Salaam, Paris (21 page)

He swore at me again as he replaced the receiver.

While I was dining with Tariq at Da Silvano’s, it occurred to me that, apart from Nana, I had never been alone with a Muslim man before. There was, I realized, something deeply comforting about it. Although we were in the middle of a sophisticated restaurant, surrounded by sophisticated people, sitting this close to him, our elbows touching atop the crisp linen tablecloth and our knees just a hairbreadth away beneath it, I felt like I could have been back at home in India, embedded in the security and safety with which I had grown up.

I wasn’t sure why he had asked me out. I had thought that we had said all we needed to over tea, when he told me about Nana and the accident, something I had yet to fully absorb. I had gone through the following few hours in a state of restlessness, there but not, conscious of the yellow cabs honking at me to cross the street quicker, the gawks of the people as I walked by, and the smell of beef franks sizzling from a cart. But I wasn’t, for those few hours, really in my body at all. I was somewhere else, in my home in Mahim, holding Nana’s frail hand as he lay on his bed, his legs lifeless beneath a thin white bedsheet. I forgot, almost immediately, that he was once dressed in navy gabardine, smart little wings on his shoulders, his peaked pilot’s cap sitting proudly on his head.

“You want a soda or something?” Tariq asked as the waiter came by to take our order. I glanced at the menu, rattled off a request for some vegetables and risotto, and turned back to Tariq. His hair was curled over his ears, his silk tie loosened around his neck. He smelled nice. He felt reassuring. I realized that despite the way I knew he judged me, I was very happy to be with him.

“So you managed to get away from your boyfriend for a night, did you? From what I’ve read, you two seem inseparable.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“No, I’m sure it isn’t,” he replied sarcastically. “Anyway, that’s all beside the point,” he continued. “What do you think you’re going to do about your grandfather?”

“You know they’re not speaking to me, right? You know that as far as they are concerned, I’m dead?”

“But you’re not. Dead, I mean. Which means that as long as you have the inclination, you probably need to try and fix this. They are your family, after all. You may think you have it all—famous boyfriend, big job, lots of money. But did your nana never teach you about the importance of the blessings of our elders? That without those, we are nothing?”

He was beginning to anger me. Something in Tariq’s voice, the patronizing way in which he spoke to me, was irritating.

“What? Can’t handle the truth?” he asked, thrusting his fork into an asparagus spear.

“It’s easy for you to talk,” I said through clenched teeth.

I could feel the anger in my belly, and I was forcing myself to sit on it, to squash it back, to make it retreat. Da Silvano’s was no place in which to have a fit, especially with people at neighboring tables looking my way, wondering who this handsome man was, most likely figuring that he was a brother or cousin. Almost in honor of being with him, I was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and fluid pants, a scarf draped around my neck, as if ready to hoist up to my head at a moment’s notice.

“It’s easy for you to preach on about family blessings,” I said. “You have always had them. No matter what you decided to do, you would always have them. Go to law school, go to med school, stay home and become an auto mechanic. Your parents would never have cursed you with Allah’s wrath because you are a man. You were
meant
to go out and conquer the world. But if a girl tries to do it, suddenly there are accusations of betrayal and threats of being disowned. I couldn’t even walk out of my apartment building without being followed by Nana. But you? You could study in America, work in London, move to Paris, whatever you wanted. Why? Because you are a boy and I am not?”

“It’s not that, and you know it,” he said, his gaze now steady on mine. “If you had told your grandfather that you wanted to get a proper education, take on a decent career, he might have eventually agreed. Even
I
would have fought for that on your behalf. But what is this? This taking off your clothes for the world to see? This sleeping with a strange white man who plays music for a living? What kind of behavior is that for a decent girl?”

The anger I had been sitting on threatened to erupt. I put down my fork, a clump or beige rice stuck on its end, and picked up my things.

“Wait, Tanaya, don’t leave,” Tariq said, a look of alarm suddenly crossing his eyes.

I sat down again.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I must have sounded like your nana there, for a minute,” he said, his face softening. “I just want to understand what this is all about. The last time I saw you, you had just left India for the first time, standing there in your aunt’s house. I could tell you didn’t feel welcome. You were so sweet and shy, and I wanted to hug you and take you away. But you told me how you felt by not saying anything at all. You only got out from under your grandfather’s thumb by agreeing to marry me. But once you got to Paris, you were done with that idea. Am I right?”

I pushed my plate away. I suddenly felt ashamed. I had used Tariq, something that had only just occurred to me.

“All I wanted to do was to see the world,” I said, my voice breaking. “All I wanted to do was to glimpse some of what my nana had seen, to share life through his eyes. I thought it would never happen. I put it down to teenage madness. But then I saw that movie,
Sabrina,
and I saw Paris for the first time ever in a black-and-white film, and I knew that I should be here. There was something about her in that movie, something graceful and strong. I aspired to that and thought it would happen for me if only I would be allowed to set foot in that city. It was only meant to be for two weeks. But then my cousin Shazia showed me how different my life could be. It wasn’t what I planned. But it was what happened. I was praying to Allah that my nana would understand. But my prayers weren’t answered, not that time anyway.”

“Sabrina?”
Tariq asked, smiling now, acting as if he had heard nothing but that. “You went to Paris because of Audrey Hepburn?” He laughed. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

“Don’t make fun of me,” I said quietly. “I don’t expect you to understand. It was something I just had to do.”

“Well, you made it to Paris,” he said. “But you didn’t have to take it as far as you did. There was no need for the improper behavior. And then, to top it all off, you hook up with a rock star who I am
sure
is on drugs. Were you so desperate?”

Nilu was the only person I had told the truth to. Now I broke the confidentiality agreement once again, telling Tariq exactly what my arrangement had been with Kai.

“So, you didn’t, um,
do
anything with him?” he asked when I was done. “You are still saving yourself?”

“Of course,” I said quietly. “My life has not changed me that much. Every woman in my family waited until their wedding nights to give of themselves. I will be no different.”

The disapproval that had lingered on Tariq’s face the past couple of times I had seen him was now gone. His jaw relaxed; his eyes regained their brightness.

“It was a charade,” I said to him. “This thing with Kai.

My career. I don’t know what I was seeking, but in the end, I didn’t discover what I thought I would. I never had my
Sabrina
moment. Right now, I feel like I have nothing but heartache.”

He put his hand on top of mine.

“We may not have married,” he said. “But because of what our grandfathers once had, I would like very much to be your friend.”

 

At home, an hour later, Tariq back at his hotel, I sat on my couch. My high-heeled sandals lay under the coffee table, a red light flashing on my answering machine. It was probably Stavros. And Felicia. And Kai. I didn’t want to see anyone.

I went into the bedroom, opened my closet, and pulled out my tattered brown suitcase.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Damn that Page Six. Or thank Allah for it. I wasn’t quite sure, two mornings later, as I lay in bed with the newspapers, Felicia at the foot of the bed like a minder in boarding school, her arms crossed in front of her bosom, her left foot tapping on the ground.

“Disaster,” she said, shaking her head. “Absolute, bloody unmitigated disaster.”

“It’s not so bad,” I said, reaching over for my bowl of cornflakes. “At least now the truth is out.”

Right there, as the lead item, was a little story about Kai, the hot new British rock star, being caught in a rather compromising position with his bass player, a lovely fellow named Jerome, in an alley outside Chimera.

“You know, it’s all because you weren’t there,” she said. “This whole thing could have been avoided if you had just shown up as promised. His career is probably in tatters now. But I couldn’t really care less about that. It’s you I’m worried about. What is going on?”

“Nothing,” I said as I threw off the covers and put my feet on the floor.

“Well, now that Stavros is done fixing the mess you made with those German filmmakers, we can start from scratch. I know I’m your publicist and not your business manager, but a few opportunities have come up that we can look at. You’ve gone pretty much as far as you can go with your modeling career, so I really do think it’s time to move on. You’ve made it clear that acting isn’t for you. You’ve got the beauty endorsement. So what else? What else shall we do?” she asked, lowering herself onto my bed.

I could see what she was getting at, but at this point in time, my work, my career, this thing I did, was meaningless.

Felicia’s eye fell on a photograph that was lying flat on my bedside table. It was the picture my mother had sent to me, the one of her and my father on their sad wedding day, the one with which she effectively said good-bye.

“Who are all these people?” Felicia asked, glancing at it. Her finger rested on top of my mother’s semiveiled head. “And who’s that? She could be a candidate for
Extreme Makeover,
” she said.

“That’s my mother,” I answered, my voice now brittle.

“Oh, my, I’m sorry,” Felicia said, now contrite. “That was really insensitive of me. I think I overdid it with the caffeine this morning, and this whole thing with Kai and Page Six has really gotten me wound up. I wasn’t thinking. Of
course
it would have to be a family picture. Why else would you have it? But,” she continued, “has anyone ever told you that you look nothing like your mother?”

“Everyone,” I replied.

“Anyhoo, back to business,” she said, getting up and pacing around the room. “I’m thinking your own fragrance line, you know, à la Naomi Campbell. Or perhaps a really sexy and exotic ready-to-wear collection, something that has haute bohemia written all over it. You’re perfect for that kind of look. People would expect it from you. What do you think?” she asked, oblivious to the fact that I was opening drawers and pulling clothes out from them.

“I think I’m done,” I said.

“You
can’t
leave!” she shrieked. “Not now! Not with all this going on! You’ve peaked! You’re the hottest you’ll ever be, especially with the new scandal!”

She was waving newspaper clippings in the air again. She knew that her phone would be ringing off the hook all day today, from
In Touch
and
Star
and the all the entertainment news shows, desperate for a quote or an interview and more insight into the spectacular revelation that one of the hottest men in rock, in a supposedly sultry affair with a luscious exotic model, was, in fact, gayer than Christmas.

“You will emerge from this smelling of roses,” she said, her voice now calmer. “You’ll have everyone’s sympathy. Everyone will be throwing deals at you. You could open any business you want, with as much backing as you need. You could become an empire!” she said, raising her voice to the sky as if summoning some majestic power.

I sat down on the bed again.

“Felicia, if any of this had ever been important to me to begin with, I would be thrilled at what you are telling me right now. If all I ever wanted in my whole life was fame and riches and a beautiful wardrobe, I would be kissing your feet in gratitude. But you’ve known me long enough to know that this is not what drives me.”

“Then what does?” Felicia sat down on the bed next to me. “What’s going to get you excited?”

“I don’t know,” I said softly. “All this time, with all the amazing opportunities and experiences, a part of me has felt dead. There have been moments when I’ve been absolutely thrilled, like that first time on Pasha de Hautner’s catwalk. But mostly, I have been too guilty to enjoy it. I feel as if in claiming my life, I have taken away somebody else’s.”

“So how long are you going for?” Felicia asked when I stood up again and resumed packing. “You do realize that once you’ve been out of the public eye for a while, you run the risk of not being hot anymore. A thousand girls will be waiting in the wings, ready to pounce.”