Today, however, Mathieu peeked out from behind the easel and nodded. He stood up, took her hand, and led her to the couch. She sat with erect posture, bracing herself for whatever he was going to say.
“She was my first love,” he said with a sigh and wistful smile. “You never forget your first.”
Nita realized she’d never had a first love, at least not in the way he meant it. She’d had a husband, but that was different. She wondered if the way she felt about Mathieu was love. She had nothing to compare it to but suspected that it wasn’t. At least not yet. And she didn’t know if it would be someday. She hadn’t grown up dreaming of romantic love for another person. Her parents did not have it. She hadn’t had it with Rajiv. Her friends hadn’t had it with their husbands. It wasn’t sought after in her community the way it was in France or in Hollywood movies. Nita had assumed she would go her entire life and not have that kind of love, but she didn’t mind because she’d never longed for it. The love she had seen in India was the love for one’s child.
That love seemed universal, no matter where a person was from. She’d seen it in Paris as much as she had in Ahmedabad. Her parents had shown her that kind of love, and she’d never questioned whether they would sacrifice every ounce of themselves for her. Nita had wanted to feel that love for Sophie. Rajiv had it. Year after year, she saw it expanding in him like an unhindered banyan tree, its branches and leaves reaching farther with each passing season, and she did not know how she could get to that same place.
She looked at Mathieu, waiting for him to continue.
“We met when I was twenty-six and she was a mere twenty-one. She was so innocent, and seeing life through her eyes gave me and my art a renewed sense of purpose. We fell in love instantly and planned the rest of our lives together. She made me feel true joy for the first time in my life. It’s an interesting feeling, you know. Joy. It’s completely surrendering yourself to a place from which you can only fall. There is no better place than joy, but it escapes us all at some point. And after joy comes pain. Toujours. I would have pledged my life to her. Non, I did pledge my life to her. But her family wanted more for her than a starving artist. She was to be with a lawyer or banker or investor. Her family did not want her to have the struggling life she would have had with me. And it turned out after several years, the romantic sheen had worn off for her, as well. You know,” he said, running a hand over his head, “that is a genuine pain. Realizing you are not enough for someone after you have revealed your true self to that person. Such a thing will haunt every fiber of your being for the rest of your life.”
Nita pondered his words. Every culture had its own caste system. There was always a hierarchy, and people were compared to one another to determine where one fell. This girl’s parents had wanted the same thing for their daughter as Nita’s parents had wanted for her. Rajiv had been their safe choice. Nita would never have even thought of ending up with someone like Mathieu if she were still in India. She didn’t even know where a man who lived for his own whims and pursued passion for passion’s sake would exist. Certainly, outside of her upper-caste community, in which people were born to fit into a limited number of molds.
But she understood not feeling like enough. Understood that part too well. With Rajiv and Sophie, she had known her heart was somewhere else when it needed to be with them. She always knew there was more of her to give that she was holding back. She knew she wanted more from her life than what they had to offer. And she knew she was more selfish than they realized. That she would do whatever it took to get that life she dreamed of. And, for that, she knew they deserved better. She wondered if it was this common feeling that had drawn her and Mathieu together. Maybe they saw in each other the pain of knowing they had not been enough for the people who loved them.
“I know what you mean,” Nita said. “But I think you can’t carry that pain through the rest of your life. At some point, we must let it go and realize that even if we had not been enough in the past, there is still a chance to be enough in the future.”
Mathieu nodded. “This is true. But letting go is easier said than done. And I suspect you know that all too well.” He gestured toward her painting. “Who is she?”
Until then, Nita had always shrugged him off. She couldn’t bring herself to be dismissive, but she also didn’t want to tell him the truth. But given what he’d shared, she knew she had to say something.
“She’s my niece.” Her voice caught on the lie, but she regained her composure. “I miss her sometimes. Often, actually. Children have a strange way of getting under your skin like that.”
He nodded.
“You don’t speak about your family much. It’s understandable. Families are complicated. You want your own?” He lit a cigarette, the end burning bright red until it settled into a steady stream of smoke.
“What?”
“Children.” He inhaled slowly.
Even though she knew what he meant, it still shocked her to hear it. Of course not! I have a child . . . that I left behind. It’s clear I am a terrible mother and should never be one again.
“I just need my paints,” she said softly.
He leaned closer to her on the couch, placing his hand on her thigh. “Perhaps I shall convince you to have a little more than paints.” His eyes glimmered as he pressed his hips against her leg so she could feel his hardness.
She pulled away. “I don’t want children,” she said with more force than she’d intended.
“Okay, okay,” he said, pulling back with a smile, his cigarette dangling in that familiar precarious way. “I was just joking.”
That’s exactly the problem, she thought. Children are not something to be joked about. They were the most serious thing that could happen in one’s life. Children highlighted every trait you lacked. And if you were not meant to be a parent, they stole your spirit in a way you could never get back.
That night, when she and Mathieu had sex, she felt him being harder and more aggressive. Almost like he had the same urgency as the first night, when it had felt primal rather than sensual. There was none of his usual foreplay.
Tonight, he kissed her so hard that his teeth bumped against hers, and, before she even realized it, he was inside of her. Within minutes, he had finished, and rolled onto his back, not caressing the inside of her leg like he usually did while catching his breath and not checking that she had been satisfied too.
He couldn’t possibly be upset about her comments about children. He was a man in his late thirties who spent most of his time drunk or high to “focus” on his artistic passions. In Nita’s mind it was understood that a man like that did not want the responsibility of a child. It would change his entire life in a way that he seemed ill equipped to handle.
He lit a joint and took a puff before passing it to her. She didn’t comment on the roughness of the way he had taken her and accepted the cigarette, taking a few deep inhales before passing it back. She had the urge to rub the soreness between her legs but didn’t want him to know he had hurt her. Instead, she curled into a ball, facing away from him, and told him she was tired tonight and couldn’t go another round later.