She thought about leaving, but where would she go? And what would leaving accomplish in the end? She reminded herself that she had never dreamed of romantic love, so why did it matter that it seemed Mathieu was no longer interested in that? She simply needed a roof over her head and an ability to further her art. Still, it gnawed at her that he had given her a taste of something that made her rethink whether she should want romantic love only to take it away from her when she began to consider that perhaps she might want it. But then she reminded herself of the karma she had created when she abandoned her husband and daughter. Maybe now she was finally getting what she deserved.
“Mon cher, it’s been a few days since you have opened your stall. Perhaps today is a good day to see if anyone is shopping for art,” she said gently on a chilly morning in mid-February.
“People have no taste these days,” he mumbled from beneath the covers.
“Then you must show them what is good taste.” She lowered the covers enough to reveal his unshaven face, some white whiskers mixed in with the darker ones.
He squinted against the daylight in the room. His eyes drooped from the drugs he had taken the night before. His face was gaunt, like the beggars who had used to come along the outer wall of the bungalow she had shared with Rajiv.
“I can’t be bothered today. I’m not feeling well.” He whined like a sick child.
Given his mood swings lately, Nita was afraid to press him, but she had also counted the cash they kept in the kitchen drawer, and it was dwindling quickly.
“It might make you feel better to get out of the apartment for a little while,” she said.
“I doubt it.”
As gently as she could, she said, “Mon cher, we are running low on money, and we could really use some sales.”
His face darkened. “Why is it my job to make the money?”
Remaining calm, she said, “I’m doing my best to earn what I can, but it is not enough.”
His eyes fixated on her left arm, and he was silent for a few moments. “We could sell those fancy bracelets you wear. They’re real gold and diamonds, right? Seems that would go a long way.”
She took a step back and instinctively covered her bangles to protect them. Her mouth fell open, but no sound came out. She could never part with them. No matter how bad things were. They were her last piece of home. Her last piece of her family. Her last piece of who she had been before she came to Paris and met Mathieu and started a life that was so different from the one she had dreamed of for so long.
“See,” he said, “you want to complain about money but aren’t willing to do everything to get it for us. If you want the stall open so badly, why don’t you go and do it? You have legs and know how to unlock it, just like I do.”
She was no longer surprised by his harsh words, and instead of fighting back she decided to take him up on his suggestion. There was no reason she couldn’t go try to sell some of his paintings.
She looked at the lump under the covers that she had become entirely dependent upon in this new life she had built—one far worse than what she’d had in India. She wondered if she was destined to always be at a man’s mercy. She had never seen such darkness in Rajiv as she was now seeing in Mathieu. Maybe that was what bound them together. She could not look in the mirror anymore because the person she saw was too disappointing. She recognized her image but felt her insides had hardened in ways she couldn’t even have dreamed were possible six months ago. The worst part was that given how quickly it all happened, she knew that this darkness had been living inside of her all along. It was that thought that kept her away from Sophie. She could not taint her daughter. So, at whatever cost, she had to make this life she’d built with Mathieu work somehow.
As she was buttoning her winter coat to head out, she saw some of the canvases she had done of Sophie and decided to take a few of them with her to get some feedback from passersby. She felt she was improving, but the true test would be if a stranger connected with her work. She craved the feedback because if she wasn’t improving and wasn’t becoming the artist she had dreamed of, then she had sacrificed so much for so little. She couldn’t bear for that to be her life’s story, so she needed to do everything she could to rewrite it.
The day was especially chilly, and Nita used a paper cup of hot coffee to warm her fingers through her gloves. The sky was overcast, with a light drizzle trickling down periodically. The sun was nowhere in sight, so Nita knew she’d have to stomach the cold for as long as she could before giving up and closing the stall again. She’d been there for three hours, and a few tourists had stopped in and idly perused a few of the canvases before scurrying off in search of a café or bistro to escape the weather.
She had kept her canvases of Sophie in a stack next to where she sat, eyeing them periodically, both hoping people would notice the work and not wanting to share Sophie with anyone else. She buried her face in a French children’s book she had borrowed from the stall next door so she could practice her French while waiting for customers.
“Well, well,” she heard a familiar voice say. “Mathieu, you get better looking every day.”
She looked up and saw Simon nearing her, his arm comfortably around a pretty girl with dark hair, fair skin, and high cheekbones. She was very petite, and he stood easily a head taller than her.
Nita felt awkward exchanging bisous with him in front of his girlfriend but managed to shake it off and exchange them quickly with her as well.
“This is ?lise,” Simon said, cupping her hand in his. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling even as he said her name. His dark-green eyes beamed as he looked down at ?lise through his thick lashes.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Nita said to her.
“Toi aussi,” she said, and then in her cute, accented English added, “Simon speaks of you and Mathieu often.”
“Speaking of,” Simon said, “why does he have you taking over business for him?”
Nita pictured her disheveled boyfriend, who couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed and earn money that they desperately needed. “I thought it would be fun for me to try today,” she said, keeping her voice breezy.
“You picked one of the coldest days in the year to try!” ?lise said.
Simon added, “No kidding. You should’ve waited till spring!”
“It’s not so bad,” Nita said. “I just wish more customers were out and about.”
Simon’s eyes fell to the stack of paintings of Sophie near Nita’s stool. “What have we got here?” He began flipping through the canvases, pulling them out and holding them up to get a better look at them.
Nita averted her gaze to the sidewalk. “Oh, nothing,” she said softly. “Just some things I’ve been working on as practice.”
Simon whistled. “Nita, these are great. Has Mathieu seen them?”
She nodded.
“Don’t tell him I said this, but you need to be selling these instead of the same tired paintings he’s had in this stall for years.” Simon held up one of Sophie seated at a vanity with Nita behind her. The child used an oversize brush against her small head. Her expression was questioning, as if she weren’t sure if she was doing it correctly but wanted Nita’s approval from the reflection in the mirror.