Free French Lover by Taslima Nasrin Page A

yourself, enjoy your own life. After grandfather died, the inheritance was split up and you got a fair amount of money from selling your share. Who are you saving it for? Spend it—on yourself. Life isn’t forever. The people here have enough to eat and good clothes to wear. So they enjoy life to the hilt. They laugh heartily. And we are afraid to laugh because we are in fear. Why? Because some stupid man somewhere has said that if you laugh too much you’ll pay for it with tears.’
    She wrote this far, added a PS and wrote, ‘I’m sending a Chanel no. 5 for dada. It’s a very expensive perfume. This wasn’t bought with Kishan’s money. I paid for it myself with the money I’d saved by giving tuitions.’
    ‘Can I please have some money? I’d like to go out alone since you don’t have the time.’
    ‘Alone? Are you crazy?’
    ‘Why can’t I go out alone? Am I a small child?’
    Kishan caressed her cheeks and said, ‘To me, of course, you are a small child.’
    Nila laughed, ‘But I’m not a small child to myself.’
    ‘What are you then—a big child?’ Kishan also laughed.
    ‘I am twenty-seven and a mature adult.’
    ‘And do you have to walk the streets if you are a mature adult?’
    ‘It doesn’t have to be walking around. I might go to Sunil’s house,have tea in a café or visit a museum or a bookstore. Perhaps I’d want to see the opera from the inside. I read some books when I knew I’d be coming here. I want to see those places.’ Nila looked out of the window listlessly as she spoke.
    ‘You want to do all this alone?’ Kishan’s tiny, beady eyes grew as big as potatoes.
    ‘Well, since you don’t have the time . . . I thought I might even just walk around a bit, even if I don’t go anywhere.’ Her voice was dejected.
    ‘Walk? But why?’
    ‘No reason—just like that.’
    ‘Does anyone ever walk for no reason? Look, just take a look,’ Kishan dragged her to the window, ‘Those people there—do you think they are walking there for no reason? They all have reasons, they are all busy. So am I. If I didn’t keep busy, we wouldn’t have food to eat or a roof over our heads. One day I’ll show you how the refugees live on the streets, even on winter nights. Then you’ll know that it doesn’t make sense to waste time for no reason.’
    Nila wound the corner of her sari around her finger and said, ‘Actually, my time weighs heavily on me. I haven’t been educated to just sit at home. If I found myself a job . . .’
    ‘Job? Why on earth? Am I not earning enough?’ Kishan asked in stunned surprise.
    ‘Yes, you are.’
    ‘This “not having the time”—it’s for the sake of this household alone. If I didn’t work, where would you live, what would you eat?’ His voice rose higher as he spoke.
    ‘Are you doing all this for me? You were working even before we got married. You haven’t started working simply to be able to take care of me, have you?’ Nila’s voice was strangely calm.
    Kishan sat down upon the sofa and said, ‘Oh Nila, you have quite a way with words. Where did you learn to talk like that?’
    ‘Nowhere. Everyone can talk like this.’
    Kishan shook his head violently and said, ‘No, no, no. Indian wives can’t talk like this.’
    In the same calm tone, Nila said, ‘Which Indian wife doesn’tspeak like this—your grandmothers, right?’
    ‘None of them,’ Kishan screamed.
    ‘You should have married a dumb girl who’d silently do the housework and never protest at anything, who doesn’t have a soul to call her own and cannot read or write, who didn’t have her wits about her and didn’t dream a single dream.’ Nila spoke slowly and succinctly.
    Kishan’s voice rose by another octave as he shouted, ‘Why are you so proud of your education? It’s not as if you’re a doctor or an engineer. What can you do with your degree in Bengali literature? You can’t earn a single franc. You’ll have to depend on me all your life—you have no other