The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(73)

“Maman, j’ai faim.”

She brought her attention back to her son, blinking and squinting to bring his features into focus.

“J’ai faim,” Vijay said again, his voice a cross between whimpering and resigned. “Tu es encore malade?” Are you sick again?

Encore. She mulled the word over in her mouth, tasting it like she could taste the metallic tinge of the heroin on her tongue.

Finally, she could muster words. “Il y a du pain sur la table.” There is some bread on the table.

Vijay shook his head. “Je l’ai mangé hier.” I ate it yesterday.

Yesterday? What day is it? she asked herself.

“Où est ton père?” Where is your father?

“Il est malade aussi. Dans le salon.” He’s sick too. In the living room.

Nita’s maternal instincts to help her son were repressed by the drugs still coursing through her system. She saw the needle she had used was just under the bed beside her. An easy target for Vijay to grab, and she could have done little to stop him in her current state. She couldn’t remember how it had gotten so bad. They only got high when Vijay was asleep so they could care for him when he woke up. That had been the rule. But she couldn’t remember if they’d followed the rule this time.

“J’arrive.” I’m coming, she said, telling herself she would close her eyes for just a moment and then go find Vijay some food. That was the last thing she remembered when she woke up again. This time the room was pitch black.

She found Vijay curled on the floor of the living room, sucking his thumb. She stumbled toward him and cradled him in her arms. Vijay did not react to her and continued sucking his thumb. Mathieu was passed out on the couch, oblivious to them. Tears slid down Nita’s face and onto Vijay’s soft brown hair.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated as she rocked back and forth with him and wept. His body felt frail and delicate, like the beggars who’d used to pass by her house in India. “I’m so sorry.”

Vijay’s stomach grumbled, and she scampered to the kitchen, throwing open the cabinets and fridge to find something to feed him. The fridge had some soft cheese that had grown mold; the milk smelled sour. The cabinets had some condiments but no real food. On the counter were stale bread crumbs from the baguette.

“Why are you making so much noise?” Mathieu grumbled from the couch.

“Because our son is starving!” she barked at him, continuing to frantically open drawers and cabinets as if some food might magically appear.

Mathieu squinted and looked around the room with one eye open until he landed on Vijay. “He’s asleep. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine! None of us are fine! He hasn’t eaten for god knows how long and doesn’t even have the energy to sit himself up.”

“Then why don’t you get him something?” Mathieu asked, his voice groggy.

“Putain! What do you think I’m doing? We have no food!” She eyed the brown paper bag that had their stash of heroin in it and flung it to the ground. “All we have are these damn drugs!”

Fresh tears sprang, and she fell to the floor. “It has to stop!” She gasped for air, but it wouldn’t come to her. She could not catch it in her mouth. Her breathing heavy and shallow, she said again, softly to herself, “It has to stop.”

While she knelt in the kitchenette, her body convulsing from her erratic breathing, she felt a small hand reach out and touch her knee. She covered it with her own hand, her gold bangles catching the light, and managed to smile at her son. “Beta, it’s going to stop. I promise.” She pulled him toward her and kissed the top of his head. “We are going home,” she said, with the fiercest of determination.

In that moment, she decided that no matter what happened to her, she had to give this innocent boy a better life. She could not do that with Mathieu. And she could not do that in France. She had to go back to Sophie and Rajiv and her parents and her life in India if she were ever going to feel whole again. She had to hope that they would take her back. That they could move past the hurt she had caused. At least in India, she had help, and Vijay could be taken care of even when she failed to do it herself. He would be warm and well fed and educated. He would have a chance at life. He deserved that. He did not deserve to suffer in the hell she had created for them.

Part of Nita had died the day she left Sophie, and the rest of her was dying now as she watched Vijay suffer because of her inability to control her own actions. She had been so broken and so lost in the depths of her mind for so much of her life. She couldn’t recall being any other way, and yet she knew the people around her—people like her parents and Rajiv—didn’t share those same struggles. She had convinced herself that she just had to find the right situation, and then she would feel the same contentedness that they felt. She had to change her circumstances and had gone to such great lengths to do it. But what she found on the other side of that was even more pain than she had known before.

It was only ten days until her anniversary with Rajiv, and she knew he would be standing at the Eiffel Tower, waiting for her, just like he had done every year since she left. Each year she had watched him from afar, but now she knew she must approach him and tell him she was ready to go back home. She had dreaded the thought of India for so long when she had first arrived, but now it felt like salvation. It felt like an escape, as much as Paris had when she had first left Ahmedabad. She had been young and immature and, above all else, selfish. She could not undo her past wrongs, but she could try to make amends in the future. If Sophie and Vijay had happy, healthy lives, then she would have done enough. She would have left the world with more good than the bad she had wreaked upon it.