That Summer in Paris by Abha Dawesar

Author:Abha Dawesar [Dawesar, Abha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307387042
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

As Prem dressed for his rendezvous with Maya, he wondered if he should have been the one checking on Homi’s health instead. Homi had married only at the age of forty-six and was now fifty-six, diabetic, and not in the best of shape.

Maya had insisted on a sightseeing trip to certain parts of Paris—the seventeenth, the nineteenth, the twentieth—that Prem had never explored in any depth.

“I am not interested in lining up with the tourists. I’m too old for it.”

“We’re not lining up anywhere. We are just going to take a cab to the nineteenth and walk around for half an hour and then get a coffee somewhere. I want to photograph some of the street signs there.”

“Are you still on to the street names? What’s with you and the streets?”

“They are all interesting even if they are not all achingly beautiful. Where else do you find rue de Bellechasse: street of the beautiful hunt, or rue des Blancs-Manteaux: street of the white coats? Which other city has streets named Nijinski, Freud, and García Lorca?”

“I still don’t know why we aren’t going to see the new Godard film instead or to the Musée Guimet, which we have spoken about many times now.”

“Because it’s a beautiful day and the sun is shining.”

“You lead, I follow.”

Maya grabbed Prem’s hand in response and, hailing a cab, lightly pushed him in.

“Les Buttes Chaumont, s’il vous plaît,” she said, getting in after him.

The traffic was flowing fast. Maya was in a summery maroon dress with thin delicate straps that lay over the hollow of her clavicles. She was in good form.

“Prenez à gauche,” Maya instructed the taxi driver when he turned onto rue Manin and the park. She directed him to rue Michel Hidalgo, and then they got off.

“What’s the matter? You’re very quiet,” Maya asked as they stood on the sidewalk.

“I spoke to my nephew and my grandson. It felt momentarily like being in India.”

“What did you speak about?”

“The elections.”

“How do you feel?”

“Less strongly than my nephew.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.” Prem looked at Maya and smiled. He could not see her eyes too well behind her dark glasses.

“It’s a bit personal.”

“Vas-y.”

“You always refer to your nephew and your grandson. Do you mean your nephew Homi and his son?”

“Yes. Did I tell you his name?”

“No. I saw the dedication in Meher.”

“That’s right, it’s him. My sister died when Homi was ten, and her husband died when he was twenty, so I’ve been as close as a parent to him.”

Maya brought out her Plan de Paris and looked.

“Where are we going?” Prem looked up and down rue Michel Hidalgo.

“We’re going to go there,” she said, pointing east.

They walked along briskly. Prem was glad he had let himself get talked into this. Sitting by himself all morning thinking about Indian politics and missing Ratan would have been too depressing. They walked in and out of the shadow cast by the trees.

“You hardly talk about India, given how many times you’ve been,” Prem said.

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