, and Nita knew he would need to eat an entire truck of pastries before he would be in jeopardy of needing to lose weight.

Her stomach rumbled, and she gladly took one from the thin white paper sack, which was dotted with grease spots where the butter had soaked through. “I promise I will go after this.”

“There’s no rush.”

“Thank you. But I must go get my things so I no longer have it hanging over my head.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

She wanted to scream yes, beg him to go and get them for her, but she had to do this herself. She couldn’t put Simon between her and Mathieu any more than she already had.

“I have to do this myself,” she said, determined.

“Do you want to come back here after?”

She had spent the better part of the night trying to figure out what would happen to her “after.” The best she could come up with was that she’d take her share of the money she and Mathieu had stashed in the kitchen and then go back to Le Canard Volant. She would start over. She had done it once before and survived, and now she needed to do it again. Maybe this would be the turning point she needed. It would get her out of posing nude for Julien, something that still made her feel ashamed each time she did it. She was hopefully wiser, spoke more French, understood more customs, and would be able to make fewer mistakes this time around. And she knew that if things hadn’t picked up by April, she could go to Rajiv and beg him to take her back to Ahmedabad with him.

“No, I think it’s time I get back to what I came to Paris to do in the first place.”

Simon looked at her painting behind him. “I understand why you feel that way. But you have a friend no matter what you do.”

Nita embraced him tightly as she said goodbye. “Americans hug,” he’d said to her as their friendship had developed, but the act had always seemed too intimate. She had struggled even getting used to giving and receiving bisous, but today she clung to him like the life raft he had truly been for her.





35


SOPHIE


2019


The next morning, the Saint-Paul metro station is teeming with people rushing to their jobs or errands, but Sophie has no trouble spotting Manoj leaning against the wall of a clothing boutique just north of the stairway leading underground to the station. There are several lanes of cars heading west as she waits for the light to change so she can cross the street to meet him.

They awkwardly say hello, and then he takes the scrap of paper on which she has written the address and starts walking away from the metro station. Sophie quickly follows. Within a few minutes they arrive in front of the address on Rue Elzévir. A turquoise set of double doors greets them with a panel to the left with buzzers for the apartments. Sophie looks back at the address on the paper and doesn’t see an apartment number.

“I’m not sure which one,” she says to Manoj.

The names on the call box are no help to her because the only one she would recognize would be Shah, and it is obviously not there.

He leans past her and buzzes the first name before Sophie can put out a hand to stop him. “We start with one until someone lets us in, no? This is how deliveries get made.”

It is as good a plan as any other. It is not until the third apartment Manoj tries that someone responds. He asks to be let in, and the next sound is of an electric buzzer allowing them to push through the heavy doors and enter a dark hallway. There are ten mailboxes against the wall for the residents. It appears there are only two units per floor. They make their way up the first narrow flight of winding stairs, and Manoj continues walking to the next floor.

“Why not try these doors?” Sophie gestures toward the two apartments on the first floor.

“Those were the two that didn’t answer just now. The buzzers go in order of the apartments.” He continues up to the second floor.

She realizes how useful his help is and is grateful he’s offered to lend it to her. She would never have been aware of these local norms.