Free French Lover by Taslima Nasrin Page B

choice. So quit that ego. If you had any sense you’d see how pointless it is.’
    Kishan got up. Without any reason, he paced the floor. He walked with resounding steps. Then he drank water—one glass, another glass. Finally he spoke gravely, ‘Listen, both Sunil and Chaitali work. They are never at home in the day. Why would you go to a café—make yourself a cup of tea at home and drink it. Why spend money outside? I don’t go to museums, or movies, but if you are so keen on it, I’ll take you when I have the time.’
    He left. His steps sounded loudly on the stairs.
    The bunch of keys was on the table. Nila took them in her hands many times—Kishan had advised her to use them only if the house was on fire.
    ‘When will you have some free time?’
    Nila was stroking Kishan’s head as she asked him one Saturday morning.
    Kishan edged closer towards Nila, threw his right arm over her and said, ‘I have just this Saturday and Sunday to give you some time. All week long I work hard. There’s just these two days for leisure. I want to enjoy my wife’s touch all day long.’ Kishan laughed, trying to hide his buckteeth. This smile was his best. He probably thought this was a lover’s smile. This was how all lovers smiled at their women when they first fell in love.
    ‘All day you’ll just lie around and do nothing?’ Nila asked. She was restless.
    Kishan shook his head—nothing else.
    ‘Once you’d told me the weekend was for cleaning the house, doing the laundry.’
    ‘That’s true.’ Kishan was sleepy.
    All day long Nila cleaned the house diligently, watered the plants and cooked. She wasn’t used to doing all this, but she did. As she worked Nila wondered if she was doing all this because she loved Kishan or to please him, so that he would be able to love her. There had to be a reason to love someone. His reasons were perhaps her cooking and cleaning. She couldn’t expect him to love her out of the blue, just because she was his wife. Nila could sing very well, she was well read. But these were no reasons for Kishan to love her because he didn’t understand Bengali. If she abused him in this language, he’d not even know she was calling him names and just smile sweetly. If she spouted poetry in this language he’d sit with just as impassive a face. This language was as worthless in this house as broken shards of glass.
    After lying around all day, Kishan came to the sofa for the second round of lolling about, and put on a Hindi film in the VCR. Nila had finished cleaning the carpet and she was wiping the glass in the window. She finished it, cooked and then showered. Not just qualities, beauty was needed as well and so she did her face, wore a nice sari and came and sat in front of him: Nila the wife, Nila the beauty, Nila the homemaker.
    ‘How do I look?’ She leaned closer to him and asked.
    ‘Nice.’
    ‘Let’s invite them over once?’
    ‘Whom?’
    ‘Sunil and his family.’
    ‘Where’s the time?’
    ‘Call them tonight.’
    ‘You can’t invite people like that. You need to tell them at least two weeks in advance. But why are you suddenly thinking of them?’
    ‘It’s been ages since I spoke in Bengali.’
    ‘Hm, that’s true. You should have married a Bengali.’
    ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t marry one—they can’t be trusted.’
    Kishan smiled his lover’s smile, ‘Why don’t you try and pick up Punjabi while you sit at home?’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Listen to Punjabi songs, watch movies, talk to me a little—it’ll be easy.’
    ‘Wouldn’t it be better to learn French?’
    ‘If you have the brains to do it, why not.’
    Both Kishan and Nila knew that she couldn’t learn French by sitting at home and going out with him every now and then. So she changed the subject and said, ‘Well, the other day you turned down the invitation to Sanal’s. So let’s invite him over tonight.’
    ‘Nah. That boy doesn’t know his manners. Didn’t you see how he was fooling around