The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(9)

“I’m an artist.” Nita beamed at hearing the word leave her lips. Artist. She had been a daughter, a wife, a mummy. But never an artist.

“You’ve come to the right place, then, that’s for sure. You can’t throw a stone without hitting an artist.”

As she spent more time in Paris, Nita would learn just how right Dao had been. Nearly everyone she met was pursuing some creative passion and thought of Paris as the gateway to success. Nita joined the flock but knew her dreams would be short lived if she didn’t find work soon. Dao hadn’t lied: many shop owners narrowed their eyes at her when she inquired about jobs and demanded to see a work permit. Her rupees were dwindling more quickly than she had imagined, and, for the first time in her life, she was dependent on herself rather than her papa or husband and had nowhere to turn to get more money.



Paris was not like she had dreamed. It was more. So much more. It was the opposite of Ahmedabad in all the ways that mattered. The streets were filled with fair-skinned people who were not used to seeing others who looked like Nita and had no preconceived notions about her or how her life should be. In fact, passersby glanced down at the sidewalks, hardly noticing her or anyone else except to avoid direct collisions. In Ahmedabad, people had stared, openly and pointedly, no matter where she went. Beggars and wealthy alike would look her straight in the eyes in a way that no one seemed keen on doing in Paris. That came with the stature of coming from a prominent family, and, while she should have been grateful, all she’d ever wanted was the anonymity she felt along the cobbled Parisian streets. She did not feel judged or scrutinized. She felt invisible and realized how freeing that was.

Nita did not know a soul in this country. And she did not care. Family and friends had surrounded her for her entire life, but they had heightened her loneliness. In this sea of strangers, she finally felt at peace. She had seen so many pictures of Paris in books that she felt she had been living there for years even though she had arrived just three days ago.

Paris was a city filled with intrigue and inspiration. The Eiffel Tower took her breath away by the sheer scale of it. It was the first place she stopped. The metal structure glistened in the sun, making its presence known no matter how far a person traveled from it. She strolled along Boulevard Saint-Germain and stopped in cafés like Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore, thinking about the great artists and writers, such as Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, who had frequented them. She could not afford to spend the little money she had in those spots, but she sat on the patio of Les Deux Magots, pretending to peruse the menu before discreetly leaving without ordering anything. During those moments, she thought that perhaps one of those ingenious artists had sat in that exact place, had taken in that same view, and she took that motivation and returned to her shared room in the hostel and pulled out her paints for the first time since she had arrived in Paris. She closed her eyes and focused on the images that appeared, begging to be put to paper so the rest of the world could experience them as well. Paris was more than a city of lights. For Nita, it was a city of hope.

Her favorite part of the city thus far was the stalls along the River Seine owned by the bouquinistes. She had seen so many as she walked back from the Eiffel Tower, taking in their distinctive green, like that of foliage in a lush forest, and the clean lines they made on the walls of the river’s edge. The stalls were filled with local paintings and old used books. The musty smell she breathed in reminded her of Sophie’s schoolbooks, but she quickly pushed that thought aside. She had given up that life and needed to forget it. The occasional stall had baubles for tourists, but it was the artwork that stood out, different pieces evoking different moods and feelings. She wanted to look at them all, touch each canvas, feel the texture of the paint against her fingers. The work by each artist was so distinctive, each one telling a different story captured from a unique perspective.

She passed a stall that had some paintings of a woman who looked to be in her twenties but had thin lines near her eyes, hinting that she could be older. She was fair skinned, with watery blue eyes that conveyed a hidden depth like glacial ice, and her lips formed a thin line as if they were forced closed but intimating that she had something to share buried deep inside of her. She seemed to repress so much underneath those soft pale features. Nita connected with the subject, a reminder of her life before this. The woman’s eyes showed her story was deep and troubled and not yet over. Nita delicately flipped through the canvases, admiring the meticulous brushstrokes and marveling at how smoothly the colors had been blended, as if the artist had used watercolors rather than the opaque oil-based paint. She gingerly moved the paintings aside, hoping to piece them together like a puzzle to uncover their chronology and discover the woman’s story.

“Vous aimez ?a?” a deep male voice said from behind her.

He was so close that the tiny hairs on her neck stood up. She spun around and stared into a pair of crisp blue eyes, the left with a small jagged scar just above it. The man’s hair was cut very short against his head, like he had shaved it and it was just starting to grow back, the dark hair poking through his milky scalp.

“Vous aimez ?a?” he asked again, sweeping his hand past hers to see which canvas she had been studying.

She shook her head helplessly. “No French,” she said softly.

“Do you like it?” he asked in accented but clear English. Like so much of the city, he, too, smelled of cigarettes and coffee.