She went to the reception desk and flipped through some pages in the bookings ledger. She then returned with one of the oversize keys that Nita had not used in a while and a blue airmail envelope.
“It’s good that you came by,” Cecile said. “I’ve been holding this letter in case you ever did. Even told the staff to be on the lookout for an Indian woman who speaks terrible French,” she said with a playful nudge.
Nita forced a smile and small chuckle. For the slightest moment she felt herself release from the pain and anger she’d been carrying with her. She took the letter, knowing what it was without having to see the handwriting. She wasn’t ready to read it yet, though. It could say the thing she had feared most. That the tuberculosis had been real and Sophie had not survived it. She could not bear such news right then. There had been enough pain for one night.
31
SOPHIE
2019
The next afternoon, before her shift at Taj Palace, Sophie heads back to Bistro Laurent to try to find the owner. The neighborhood is lively and full of people, a stark contrast from the solitude the night before. Today, she does not feel unsafe at all, although she does keep an eye out for Manoj on his bike, expecting him to pop out from anywhere.
It is just after the lunch rush, and Bistro Laurent is still full of diners, but most appear to have finished their meals and are lingering over coffee and conversation before tackling the rest of their days.
A portly older bald man is behind the bar counter, drying some cutlery with a towel and placing it in a holder.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” he says with a warmhearted smile.
“Bonjour,” Sophie says before confirming he speaks English and is Laurent.
The man has a much kinder demeanor than the gangly server she spoke with the night before. He wipes his hands on the towel before asking how he can help her.
Sophie retrieves the photograph of Nita from her bag and offers it to Laurent. “Do you remember if she worked here?”
Laurent’s smile grows wider. “Bien s?r. I never forget a beautiful face. But I cannot recall her name. Her French was terrible, but a bit better as time went on. She was one of the first people I ever hired who was not French, but at that time, we had so many tourists who needed English servers, so it was okay.”
Sophie’s heart dances. “Nita Shah. She doesn’t still work here, does she?”
Laurent laughs. “Non, ma chérie, not for many years.”
It is the answer she had expected, but she still had not been able to stop herself from hoping for more. “Do you know how I could find her now?”
“Désolé, Mademoiselle. This job is not the type where people stay in touch after. She maybe worked here a few years before moving on.”
“Do you know where she went after?”
“When she told me she was leaving, she said she was returning home. She’d had enough of France by then, I suppose.”
Sophie processes his words. Nita had never come back to Ahmedabad. Or what if she had and had just opted to stay away from Rajiv and Sophie? Had Sophie come all this way when Nita was back in India?! It couldn’t be. Ahmedabad was far too small for someone to hide in plain sight like that. The gossip would have trickled over to her family in no time. And Sophie’s relatives on Nita’s side would surely have known if that were the case, and they had never spoken of it either. Maybe “home” had come to mean something different for Nita, but Sophie couldn’t imagine where else.
“Did she leave a forwarding address or anything? Maybe for her paychecks?”
Laurent laughs again. “I paid her cash on her last day, just like all the other times. We were not such a formal system back then. Not so many rules and regulations. Pas trop d’avocats. Pas trop de règles.” His expression suggests he preferred those times.
Sophie feels so dejected and realizes she must be wearing it on her face, because Laurent reaches out to rub her shoulder to comfort her.
“You know, my wife yells at me for hoarding all the paperwork for decades, but I think I might have her address where she lived at the time in the employee files. Wait here.”
He disappears into the kitchen, and Sophie wrings her hands in anticipation of finding another lead and praying this one is not yet another dead end. Laurent is gone for over ten minutes before the black door with the round window swings back open and he emerges victorious, waving a piece of paper.
“Nita’s employment application. It has an address. Looks to be in the Marais. Maybe the people there have a forwarding address for her.”
He hesitates with the paper in his hand and looks at Sophie. “You resemble her. She is your family, no?”
Sophie manages a smile and nods. “Many people say that.”
Laurent puts the piece of paper on the counter between them. “The laws say I should not be sharing this with you, but if I leave this old form here and you take it, I suppose there is not much I can do.” He gives Sophie a gentle smile.
She searches his eyes before grabbing the paper and clutching it to her chest. It is the best news she could have possibly expected from this small round man with the shiny head. She could hug him but holds herself back.
“Monsieur, you have been such a big help. I cannot thank you enough!”
“De rien. I’m always happy to help a pretty lady in need.” He winks at her in a good-natured, grandfatherly way, and she practically skips out of the restaurant.
32
NITA
1999
That night Nita lay in the bed in her private room at Le Canard Volant. The walls were thin, so she could hear the British girls stumble in drunkenly in the middle of the night and proceed to chatter on endlessly. Nita was relieved she had some distance between them. Rajiv’s letter lay on her stomach, still unopened. She touched the gold bangles on her wrist, trying to remember what it had felt like to be safe and secure and know exactly what the next day held. She’d been bored in that life, but right now she would have given anything to go back to being bored.
The difference between leaving Rajiv and leaving Mathieu had been that the first time she’d had a plan. Tonight, however, she’d just stormed off, and she knew she needed to go back to that apartment at least one more time, and she was more than likely to run into Mathieu when she did. But she had to brave it. She had left behind the only things that mattered: her photographs and paintings of Sophie. She could not bear to leave those, could not comprehend walking away from her daughter a second time.
The next day, she contemplated her options and concluded that even though Simon had been Mathieu’s friend first, he was the only person she could go to. With Dao out of town, he was her only real friend in the city. She walked to his apartment in the second arrondissement and hit the call button at the main door. After a harsh buzz, she heard his familiar American accent. He sounded surprised when she said who it was. She and Mathieu had stopped by Simon’s building several times, on their way either to or from a drinking bender, but she had never been inside his home.
It was a small one-bedroom apartment, nothing fancy, but vastly cleaner than the one she and Mathieu had shared. Nita had constantly tried to keep their place tidy, but with Mathieu in his funk for these past months, it was hard to maintain any order amid the chaos of his binges.