“Just as well,” Cecile said evenly. “Best to make the man wait for me.” She had a date with someone she had met earlier that week. “Do I look okay?” She puckered her red lips into a faux-seductive look.
“Très chic!” Nita said, her French becoming more natural as she moved into her fourth month in France.
Cecile started to walk toward the door and then stopped and slapped her forehead. She turned around and gestured toward a drawer in the back of the reception desk. “Ooh, là là! I almost forgot. There is a letter for you. I put it in the locked drawer.” She then turned and pushed the door open, letting a gust of cool air enter the reception area and tickle Nita’s skin.
Nita unlocked the drawer and found a blue airmail envelope. The return address was her former home in Ahmedabad. The handwriting was Rajiv’s.
December 9, 1998
Dear Nita,
I pray this letter reaches you. I have spent the last four months trying to find you. I’m not sure what has happened to you, but all can be forgiven. Sophie misses you. She has taken ill and contracted tuberculosis. I try to soothe her, but I fear that she needs you more than me. You are her mummy. If you tell me where you are, I will send money for you to come home. You need not come for me, but please come for her.
Rajiv
Nita read the words a dozen more times. She would have kept reading if the bell hadn’t interrupted her when the front door opened and a guest walked in, laden with a large backpack and that weary look that came from lengthy international travel. The woman was an American who had come to Paris from Phoenix. Nita was not sure where that was but hurried to check the woman into her room and give her a key.
She read the letter again. The words burned right through her as if the paper was white hot. Sophie was sick. She had to go back. How could she let her baby suffer? Oddly, in her time away, she had developed more maternal instincts for Sophie than she had ever felt before. The absence of her daughter now created a hole in her heart that she feared could never be filled, but when she had been in India, Nita had felt Sophie was a chain forcing her to stay in a prison she could no longer bear. The truth was that were it not for Sophie, Nita would have left Rajiv and their life much sooner. The marriage had never felt right to her because it had never been her choice. She suspected Rajiv knew that as well, given how he had always handled her delicately, like approaching a goat on the street that he did not want to spook. But now, the thought of Sophie suffering nearly brought Nita to her knees, and she would have happily sat by Sophie’s bedside and stroked her hair.
The American girl from Phoenix came back to the reception area and asked where the closest sundry shop was, and Nita quickly directed her.
As the girl exited and the door closed behind her, Nita knew she had to pull herself together. What if it’s not even true? she asked herself. Maybe this was Rajiv’s way of cajoling her into coming back home and Sophie was actually fine. She could see his eldest sister encouraging him to come up with such a ruse. Vaishali had always been cunning and domineering like that, and she had never cared for Nita. Nita’s mind and stomach were churning, and it was easier to settle on thinking this was a hoax designed to bring her home. The most troubling part was that Rajiv had managed to send a letter to her at the hostel. He knew where she was. She must have been careless with the last letter she’d sent to him, and it must have had something on it that had pointed him to the hostel. She’d asked Cecile to drop it in the mail and had been careful to not leave any return address. Had Cecile seen the missing information on the front and filled it in before sending it? Nita could envision Cecile trying to be helpful in that way and realized she should have handled the task herself. Rajiv could show up any day and drag her back. Did she really have any power to stop him from doing that? She was his wife still. And if that happened, she would never see Mathieu again. She’d likely never paint again. Surely Rajiv would not allow her to fill her mind with dreams and ideas again. She pictured the prison she’d return to if she ever went back, and banished the thought. She could not do it. And she had to make sure he couldn’t find her here. As staunchly as she tried to convince herself that the contents of the letter were a lie, she couldn’t push away the feeling that maybe they weren’t. She brought her palms together, bent her head, and began praying to the gods to protect Sophie above all else.
19
SOPHIE
2019
When Sophie returns to Le Canard Volant, she asks Cecile if she can use the phone for a collect call. She can hear Sharmila Foi’s voice in the background even while the operator is asking if she will accept the charges.
“Sophie?” she asks.
Sophie cannot answer. She thought this was the right decision, but now she is not so sure. Can she really go home without learning the truth about Nita?
“Sophie? Beta, where have you gone? Come home. We are worried sick,” her foi says.
Still Sophie is unable to speak. She knows Papa would want her to go back to her old life, and she had convinced herself it was the right decision, given the low probability of finding what she had come to France for, but she is not ready yet. And her old life is no more. She is as alone there as she is in this new country, so why not finish what she came to Paris to do so she can close this chapter without any doubts?
“I’m sorry, Foi,” Sophie says. She inhales deeply, not realizing she had been holding her breath. “I’m okay. I will be coming back soon.”
“Beta, come home, and we can help you. Whatever is happening, we can resolve it.”
She cannot leave them wondering where she is and if she is safe. It is not how Papa raised her.
Sophie closes her eyes, thinking back to her sheltered life in India. “I’m in Paris.”
There is silence on the other end. Sophie can feel that her foi has heard this answer before, more than twenty years earlier.
“Why have you gone there?” Sharmila Foi eventually croaks out.
“Foi, I found the letters.”
“What letters?” Her voice is measured.
“That Mummy sent to Papa,” Sophie answers.
Silence. And then a heavy sigh.
“Rajiv did everything he could to protect you from that shame,” Sharmila Foi says. Her tone is heavy, but Sophie can also hear a trace of relief in it. The past is no longer hidden.
“I need to find her. Especially now.”
“And have you?” she asks.
“Not yet.”
“Sophie, I know you are going through a hard time, but Nita left decades ago and has not looked back. She did not want to maintain contact with our family. She even did not want to have contact with hers. Can you imagine? Casting aside her mummy and papa, who were disgraced and heartbroken by her actions. They said the last time they ever spoke to her was after Rajiv told her you had tuberculosis in the months after she left. She called them in the middle of the night asking if you were healthy, but did she come back? No, she got her answers and never spoke to them again.”
Sophie remembers being sick at that time. She recalls the worry on Papa’s face as he pressed a warm, damp cloth against her chest and face to try to soothe her. Even at that age, she could tell he wasn’t sure what to do and wished Nita were there to help. Sophie knows the point of Sharmila Foi’s example is to make her hate Nita and come home, but Sophie hears something different. Sophie hears that her mummy called to find out if Sophie was okay.