Nita respected his privacy and went back to people watching. She was happy that he had met someone. He deserved to be with someone special, and she could tell by the way he approached the conversation that this woman already had a place in Simon’s heart. It would only be a matter of time before Mathieu and Nita would meet her. Of that, Nita was sure.
Today was one of those rare moments in which she was living the life in Paris of which she had dreamed. She had spent the day working on a painting and then posing for Simon’s classes, which had become like free art lessons, given how much she absorbed from him and the other students. Now, she was sitting in a café at which she had become a regular with a view of Notre-Dame, watching the myriad of people passing by on the street. She would go home to a man who devoured her mind and body with the same fervor. She hoped that in this moment, Rajiv and Sophie were as at peace in Ahmedabad as Nita was in Paris.
23
SOPHIE
2019
Naresh Uncle had been kind enough to give Sophie an advance on her wages, so she has been able to secure a room at Le Canard Volant beyond the couple nights that Cecile was able to help her with in the beginning. She is now sharing a room with five other girls and is surprised by how many people she’s met at the hostel who have come to Paris to pursue creative endeavors, whether they be art, writing, or food. She has never had such dreams or ideals and cannot recall her friends in India having those types of impractical ambitions either. Her friends enjoy dancing or cooking or art as hobbies, but none would consider stepping outside the confines of their prescribed lives to leave Ahmedabad and pursue such an uncertain career, giving up the comfortable and privileged lives into which they were born. This desire for a life beyond the one you were given seems far more Western than Eastern in her mind, and she does not fully understand it. It seems much simpler to fall in line with what is planned for you, especially when you are given so much as part of it, but she now realizes it is easy to be content when you are born into the upper caste. Clearly Nita felt differently and must have had some part of that Western idealism inside of her to have chosen the path she did.
While Sophie sits in Le Comptoir, perusing the menu with so many foreign words, she wonders why she had the misfortune of ending up with a mummy who was such a rare exception to the Indian rules. She is in the café where Cecile mentioned Nita and her friends used to spend time all those years ago, and Sophie can tell that, like many of the places she has seen while walking around the city, it has not changed much in the twenty years since Nita would have come here. Indian cities are constantly striving to modernize and adapt to stay relevant, Ahmedabad included, but Parisians seem to favor tradition, and for that Sophie is grateful because it heightens her chances. The café has small chairs with rounded red padded backs against dark-brown wood frames. Between sets of chairs are small bistro tables. The patrons seem mostly French, which Sophie finds surprising, given the café’s proximity to Notre-Dame.
Sophie scans the room for someone who looks old enough to have worked there when Nita would have first arrived but has not seen anyone of that age yet, so she chooses a small corner table with a clear view of the employees going back and forth to the kitchen. A lanky, dark-haired waiter who appears to be younger than Sophie arrives, and she manages to order a tea for herself, but she is unsure of the flavor she selected, given her inability to converse with the young man. He brings a small metal pot with steaming water and a tea bag wrapped in a paper pouch with a medley of flowers on it. Sophie is not used to the tea in France, which is more herbal and floral than the spicy, bold chai she grew up drinking. Papa had his chai twice a day, and she could set her watch by it: seven thirty in the morning after his yoga, prayers, and meditation, and then again at four o’clock in the afternoon. Sophie adopted his tea habit, but she is more flexible on this trip to France because she has less control over her schedule.
Finally, she sees an elderly man cross through the swinging door and take a seat on a barstool behind the back counter. He walks with the comfort of someone who has spent most of his life in this bistro and considers it a second home.
Sophie reaches into her purse and pulls out the photo she showed Cecile when she first arrived. She carries it with her everywhere.
“Excusez-moi, Monsieur,” she says as she approaches him.
He is wiping the plastic-encased menus with a damp white rag and looks up at her, waiting for her to continue.
“Do you speak English?” she asks, her eyes pleading that the answer be yes.
He nods, and Sophie lets out the breath she has been holding.
In a small voice, Sophie says, “I’m looking for someone who used to spend time here many years ago, and maybe she still does, but I am wondering if you happen to know her.”
Sophie hands over the photograph, and the man wipes his hands on the white kitchen towel tucked into his black trousers before taking it from her.
He shakes his head. “She is quite beautiful, but it is hard for me to say.” He gestures around the room. “So many people come every day.”
“This is an old photo,” Sophie offers. “She would be about twenty years older than in this.” Her voice trails off at the end, like she is asking rather than telling.
The man shakes his head. “I could hardly recall someone I met yesterday and certainly could not guess what age would do to a person.”
Sophie’s shoulders slump. Even though she knows this search is a long shot, dead ends are disappointing all the same. Perhaps the universe is also reminding her that if Nita wanted to be found, then she would have made it easy. Sophie and Rajiv had lived in the same house with the same phone number since Nita left, as did all their other relatives in India. Finding them would have required no effort, and the fact that she had never reached out to Sophie is difficult to swallow. But Sophie pushes past those thoughts because things are different now that Papa is gone, and surely Nita would want to know that. Surely Nita would want to help her daughter, if only Sophie could find her.
24
NITA
1999
Nita’s art had so consistently gravitated toward Sophie that Mathieu pressed her on who the girl was one day.
“She haunts you, I can see.” He lazed on the couch in the apartment they now shared. “Just like the woman in my paintings.”
Nita sat on a stool in front of an easel in the area that used to serve as their dining nook. The small table had now been pushed against the wall to make room for the makeshift studio the two of them used when painting at home. Two easels stood back to back so that they could work together but not distract each other. She stared at the brown eyes pleading with her from the canvas, asking what she had done to make Nita run away.
The painting Mathieu had given her rested against the wall behind them, the picture still facing away. Nita knew it wasn’t something he would ever want to display in his home, but she wasn’t ready to part with it. It was the thing that had led her to Mathieu, and that seemed worth saving.
Nita gestured toward the canvas. “Will you tell me her story?”
Mathieu exhaled sharply. She was sure he was going to dismiss her question like he had the times she’d tried to broach it before. Nita had never pushed too hard because she felt the weight of her own secrets that she wasn’t ready to share with him.