Page 20 of Six Days in Bombay

The next day, I stood with my back to the Musée d’Art Moderne, watching people enter the Expo grounds. A shuttle carrying a dozen passengers wove its way through the masses. Visitors were taking a break along the stone walls of the Seine, watching the boats float along the river. Others consulted their maps and pointed to the pavilions on the other side of the Seine they wanted to visit.

“Not as many people as they expected,” Josephine said, approaching me. She was wearing another well-cut skirt suit in maroon wool with a matching tilt hat. She took me by the arm and guided me toward the Avenue du Président Wilson. After yesterday, when she’d been so brusque, her casual touch—as if we’d known each for ages, as if we were friends—surprised me.

“The Expo was supposed to be an opportunity for Paris to get back on its feet,” she said. “But there’s so much uncertainty in the air about war that many who had planned on coming didn’t.” We stopped at the Place du Trocadéro.

Josephine said, “They asked for seven hundred murals to be created by artists around the world. I thought it would be a great opportunity for Mira. I knew she would have been accepted because of what she painted. South Indian women.” She uncoupled our arms and began walking toward the Trocadéro Fountains. “Mira refused. She said the fight for power between the Soviets and Nazi Germany would upstage everything else. Now look at the two largest pavilions flanking the entrance. See their flags?” She was pointing to the tallest structures on either side of the Pont d’léna.

“Those two countries are declaring their fight for world domination. If Germany wins, and Mira was convinced they would, she feared for the future of the Jews. She said she would never participate in anything that hated half of her without just cause.” Jo looked at me. “She was always so sure of herself, her convictions. I respected her for that. It frustrated me and made me proud of her at the same time. Unlike Berthe, who cannot stand up for herself. Poor thing. She’ll always let people use her.”

As Jo talked, I studied her. Yesterday, she didn’t even want to talk about Mira. After what Mira had told me, I could understand Jo’s anger. But here she was, telling me what she admired about the painter.

The art dealer skirted the fountains and walked toward the Pont d’léna. The Eiffel Tower loomed on the other side of the Seine. Up close, the tower was massive. We were quiet as we crossed the bridge. Josephine stopped to lean on the stone wall and watch the boats below as so many others were doing.

“So. You were fascinated by Mira.” She regarded me, assessing me. I felt my neck flush. Was it so obvious?

“Her stories took me outside of myself, outside of India. She’d be talking about an art exhibition she’s seen in Vienna one minute and Mozart’s symphony the next. Things I’d not been exposed to.”

Josephine laughed lightly. “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik?”

“Yes. What’s so amusing?”

“It was part of her seduction routine. She took your hand in hers like this, right?” Josephine held my hand the way Mira had, hers so dark against mine.

My mouth fell open. Were none of the moments with Mira, moments where I’d felt special, privileged to be in her company, exclusive to me?

“When Mira wanted you to love her, she had a repertoire she employed. Mozart was one of them. But it wasn’t real, Miss Falstaff. She did it because you were there. If you hadn’t been there, she would have done the same thing to someone else who was.”

She must have done the same thing with Amit, I thought. I looked away, trying to hide my disappointment.

She patted my hand in sympathy. Then, with ever so slight a change in the pitch of her voice, she said, “I was married to a lovely man when I scouted Mira Novak at the école . I saw Mira’s enormous talent, what she was capable of, right away. No one had to teach her how to paint well. She’d always had it. She just needed someone to shape it. Jean and I were both charmed by her. She was eighteen then and a little lost. Mad about her Italian tutor Paolo. She’d left Florence because he wouldn’t commit to her.” Josephine’s attention wandered off, and I sensed she was recalling a memory.

She blinked and continued, “We also saw her loneliness, which we mistook for vulnerability. I told you how artists need to be protected. People like me make sure they’re protected from greedy collectors. Mira was fierce, but in the way a young girl dresses in the clothes of an older woman to keep fear at bay. Like a child, she was always testing the limits of what others would put up with from her. She slept with anyone and everyone. No one was off-limits. To prove she could.”

Jo looked into the murky waters of the Seine below. “She got involved in marches for equality—like the one you saw yesterday at La Rotonde. She thought that just because she was half Indian it gave her the right to defend every injustice the world has ever known. She was a wild bird looking to land somewhere. Prague was her city of birth, but it wasn’t her home. She studied in Paris and loved it here, but she couldn’t make herself heard amidst the chest-beating men ten years older and twenty kilos heavier than she was. She studied in Florence and spent all her time mooning over Paolo. None of that was good for her painting.”

Josephine reached for her cheroots. She removed one but didn’t light it. “I was the one who recommended she try painting in India. Perhaps because she was still infatuated with Paolo. Perhaps because I knew that the half of her that was Indian hadn’t yet seen the light of day. It needed to grow inside her. And look what happened.” She smiled wide, a mother proud of her chick. “Her art took on new meaning. She wasn’t desperate to prove anything. She was excited to show something. She could fight injustice without having to march for it. She showed women at work, the kind of grinding labor they neither chose nor wanted. That is— was— ” she paused, her mouth getting used to the word “—her genius.”

Jo’s account was similar to what Mira had told me from her hospital bed. Why she painted what she did. How she came to discover the essence of herself in India. But one thing differed. Mira had made it seem as if she’d been in control of the relationship with Paolo, and Josephine was saying otherwise. From the time Jo met her to the time Mira arrived at our hospital, ten years had passed. Why would Mira say the baby she lost at Wadia’s was Paolo’s?

“Tell me about Paolo,” I said.

Jo made a face. She lit her cheroot. “He was her tutor.” She exhaled a plume of smoke toward the sky. “Mira was fifteen when she met him in Florence. What was he doing getting involved with a student half his age? He was beautiful, I’ll give him that. Mira loved painting him. But he disgusted me. Did you know he was also sleeping with her mother? That really played with Mira’s head. It tortured her. He tortured her. What kind of monster does that?” She shook her head.

Josephine went on, “It makes me angry to think how much more she could have accomplished without being distracted by him. His interference cost her. In the end, the tryst with him left her so unhappy. You have no idea how often Jean and I went to her lodgings to find her in bed. For days. I would have to coax her into better humor. Bring food to her. She loved those little macrons from Ladurée. I would buy them in every color. She would stuff herself and be happy for a minute. I would settle her in bed and brush her hair until she fell asleep.” Josephine smiled indulgently.

“As I said, for all her remarkable looks, her talent, her forceful nature, she was still a girl. I don’t think her mother or father taught her to be anything but that. When Mira was at her lowest, I wrote to her mother, who was touring the Physic Garden in Chelsea. She told me Mira was just moody. She would get over it. I wrote to her father, who was trekking through the Alps with his Himalayan Club. He never answered. Mira had no one and nowhere to go. She needed a place where she could feel secure. And paint without interruptions. I gave her money to go to India where I knew she’d blossom. Instead, you know what she did?” Josephine pointed at me with her cheroot.

I looked down at my hands.

Josephine turned her eyes on me, the pupils darker than before. “She slept with my husband. Ruined my marriage.”

“So she said.”

Josephine turned around and leaned against the wall on her elbows. “Poor Jean. He didn’t know what he was getting into. She was just playing. Testing, testing, testing, as she always did. How far could she go before someone stopped her?” She tapped ash from her cheroot into the Seine. “Did she tell you she took my money? She’d borrowed against a future commission, one of my biggest deals. Well, it would have been one of my biggest deals if she hadn’t reneged and left for Prague with no intention of completing the work.”

That I hadn’t known. Mira had told me she was broke when she went to Prague. “This may be small comfort, madame, but I believe she wanted you to know how much she regretted what she did. She wished she could undo it. One of the last things she said to me was that you and your husband had been so good to her. That you had made a name for her in the art world.”

Jo threw the cheroot into the river. “Did she tell you I fired her?”

I nodded. “How many years has it been since you represented Mira?”

“Nine.”

I thought about the timeframe. “After she had left for India?”

“Like a fool, I hung on. Because she told me what she told you. How sorry she was. How she regretted betraying me like that. She cried. I took her back. When you’re young and beautiful and charming, you can get away with so much.”

Josephine was watching my reaction with a faint smile on her lips. “She left that part out, didn’t she? She was like that. She lied or left parts of the story out when it suited her. I have a name in the art world. Artists want to be associated with me. She wanted that association, wanted people to think well of her. And you, Miss Falstaff, played right into it. We all did.”

I shook my head, trying to understand Mira the chameleon. “Have you had any contact with her since?”

“She asked me to be her dealer again.”

“When?”

“A year ago. She said she didn’t think her dealer at the time was doing justice to her work. She needed more money.”

“What did you say?”

“The first time, I hung up. She called again. I said I would do it if she would paint that mural for the Expo. She declined. I understood. I wished her luck. She called a third time, telling me how much she needed me. I didn’t even wait for her to finish her sentence. I hung up. She broke my heart once. I wasn’t going to let her do it again.”

Josephine readjusted her shoulders. “Now, I need to visit a couple of pavilions. You’re welcome to do the same. But not with me.”

I couldn’t let her leave. I still had more questions. “She came to the hospital after a miscarriage.”

Josephine’s eyebrows shot up. “Miscarriage? Mira never wanted children.”

“That’s what her friend Petra said.”

Recognition flared in her eyes. “The friend from Prague. Whom she grew up with. I believe she sat for Two Women .”

“She did. She couldn’t believe Miss Novak changed her mind about children. Neither could her other old friends in Prague.”

Josephine shrugged. “I find it hard to believe too.”

“Would you have any idea—any idea at all—why she would have changed her mind? Do you know if a pregnancy would have put her in danger?”

Her forehead puckered. “Isn’t that a question for her doctors?”

“Yes, but I thought you might know something—anything—that might help.”

She looked at her shoes, shiny black leather with a block heel. “What does her husband say? Someone told me she’d married a friend from Prague.” She looked at her watch. “If there’s nothing else…”

“There is. Mira wanted me to give you this.” I pulled the rolled up The Pledges from under my arm and handed it to her along with the suit jacket she’d loaned me the day before.

She studied the painting thoughtfully. If she was surprised to see it, she didn’t let on. Maybe that deadpan expression was her trump card when she was negotiating, as she’d been doing with Louis Le Grand at the Marché.

“It’s hard to turn away from it, isn’t it? The colors of India, of warm earth and sun. This is exactly what I wanted her to paint. It’s quite good.” She asked, “Did she want me to sell it for her?”

“All I know is that she wanted you to have it. What you do with it is up to you.” I turned the canvas over. “See your initial on the back?” I pulled Mira’s note from my skirt pocket and showed it to her.

With a frown, Jo looked at the painting again. “She wanted me to have this one in particular?” Her eyes focused on the central figure, the sage with the double tikka. After a few minutes, she smiled. With wonder, Josephine said, “Our Mira finally understood. I told her once that my role was threefold: teacher, protector, promoter. I am the teacher here, aren’t I?”

“Perhaps the painting was her way of acknowledging that,” I said. “And as an apology for what she did all those years ago.”

The art dealer looked at me askance. “Perhaps.”

I left Josephine there, on the bridge, searching for clues in Mira’s gift.

I wandered around the Expo for an hour before returning to Madame Renaud’s. She came to meet me in the hallway, pulling on her gloves. She adjusted her hat in the wall mirror. There was an excitement about her, as if she were in possession of a secret and was dying to tell someone.

“There’s a gentleman waiting for you in the café downstairs. Handsome. Lovely manners. Quite charming.”

“For me? A gentleman?” I knew no one in Paris aside from the ambassador’s wife, Madame Renaud and Josephine.

She inserted a pearl pin through the hat and dabbed her lips where she’d applied a light pink lipstick. “I must go to my friend Solange’s for dinner. I’m assuming you’ll be alright on your own.” Her eyes were full of mirth. “Or not on your own.”

I was puzzled by her comment. She patted me on the arm and opened the door. “Oh, I hope you’ll invite him upstairs for… Well, I’ll be home late…much later.” She gave me a knowing smile and shut the door. I heard her heels echo on the stairs.

I was hot and a little tired from walking around the Expo. I washed my face and drank some water before going downstairs to the café on the ground floor. Outside, there was only one customer sitting at a café table.

It was Amit Mishra.

He rose from the chair when he saw me. He took a few steps toward me, then stopped. I stood still, not sure what to do. We seemed to be frozen in place, an invisible wall keeping us apart. And then…a voice, Mira’s voice, whispered, Sona, your life will be as big as you allow it to be . I rubbed my sternum where her fingers had once drawn a circle. I want big things for you, Sona , she’d said. You do too. It’s all in here and out there. Go find it.

I ran to him.

I put my arms around his neck, not caring who was watching or what they thought. I was in Paris, not Bombay. Here, I could do what I wanted, be what I wanted. And this was what I wanted. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. He released me long enough to place his lips on mine, not the fleeting kiss I’d given him the night of the Singh party, but a proper kiss. One that made the ache between my legs unbearable. I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the entrance of Madame Renaud’s building. Before we went inside, I pulled him back, cradled his face in my hands and kissed him again. I wanted his very breath to become mine. All the way up the stairwell, we stopped to caress and hug and press our mouths together. Only now did I understand why Madame Renaud had left in such a hurry. She wanted to give us the luxury of time. Once inside the apartment, I shrugged Amit’s jacket off. He unbuttoned my blouse and unhooked my bra. He gathered my breast in one hand and sucked hard on my nipple. I groaned with pleasure, loudly. I unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his pants, caressed his erection. The litter of clothes grew as we made our way to the bedroom. When we were skin to delicious skin, I clasped my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his torso. He licked his fingers and teased me where I was wet. When I begged him to enter me, the first thrust was painful, but the one after that and the one after that was glorious. Oh, how delicious it felt—as if he and I had been doing this with each other all our lives. He lowered me, still clinging to him, onto the bed. When our coupling left us breathing so hard I felt my lungs would rupture, it was much, much better than anything I’d imagined.

Mira had told me that life was for the taking. All I had to do was claim it.

I had.

“Surely, you didn’t just follow me here to Paris?” I asked when my breathing returned to normal.

Amit pushed himself up on one elbow to look at me properly. He traced the underside of my breast and circled my nipple. I closed my eyes. “I was in Shimla longer than I expected. When my aunt recovered, I hurried back to Bombay and found you’d gone. But there was a letter from Dr. Stoddard telling me you’d taken him up on his offer, which, given what the board decided, made me glad. He wrote that Mira had sent you on a mission to Europe—and you’d probably be in Paris right about now.” He laid a warm hand on my arm. “I heard about your mother. I’m so sorry, Sona.”

I sighed and turned on my side to face him. “She surprised me, Amit. She said I lived too small a life. That I needed to leave her, that I should go see the world. I’d always thought I stayed because I needed to take care of her. I think it was more that I was hiding. My mother wasn’t the only one who saw that. I think Mira did too.”

He moved his hand to my hip and stroked my leg. “She did. She told me once that she meant to take you out of yourself.”

I thought of Mira in her hospital bed. “I miss her. Her stories. Her laugh.” I traced his eyebrow with my finger. “What happened to your position at Wadia’s?”

He took my hand and kissed my palm, making my groin tingle. I draped my leg over his thigh. “I made up my mind to resign when I was in Shimla. Then I received a most interesting offer. From one of the men I met at Dev’s party. He invited me to a gathering with a man called Ambedkar.” Amit’s face was alight with excitement. “Have you heard of him?”

I nodded. “In the Bombay Chronicle .”

Amit sat up to face me, gesturing enthusiastically with his arms, the way the college students did when they spoke of Indian independence. “Ambedkar’s a Dalit. Whip smart. Because of his low caste, he might never have had the opportunity to become a lawyer were it not for support of the Maharaja of Baroda. Ambedkar may even end up writing India’s constitution when we get independence. He’s all for getting rid of the caste system.”

I loved how animated Amit became, how passionate.

“I got so fired up at the gathering I asked how I could help. Well, the gentlemen I met at Dev’s is putting together a global hygiene consortium to help poorer communities—many of whom come from lower castes. He asked me to join them. We’re in Paris meeting for the first time. We’re organizing and formulating a plan. It’s important work, and it affords me a lot more respect than men like Holbrook will ever give me.”

I tapped him on the nose. “You look like a boy on his first visit to a sweet shop.”

He grinned. “And I want every jalebi I see! England has left us so poverty-stricken. But their departure gives us opportunity. Just think, Sona! We can design better health practices. Build roads and railways. Strengthen our economy instead of theirs. I want to help with that.”

His enthusiasm made me feel it was possible, that it would happen as he said. I pulled him down to lie next to me again.

“It’ll take time, Sona, but if we start now, we’ll be ready.”

I ran a finger along his earlobe. “How did you find me? Here, at Madame Renaud’s?”

He placed his hand on my back, drawing my body to meet his. “You think you’re the only one with connections to the wife of the ambassador?” He reached for my mouth again, making me forget what I was about to say.

***

My fingers brushed my lips where Amit’s mouth had been. I smoothed the sheets, still warm from our bodies. I lay on my back, going over every lovely moment with him, sometimes smiling, sometimes sighing. Tomorrow, Amit would take the Night Ferry to London and the morning flight to Bombay the following day. I would be moving on to Florence. I marveled at my new life. How had I gone from a woman who took no chances to one who traipsed around the world, sleeping with men she wasn’t married to?

By the time Madame Renaud returned, everything in the apartment was in order. As she took off her hat, she said, smiling, “Did you have a nice time, chérie ?”

I kissed her powdered cheek. “You are a romantic, madame.”

“So are you, mademoiselle.” She laughed.

***

The next morning, Amit and I met at the Louvre. I told him I wanted to see the paintings Mira had talked about. In Cézanne’s Apples and Oranges I saw the vibrant yellows and rusts of Mira’s Man in Abundance. The look on the faces of The Waiting bore an uncanny resemblance to the subject of Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Mira had captured the somber atmosphere of Gauguin’s When Will You Marry? in her The Acceptance . As I stood in front of these paintings, so full of color, I could feel Mira by my side, whispering in my ear what she most admired about them.

Afterward, we walked hand in hand to the Tuileries, looking down the elegant pathway to the Place de la Concorde. To our left, old men played boule, clapping when one of them bested the ball of another. To our right, men and women sat on lawn chairs listening to a violin concerto. Children chased each other among the horse chestnut trees. Amit stopped walking and turned to me. With a finger on my chin, he tilted my face up and leaned in to kiss me.

We peeked in the Jeu de Paume, a former tennis court that recently had been turned into an art museum with Picassos and Matisses and the female artists Josephine represented. In front of a colorful Léger, I smiled, remembering the painter with the battered nose at La Rotonde.

By the time we reached the Musée de l’Orangerie, where Monet’s Water Lilies awaited us, we were famished. On Rue Saint-Honoré, we found a bistro with a table so small our knees touched. Amit ran his hand along the length of my thigh, sending lovely tremors up my spine. The waiter placed a potage of potato and an omelette aux fines herbes with haricots verts in front of me. I missed the strong spices of India, but I began to love the subtle seasoning of French food. The white wine, cool and crisp, went to my head. Amit was telling me he’d like to show me Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle, that he’d loved coming to Paris while he was studying in England, but all I could think about was that he would be leaving tonight. My body wanted as much of him as I could get. I pressed my lips together, trying to suppress my craving, wondering what Mira would say about my brazen desires.

Picking up his glass, he smiled back, puzzled. “What?”

“How far is your hotel?” I asked.

Amit raised his brows. He paid the bill and took my hand, practically lifting me off my chair. We ran along the Seine, crossing the Pont Neuf to the left bank and arrived at his hotel. The receptionist glanced at me as Amit picked up his key. Had we been in India, he would have asked if we were married and told half a dozen relatives what we’d been up to the moment we left the foyer. This gentleman merely smiled and wished us bonne journée.

Amit had barely closed the door to his room when I placed a palm on his neck and brought him down on the bed with me.

I can’t believe it’s me either, Mira.

***

He pulled a few strands of hair from my face and tucked them behind my ear. “You have a freckle on your earlobe. I noticed it the first time we met.”

“You did?” I lay on my stomach, my arms folded under my chin.

“I’d always wanted to see it close-up.”

I chuckled. “Is it everything you imagined?”

“More.”

I was sleepy and closed my eyes.

“Sona, my work will take me all over Asia during the coming year. Maybe longer.” He paused. “I would love for you to come with me.”

I opened my eyes and stared at him. That was impossible. Unmarried men and women didn’t travel together.

“But we’d be traveling to areas that are primitive, unsanitary. I can’t—it would be selfish of me—to ask you to take that risk.”

I was wide-awake now, my heart unsteady. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“I wish I could. But there’s no way—not now. I would never put you in danger.”

I glanced at the sheets, at Amit’s naked chest, at the light filtering through the curtains. Did I want to marry Amit? I’d been so preoccupied with desire that I hadn’t considered marriage. But he wasn’t proposing, was he? He was giving me reasons why he couldn’t. Besides, he was Indian, fighting for a free India. A casteless India. I was half Indian, half enemy. What would that coupling look like in the eyes of those who considered the English their oppressors? Gandhi. Bose. Sardar Patel. Bhagat Singh. Even women like Begum Hazrat Mahal. None of them were half-half .

Amit was still talking. “I can’t ask you to wait.” It sounded less like a statement, more like a question. He blinked, waiting for me to respond.

I wasn’t about to repeat my mother’s life. Sleeping with the enemy. Wasn’t that what her family had thought? Wasn’t that what everyone would think about us, Amit and me? What they had thought of Dr. Stoddard and his wife? Amit’s work was meant to bring the world’s attention to a serious problem. It was meant to be public. That meant we would be public. The two of us would be on display. People would judge not just his work but the choices he made in his private life. The results of his labor would be tarnished. Blackie-White . Chee-Chee . I didn’t want to be responsible for ruining the good he could do for his country. My country too, although my claim felt tenuous.

There was so much I could say and so much I didn’t want to. I turned my head to the other side of my pillow, away from him.