“I think she had a hard time with all of it. Being here and away from home, that is. Mathieu started off as a savior to her but quickly became a warden of sorts. She felt trapped with him but also felt like she had nowhere to go and maybe like she deserved to be in that bad place. Karma and whatnot. Still, after she got pregnant, she tried to clean up her act, but it was a hard thing to do when Mathieu always had drugs around and was high, and the baby was colicky, and sometimes she was so tired from working and caring for him that she just needed to slip into oblivion for a short while before picking it up and doing it all over again.” Dao’s eyes dampen as she recounts these memories. “She decided she was going to leave him. Leave Mathieu, that is, and go back to India. Take Vijay with her. She said she could give him a better life there. Her family could help her care for him. It all made sense to me, considering she had come to Paris to follow her art dreams and all of that had fallen by the wayside. The little she had shared about her life in India seemed a lot more glamorous than the one she’d been living in Paris. But then a few days after she told me she was heading back, she had one last bender, and it was, unfortunately, one too many. Even when she was determined to move forward, the addiction she’d developed would not let her go. She overdosed, and Vijay sought out a neighbor to help him ‘wake Maman up,’ but she was already gone at that point.” Dao wipes the tear sliding down her cheek. “I wish I could have done more. It seemed like Paris had been a prison sentence for her and she was finally getting her reprieve, only to have everything taken away from her.”
Sophie wishes she could go back in time to the point at which all she knew was that Nita had died in a car accident on her way home from caring for Ba. That perfect image she had of Nita—the woman who died in furtherance of her attempts to help others—is now shattered and replaced by this. It was the cruelest twist of fate she could have imagined. Nita had given up her life with Sophie and Rajiv for this dismal existence that Dao just described. And it had taken her years to consider returning home. Years, and another baby.
“What happened to the boy?”
Dao grits her teeth. “He had an arse for a father, no doubt. That man could not care for a cactus in the desert, let alone a child. The best thing that could have ever happened to that little boy was Simon.” Her expression lightens as she says his name. “He was an American chap that your mother had grown rather fond of. Anyway, he took over legal responsibility for the boy and raised him. Much better off, if you ask me.”
Sophie wonders if this boy knows she exists or if he was left in the dark, just as she was.
“How can I find him?”
“Simon and Vijay lived in Paris a bit after Simon started raising him, but then Mathieu would stumble over drunk or high sometimes and wreak havoc on their lives. Simon thought it best to take Vijay back to America. His mother would be able to help raise the boy, and it all made sense. I’m not sure they’ve ever been back to Paris since. Can’t fault them. Not sure this fair city holds many good memories for either of them anymore. He used to send me the occasional photo of the two of them on the beach in California. It looked like a good life. Certainly, better than the one the kid would have had here with that no-good father of his.”
As muddled and bewildered as Sophie is from everything she is learning about Nita, as resentful and angry as she is that she will never get to confront her for all her wrongs, Sophie feels one thought pierce through the haze like a beam of light shining directly on her.
“I have to find them.”
Dao nods. “It’s been several years since I last heard, but I have some letters at home. I also have some of your mother’s things that I think you might like to have. I’ve never been able to part with them all these years, thinking one day Vijay would want them. But now I suspect I was meant to hold on to them until I met you.”
46
That evening, Sophie stumbles into Taj Palace as if she’s in a daze. Manoj tried to convince her that she is not in the mind frame to leave Paris, but now that she has her answers, Sophie wants to make good on the promise she made to Manoj to help Naresh Uncle with the finances before she leaves.
Sophie makes her way to the kitchen and finds Manoj scrubbing the grit off bushels of carrots. Naresh Uncle is in the small office, poring over the books again, his face strained. He still manages a smile when he sees Sophie. She goes to Manoj first.
“Does he know?” she asks him, hoping he kept her confidence as she had requested because she wanted to explain it all to Naresh Uncle herself.
He shook his head, and she felt relief. She shouldn’t have worried, because even in this short time she has spent with Manoj, she has sensed that his word means everything to him.
“Have you spoken to your papa about letting me help?” she asks.
He nods, a half grin on his face. He gestures to the office. “Yes. That’s why he’s back there, looking over everything in the hopes of trying to find an answer before you find one for him. Trying to save himself the embarrassment.”
“Good,” Sophie says. “If it’s okay with you, I will need to spend tonight helping him with that. Now that I will be leaving Paris very soon, I want to make sure this is done before I go.”
“You are leaving?” Naresh Uncle asks, coming into the kitchen.
She nods.
“Uncle, I must tell you more about why I was in Paris and how much your generosity has meant to me.” She eyes Manoj. “How much both of you have meant to me.”
The three sit at one of the dining room tables near the kitchen while the restaurant is closed, and Sophie updates Naresh Uncle on the events that led her to Paris in the first place. He listens with a sympathetic expression and occasionally turns to Manoj, seemingly questioning why Manoj doesn’t seem shocked by any of Sophie’s story.
“Since I started working here, Manoj has been kind enough to help me try to locate her.”
Naresh Uncle looks to Manoj with surprise but also pride.
Sophie takes a deep breath. “Yesterday, I met an old friend of my mummy’s and learned the truth. Manoj was with me.” She smiles at him gratefully. “Even though my mummy had been living in Paris for some years after my relatives told me she had passed away, she did in fact die here many years ago. None of my family in India would have known because she had lost contact with all of them during those first few months in France. I guess in some ways, it was better for me to have thought she was dead all along, since that is where the story ended up anyway.”
Naresh Uncle puts his hand on her shoulder.
“Beta,” he says, “that is a tremendous burden to carry on your own. Your parents would be very proud of the daughter they have raised. Any parent would.”
She smiles at him and then looks to Manoj.
“I didn’t find my mummy, but I did find something else,” she says. “She had another child while she was here. A boy. Vijay. He moved to America many years ago, but now that my search for my mummy has ended, my search for my brother has only begun. I could never have fathomed a sibling, but I must find him.”
Naresh Uncle cannot hide his stunned expression.
“Now you will go to America and look for him?” Naresh Uncle finally asks.