“That’s not too bad, right?” Sophie shows Manoj her finished project.
He examines it and says, “It feels a little lumpy, but it will do.”
Some behaviors are hard to change, and Manoj may never be overly friendly in the kitchen with her. She tries not to take it personally.
When they are alone in the kitchen, he asks her if she went back to Bistro Laurent.
Her eyes light up. “Yes! The owner had the address of my mummy’s apartment when she worked there. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try!”
Manoj asks her for the address and processes the location after she hands him the piece of paper.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“Is it unsafe?” she asks, thinking back to last night.
He shakes his head. “Not in terms of neighborhood, but you don’t know who lives there now. And you don’t speak French.”
He is right. Going to a restaurant meant she was likely to find someone who spoke English and could help her. Going to a person’s home is entirely another matter. She could probably use his help.
Sophie looks at him. “If you can take the time, I would be grateful for your help. Speaking of, have you talked to your papa about me assisting with the books?”
“Not yet, but I will tonight. Who knows? If we get lucky and find your mother, you might not need to work here much longer.”
Her heart swells at the possibility of finding Nita. She has so many questions and cannot wait for the answers. Seeing Nita’s face after all these years would make this crazy journey worthwhile.
“No matter what happens, I’d still like to help you both for your generosity,” she says.
Manoj avoids her comment. “It will be too late to go tonight and show up unannounced like that, but we can go tomorrow before the lunch rush here.”
34
NITA
1999
That night, Nita slept on Simon’s couch, grateful to not have to spend more of her precious francs on another night in the hostel. Cecile had always been a stickler for rules, and she would never have felt comfortable risking her job to give Nita an off-the-books bed. Nita pulled the unopened blue airmail envelope from her purse. She quietly tore away the edges, revealing Rajiv’s familiar scrawl.
January 23, 1999
Dear Nita,
Sophie’s tuberculosis has broken, and she is starting to come out on the other side. But it is clear that she needs her mummy. She asks for you every day. I will come to Paris again and wait underneath the Eiffel Tower at five in the evening on our anniversary in the hopes that you will meet me and we can return home together. I will not ask any questions of what has happened during this time, and all can be forgiven.
Rajiv
The first tears that sprang from her eyes were of joy. Sophie was okay! Relief washed over her. She felt calm and happy for the first time since she had caught Mathieu with that woman. She’d phoned her parents after receiving Rajiv’s first letter and learned that Sophie was still alive and that her parents thought she would survive. But Rajiv’s letter confirmed she was fully on the other side. Sophie was strong, and Nita was overjoyed. And then she pictured Rajiv standing beneath the Eiffel Tower, arms outstretched, telling her all was forgiven. It warmed something deep inside her to erase the pain she’d caused herself and so many others since August. But he didn’t understand how much had happened in the time since she had left. She was no longer the woman Rajiv pictured in his mind when he thought of her, and she knew it would be evident when he laid his eyes on her. She was broken and damaged in ways someone with his pure heart could not comprehend.
She rolled over and curled into a ball, the old couch squeaking as she shifted her weight. She hoped it had not disturbed Simon while he slept in the other room. Tomorrow she would go back to the apartment and gather her things. Maybe it made sense for her to go to Rajiv. She was out of money, and when she left Mathieu, she would also be out of options. She couldn’t sleep on Simon’s couch forever. She’d already heard him speaking to ?lise on the telephone in hushed tones, trying to explain that he could not see her that night. Nita could not continue to impose on him. Maybe after Dao returned, she could stay with her, but even that could last for only a short while. Nita’s ability to find jobs had not improved much since she had arrived, and all the money she was currently making came from posing for Simon or Julien, so she could not count on that income when she was no longer a part of Mathieu’s life.
She feared becoming homeless or worse. Maybe she’d already become worse. Rajiv was offering her a way out. A step back into the comfort she was born to have. It was February 17, and their anniversary was on April 8. In less than two months, she could go to him and erase everything she had done since August. Her thoughts bounced from one to another with the quickness of a shuttlecock until she let a restless sleep overtake her.
The next day, she awoke to Simon rummaging around in the kitchen. The smell of coffee tickled her nose, and she rose, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, a drastic change from the drab, dreary, overcast weather of the last couple days.
Simon set a steaming mug on the small table next to the couch. “Thought you could use some of this after a night on that rickety sofa.”
Nita adjusted her shoulders a couple times, trying to work out the knots that had formed during the night.
Simon laughed. “You should have taken me up on my offer to sleep on the bed.”
Nita smiled. “I could certainly not impose on you more than I already have.”
“It’s nothing. Really.” He sat at the small bistro table near the couch. “I grabbed a couple croissants from the bakery downstairs, so hopefully you won’t mind taking just one more thing. I certainly don’t need to be eating both!” He patted his trim stomach, and Nita knew he would need to eat an entire truck of pastries before he would be in jeopardy of needing to lose weight.
Her stomach rumbled, and she gladly took one from the thin white paper sack, which was dotted with grease spots where the butter had soaked through. “I promise I will go after this.”
“There’s no rush.”
“Thank you. But I must go get my things so I no longer have it hanging over my head.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
She wanted to scream yes, beg him to go and get them for her, but she had to do this herself. She couldn’t put Simon between her and Mathieu any more than she already had.
“I have to do this myself,” she said, determined.
“Do you want to come back here after?”
She had spent the better part of the night trying to figure out what would happen to her “after.” The best she could come up with was that she’d take her share of the money she and Mathieu had stashed in the kitchen and then go back to Le Canard Volant. She would start over. She had done it once before and survived, and now she needed to do it again. Maybe this would be the turning point she needed. It would get her out of posing nude for Julien, something that still made her feel ashamed each time she did it. She was hopefully wiser, spoke more French, understood more customs, and would be able to make fewer mistakes this time around. And she knew that if things hadn’t picked up by April, she could go to Rajiv and beg him to take her back to Ahmedabad with him.