Page 64 of Six Days in Bombay

Except for the dapper one called Louis, the others had the look of my patients after three days in the hospital. Their hair unkempt. Their skin a little sallow. Their shirts rumpled. On the train, I’d heard one tourist tell another that the Montparnasse area, where we were now, was a refuge for poets, writers and painters. The men talking to Josephine were probably taking a break from their art.

The boxer lit one of his Pélican cigarettes. He blew smoke through his nostrils. “What about you, Jo? Will you return to Martinique? There’s talk—”

Josephine shook her head. “There’s always talk, Fernand. If it comes to that, then yes, my sister and I will go back. I’m trying to get her to be a little less political in her essays.”

“She is a bit of a champagne socialist,” Marcel said with a sly grin.

Josephine smiled. “Don’t tell her that. She would be shocked.” She stole a look inside the café. “Have any of you seen Berthe? I looked for her at theMarchébut I couldn’t find her.”

“One of your lost causes, Jo,” said Manny. He winked at me. “Is this another one?”

I was mortified to have the men turn their attention on me.I tried to look away but Josephine saw me. Her face froze. She turned back to the men and spoke sternly, “No, Manny. She’s not. If you see Berthe, tell her I’m inside. She’s a talented painter…when she’s working. Better yet, say nothing. Or she’ll run the other way.”

The men chuckled. I was envious of how easily Josephine chatted with the men outside. How deftly she thwarted their attempts to engage her in topics she didn’t want to participate in.

She walked the few feet toward me, her back to the men. “Stop following me. Don’t you have a shred of dignity?” she hissed.

I flexed my jaw. I’d had enough of bullies in my life. I’d lost my job. I’d lost my home. My family. I’d traveled far. I wasn’t going to let this woman treat me as if I were nothing. My pulse was racing, and I was furious, but I managed to control my voice. “I have to give you something from Mira and I’m not leaving until you let me hand it to you.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it.”

“Why not?”

She pressed her lips together as if she were trying to keep from saying something she’d regret. Josephine struck me as the type of woman who didn’t like scenes, and I was forcing one upon her. She shook her head as if she couldn’t be bothered to answer, turned around and entered the café.

***

Inside, La Rotonde was all red velvet booths and warm wood paneling and white tablecloths and bright yellow lamps with fringed shades—a little like the shades in Bombay’s Chinese district. Sophisticated and humble at the same time, La Rotonde looked like the kind of place that I imagined Bombay’s fashionable set frequented, listening to jazz and drinking cocktails every evening. The aroma of coffee and alcohol mingled in the air.

On the walls, someone had tacked hundreds of pencil drawings and cartoons—there was even a small sculpture of a cat, stretching.

Josephine took a booth at the back with a clear view of the front door. I sat at a table nearby but behind a pillar, out of her line of sight. Like Kavarna Slavia in Prague, the waiter who approached her table wore black pants and a white shirt with a black bow tie. The ensemble was overlaid with the largest white apron I’d ever seen.

“Bonjour, Henri.”

“Bonjour, mademoiselle.Vous voulez…”

Josephine ordered something I didn’t catch.

When he came to ask for my order, I asked for the same thing she’d ordered.

“Campari,” he said.“Bien.”

He was about to leave when I asked, “Why do they leave their drawings here, the artists?” I asked.

The waiter followed my gaze. “Patrons who can’t afford to pay, do. When they come back with the money, we give their artwork back to them. In the case of some painters—like Picasso—the owner would rather have the art than the money,” he said dryly. “Dealers like Josephine—” he indicated her with a discreet tilt of his head “—often see sketches here from the artists they represent, but they choose to leave them up. It’s good publicity.”

“Jo!Désolée, désolée!” a plump woman in a loose dress, frizzy hair tumbling out of a floppy hat, ran up to Josephine. Her cheeks were flat. Her jowls had fallen into her neck. She might have been thirty or forty or fifty. It was hard to tell.

She kissed the art dealer on both cheeks. Josephine accepted the greeting, turning her cheek this way and that, but didn’t smile.

“Berthe.”

“Thank you so much for rescuing my painting. You know how cheap Louis is, Jo!”

I understood then that Berthe was the painter whose work Josephine had bought at the flea market.

“Have you eaten today?” Josephine asked Berthe after she sat down. Josephine called for Henri to bring an omelet with salad.

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