Page 54 of Six Days in Bombay

“The green fairy,” Petra said. I turned to see her pointing to the painting. “He’s drinking absinthe. Makes you see things that aren’t there.”

A waiter in a white shirt, black vest and black pleated trousers carrying a small round tray approached our table. He greeted Petra with a smile, and they exchanged pleasantries in Czech. She said something and I caught the wordkafe. I hoped she wasn’t ordering coffee for me. I was used to tea heavily tempered with milk. Two days ago when I’d been served Turkish coffee, my stomach had protested.

Petra took a deep drag of her cigarette. “Where was Filip all this time?”

“Her husband brought her to the hospital. I saw him two times after that. He might have visited on other occasions, but I didn’t see him. I do the night shift.”

She blew smoke from the side of her mouth. “Did her father come to see her at the hospital? Did her mother?”

“Her father came. Her mother couldn’t make it.” I decided it was better to be vague than misrepresent the situation.

Petra scoffed. “Mira’s mother didn’t like her husband paying attention to his own daughter. It’s why she was always taking Mira off to Paris and Florence and Rome. And when the three of them were together, Mrs. Novak pretended to be weak and helpless so her husband would be forced to think only about his wife. But even in death?” She shook her head, blew smoke from her mouth. “On the first day of school, all Czech children bring a small bouquet of flowers for the teacher. Mira’s mother would forget to prepare one. Mira was embarrassed to come to class empty-handed, so she found ways to miss the first day of school. One time, I made my mother send me with two bouquets so I could give one to Mira, but she was too proud to take it.” Petra wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

I remember the painter telling me she’d been raised by governesses, which meant she wouldn’t have had as much contact with her mother as I had had with mine. So perhaps a motherless existence was normal in the world she and Petra had been born into. Still, Mira had cried when she learned her mother wouldn’t come to sit at her bedside. From everything Mira had told me and what Petra was telling me now, Mira’s mother didn’t deserve her daughter’s affection. She must have made the painter think she was unlovable. It angered me. Wasn’t that how my father made me feel when he couldn’t love me enough to stay in India?

“The irony is that her father was too busy to pay either of them any mind,” Petra was saying. “He’d become obsessed with building that synagogue in Bombay. He felt at home in India. Her parents have a house in Bombay, but they’re usually somewhere else. On a tiger shoot or visiting a physic garden or taking the waters somewhere.”

Petra’s eyes had welled up. She sniffed. I reached in my pocket for a handkerchief, but an old gentleman got there before me. He was one of the people Petra had nodded hello to when we entered the café. He’d been sitting alone at a corner table. He was a dapper sort: flower in his buttonhole, handkerchief inhis breast pocket. His suit was a little loose on him, as if he had shrunken inside it, but made of quality material. Having a seamstress for a mother had taught me the difference between choice and cheap fabrics.

The gentleman had his hat in his hand. Petra looked up at him and touched his arm. She spoke in Czech. He patted her shoulder, leaving his hand there for a long moment. Then, he offered me a smile before placing the hat on his head. He walked to the café entrance a little shakily.

Petra watched him go. “My grandfather—mydedecek. He lives in the apartment below mine. My parents have the first floor. It’s been our family home for two hundred years.” She gathered her copper-colored hair from the back of her head and pulled it down her left shoulder. “I think he likes me more than my parents do. He comes to this café even though it’s a place for artists and writers and actors. Tradition forced him to run the glassworks factory like his father before him and like my father now, but I think mydedecekwould have loved being a playwright.”

The waiter delivered a coffee to Petra and a hot chocolate with a large mound of whipped cream and a sliver-thin wafer for me. He set a bowl of sugar cubes, a small jug of milk and two pastries on the small marble table. After giving us our cloth napkins and utensils, he left quietly. I was touched that Petra thought to order something other than coffee for me. She smiled when she saw me examining my drink. I was wondering whether to spoon the cream into my mouth first or try to drink the hot chocolate through it.

“Mira loved the hot chocolate here.” Petra poured milk in her coffee and stirred.

I took a bite of the crumbly pastry, surprised at the creamy center. I was used to my mother’s bread pudding and Indiankatliandburfi, which were dense, heavier sweets. The Czech pastry hit my empty stomach with such a rush that I had to stopchewing for a few seconds. “You said the Novaks left Prague—what—ten years ago?”

Petra took a sip of her coffee. “Mira’s father—like mine—is Jewish. He didn’t feel safe after the big war. Being so close to Germany rattled him—he rattled easily. No country in Europe felt safe. And since his wife was Indian…” She lifted her shoulder in an elegant shrug and lit another cigarette. “Her mother took it hard. She didn’t want to go back to India. Loved the European lifestyle. French couture. Italian cuisine. The freedom. She used Mira’s painting as an excuse to travel all over Europe.”

I wiped crumbs from my lips with the cloth napkin. “Did Miss Novak enjoy that?”

“Oh, she welcomed the absences from school. For Mira, painting was the only education she needed. She much preferred painting all day in a studio to sitting in class with a chemistry book. Art was her air. Do you know what I mean? It allowed her to breathe.”

Petra had barely touched her pastry. Now she broke off a flaky bit and chewed it.

“I remember one time our history teacher told us to write an essay about what influence the Habsburg dynasty had on Europe. Mira brought in a large painting three times the size of this coffee table. She’d painted an abstract piece with all these wild colors. The teacher said, ‘What’s this?’ ‘Inbreeding,’ she said.” Petra laughed. It was a hoarse sound, a smoker’s laugh. “The teacher didn’t know what to make of it. But Mira was completely serious. In her mind, she had done the assignment.”

When Petra laughed, I could imagine her with Mira, two young girls doubled over, giggling. I wished I’d been a part of their friendship, their shared experiences.

Mira’s friend rotated her cup on her saucer. Smoke from her cigarette swirled up to the ceiling. I noticed she’d drained her coffee while my hot chocolate sat, cooling. I’d eaten all the whipped cream. I took a sip.

“She was a real talent, Mira was. I have skill. But I have to work hard at it. Mira only had to be shown a certain style and she picked it up right away. Realism. Cubism. Impressionism. Post-Impressionism. Surrealism. So easily.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Like the style just crawled up her arm into the fingers holding her brush.”

Was it resentment or admiration I heard in Petra’s voice?

She studied me with her green-brown eyes, a hint of wariness in them. “Why have you come all this way to tell me? Couldn’t you have written?”

“I didn’t have your address. Or your last name. Mira had given me hints. She told me you’d been at Minerva together. I would have gone there to find you if the British Embassy hadn’t been able to help me. Luckily, your family is well-known here.”

A young man with a goatee and round tortoiseshell glasses set his satchel down on the table next to us. He greeted Petra in Czech. She didn’t seem pleased to see him. Her response included a lilt of her chin to indicate me. Was she saying I was a friend? Did she say anything to him about Mira’s death?

In French, she said, “This is Pavel. He teaches history at Charles University.”

Pavel smiled. He was one of those who smiles easily and often—like Edward Stoddard. He shook my hand. “Bonjour.” His hand was slightly sweaty. “I’m an associate professor. Not full professor yet.” His deference was charming. He gestured for the waiter to take his order. To me, he said, “Where are you from?”

“India. Bombay.”

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