Salaam, Paris (8 page)

 

A week into my new job, Mathias told me that his little café had been hired to provide the refreshments for an event and asked if I would agree to help serve. Working as a waitress was something else that well-born Muslim girls didn’t do. But I was already so far gone. So I agreed and, to my horror, Mathias pulled out a short black dress that had arrived in a box, then unfolded a small white lace apron and matching hat.

“Here, wear this,” he said, thrusting it into my hands. Answering the curious look on my face, he replied: “The client wants all the girls to dress like French maids. Bah, it’s
stupide,
but we do what they ask, no?”

Along with the three other girls from the café, I changed into the ensemble, pulling on a pair of black fishnet tights that had also been provided, and choosing from an assortment of white shoes that had also been sent. When I emerged from the small lavatory, Mathias cast an approving eye up and down my body and let out a whistle.

“I didn’t know you had those curves under your big
exotique
clothes,” he said as I hid self-consciously behind a table.

The event, as it turned out, was a small fashion show, held as part of a weeklong series of shows all over the city. They were called the
defiles,
and everyone from our van driver to the policeman who stopped us for speeding seemed aware that Paris comes alive in that week, even more than it usually is. This particular fashion company had decided to book a dark nightclub in an obscure part of town, finding the cheapest way to show the designer’s first collection. Although the fishnet tights were beginning to itch and the lace hat was scratching into my scalp, I couldn’t help but feel a little excited at the prospect of watching my first fashion show, and I hoped I would be able to catch glimpses of it during the passing out of palm-size bottles of champagne and little cheese-filled pastries.

Despite a light drizzle and a cool breeze, there was already a crowd waiting outside the nightclub. Mathias was shown the back entrance and was told where to set up. We walked down a wet alley, through a metal door that was painted red, and down another hallway and into the club’s kitchen. We hurriedly set out the pastries on silver trays, speared toothpicks through olives, and lifted dozens of bottles of champagne out of ice-filled chests. I heard people come in through the main entrance and take their seats, shuffling in the darkened interior of the club, the buzz of a foreign language filling the air.

Mathias turned to greet Bruno, the designer, with a kiss on each cheek. There were superlatives thrown out, words like
magnifique
and
merveilleux,
about nothing in particular. Bruno had dyed his hair a bright red, like pictures I had seen a long time ago of clowns in a circus. He had a small silver hoop pierced through an eyebrow, and I noticed another one in his tongue as he spoke to Mathias. A short-sleeved black shirt revealed a dark green tattoo, and beads of sweat covered his forehead. He was talking quickly, nervously, giving Mathias instructions and sizing each one of us up. Then he turned and left.

“He will give himself a heart attack,” Mathias said to me. “So agitated. The girls from
Vogue
are coming, and important stylists. I told him to have some champagne, relax. But of course, he cannot. He is showing couture style on hand-picked models—twenty-two outfits on twenty-two girls, like Galliano in his early days.” Mathias told me all this as if I would understand, forgetting that until today, I had never before seen a man with his hair dyed bright red.

In less than fifteen minutes, the curtain was due to go up. I peeked out of the kitchen and saw photographers, their cameras slung across necks and shoulders, clustered at one side of a dance floor. Leading to the dance floor was a sloping ramp, covered in plastic. Lights were being tested overhead and music—which Mathias had described as “garage techno funk”—was piercing through speakers on all sides. The people sitting in the front-row seats were smartly dressed, those standing at the back were scruffier. They were holding folders and notebooks and pens, chatting with one another or staring straight ahead. One of the other girls was serving drinks, but Bruno had instructed us to wait until after the show, when there would be a small party, to bring out the rest. He had told Mathias that if there were promises of nourishment afterward, people would stay till the end, no matter how bad the clothes were. Mathias told me that Bruno didn’t have a lot of self-confidence, which might have explained the self-inflicted mutilation of the piercings and tattoo.

I suddenly heard a crash from the area behind the dance floor ramp where the girls were getting ready. I followed Mathias back there and saw a beautiful brunette, all long limbs and teased hair and painted nails, sprawled on the floor, pulling her knee up to her chest and wailing like a child.

“Ouch, shit!” she screamed, in a distinctly British accent. “I think I sprained my bleeding ankle. Damn these shoes!”

On her feet was a pair of sparkling sandals with pin-thin, four-inch heels. All the girls were wearing them, and I was surprised that the brunette was the only one to have fallen over as a result. Bruno was cradling her head and yelling at someone to fetch some ice, someone else to bring a bandage. The girl was still screaming.

“I can’t go on,” she cried. “I can’t even stand up!” Bruno dropped her head and covered his face with his hands. Mathias stooped down to comfort him, as did the rest of the fashion team, while the model continued to yelp in pain, nobody paying any attention to her. I looked over at Mathias questioningly, who hurriedly whispered to me again that Bruno had created exactly twenty-two outfits for twenty-two different models, and that this had been boasted of in the program notes that his guests were, at this very moment, perusing.

“It is his gimmick for the season,” said Mathias. “He cannot go back on it now. People will definitely notice. It has been in all the press.”

I had moved over to the girl to ask what I could do to help her, when Bruno yanked me up by my elbow.

“Oui, ça suffit,”
he said, looking me over and pulling the lace cap off my head. “You,” he continued, staring straight at me. “I no speak good Eenglish, but you be
mannequin
today.”

Mathias stepped in, arguing with Bruno. But after a minute of that, my boss turned to me.

“Tanaya, I am sorry, but he is insisting. He says you are the prettiest girl here. I know you have never done it. But it is only one outfit, and all you must do is walk slowly, smile, turn around, come back. Simple. It is over in a minute, and I will have helped an old friend. You will be compensated. Please?”

Ten minutes later, the French maid’s outfit had been stripped off me, and I was waiting to be dressed.

Chapter Ten

The item was small, tucked away on page four, and would not have caught my eye were it not for the photograph: a small, grainy black-and-white shot of a girl who looked suspiciously like me.

Mathias was peering over my shoulder. He pointed at the photo and yelped loudly. “
C’est toi!
That’s you!” he said. “Gorgeous!”

He snatched the newspaper out of my hands and started to read from it aloud in French before translating for my benefit.

“It says here the show last night was a big success, everyone loved Bruno’s clothes, that he will be the next big fashion star. And then they mention you, a young Muslim waitress who has never modeled before, rushed onto the catwalk. They say here you were not bad, quite good actually, maybe it’s a new career for you. You look good here, no?” Mathias said, pointing to the photograph again.

“Ah, but this newspaper, it’s a small one, not famous,
pas du tout,
” he said, looking at the front page. “Nobody will see it, unfortunately. Such a shame.”

 

When I had returned home the night before, my eyes still rimmed with thick black liner, my hair still stiff and coiled and smelling of chemicals, my roommates squealed in surprise. When I told them what had happened, they listened to every word in silence, their only sounds being the crunching of toffee-coated peanuts that sat in a bowl on the coffee table. After I had finished recounting the hysteria of a couple of hours earlier, they squealed some more.

“Yes, but how did you
feel
?” asked Teresa. “Were you nervous?”

“To begin with, yes, of course. But after a few seconds—maybe less—it became easier.”

In truth, the previous night had been perhaps the most exciting of my life. Walking down the runway had been the shortest sixty seconds of my life, and also the longest. When it was beginning, I couldn’t wait for it to end, but once I had taken my final twirl, mimicking the girls who had gone before me, I wished I could do it again. It had been a moment of pure frivolity and spontaneity, two things I had never experienced before. I longed to call my grandfather and tell him about my night. But instead I told three girls who were still strangers to me.

Bruno, the designer, sent me flowers at work the next day. I could barely read the scrawl on the tiny card that accompanied it, and wouldn’t have been able to understand it anyway, so Mathias deciphered and translated for me.

“ ‘With all my heart I thank you for your bravery,’ ”
Mathias recited. I thought Bruno’s words were dramatic, as if I had rescued someone from a burning building.
“ ‘Your willingness to model my creations saved my show. If there is anything I may ever do for you, you have only to ask.’ ”

“Sweet,” said Mathias, looking up. “He sounds most grateful. I am certain that Bruno will give you some free clothes whenever you’d like.”

I thought back to the pink hot pants he’d put me in and confessed I could do without.

 

With the tidy little bonus I had received from Bruno, I decided to spend a beautiful Sunday on my own, exploring the city again. I set off from the apartment just after breakfast, carrying with me a packed lunch and a copy of
Elle
that I had borrowed from Juliette, who tended to pilfer magazines from the fashion house she worked for.

I took the Metro to Place de la Concorde and made my way into the Jardin des Tuileries, which I had first visited with Shazia during my first few weeks here. I found a stone bench that was empty, set down my things, and took in the glorious morning. Joggers sprinted by, and mothers wheeled their babies in strollers. There was a clear crispness in the air, as if the world had overnight been cleansed of all its troubles and was suddenly sparkling new again. I took a deep breath, wanting to feel as invigorated as the atmosphere. I had nowhere to be and nothing to do and realized as I sat there that the heaviness and loneliness I had been feeling since Shazia had left was slowly starting to lift. Not a day passed when I didn’t think of Nana and my mother or when I wouldn’t yearn for a platter of
bhel puri
from a Mahim street vendor or hope to walk into a community gathering and hear the tinkling of glass bangles and the familiar rustle of silk saris.

But I was beginning to feel happy and at home. I took out my purse and counted, again, the two hundred euros that Bruno had paid me, shoving it into my palm as if it were a tip. I knew the other models had received far more, but they were professionals, and I was simply a cashier who happened to be tall and slim and there.

After an hour of sitting on the bench, during which I had barely flicked through the pages of the magazine I had brought along, I decided to start walking again. I emerged through the gates of the gardens and, not quite sure where I was going next, crossed the street. I was standing in front of the imposing Hotel InterContinental, a palace of a place that I had walked past many times but had never had the temerity to enter. A pair of uniformed doormen stood on each side of the huge arched entrance, themselves almost dwarfed by ornate golden lamps. Each person passing through the doors seemed more beautiful and glamorous than the last. I glanced down at the brown paper bag I had in my right hand, inside it my modest lunch of a cheese and tomato sandwich and an apple, and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

I took another deep breath, adjusted my
dupatta,
smoothed down my hair, and walked in.

Chapter Eleven