The Spiral Ascent

Sabiha Huq

 

“Ma, just look at that long queue!”

Her seven-year-old shouted in German, and she could not guess which was more difficult, purchasing the elevator tickets or replying him in German that she was yet to master. Looking at the not so romantic structure she again felt it was sheer stupidity to visit the Eiffel without online tickets. The unbelievably long serpentine queue in front of the elevator visibly told her that their turn would just not come within the visit hours. The only solution then was to take the stairs. How difficult it is to manage so much alone! She wished she had someone to assist her. At times, she’d almost feel like surrendering to the unnaturally dry and tardy man who was her life partner; but then would it really make any difference? Never would she get any help from him; earning, shopping, chopping, cooking, cleaning, managing her paperwork and the child’s homework, all these were the price of a marriage she was paying; and nobody ever knew how weary she was with all of it. Did she even look forward to living much longer to carry on with those? Double duty of a progressive feminist time, really! Equality costs! She smiled faintly thinking over it, while Gustave Eiffel’s huge junk lured the boy to eternity.

“Ma, is it okay if we walk to the top? Will you be able to make it?”

Now, that was a jerk. Why is he asking that? She kneeled on the concrete pavement in front of him, and holding his chin asked, “Are you scared that ma will be sick again?”

“No, but last night I saw you take the inhaler.”

“You have asthma too Babu! Are you sure you can make it?”

“Yes, I am fit as a fiddle.”

As he stood firm with his eyes upward and a bright sparkle in them, she could discern the contours of a newly developing adult’s posture.

She knew at once that she must make it for the boy. The appalling structure did not quite mean anything to her; she would rather be happy with an extra hour at the Louvre to check on the rest of the Renaissance paintings. Compared to that, how boring it would be to take the winding staircase to go up this giant garbage. They have a restaurant somewhere on the 13^th floor, someone told her. She would try to dissuade the child after reaching there, perhaps an ice-cream would do. She gaped at the oldies getting senior citizens’ priority passage.

“Ok, let’s go for the walkway,” she beamed as she gathered her steps.

They went to the glass window where a woman with a mango face looked at them rather uninterestedly. The tickets had the image of the tower imprinted and naturally she wanted to keep them as souvenirs; she kept the stamped tickets carefully in her wallet.

The first few staircases till the fourth floor were boring with metallic walls and elevator cages around. But then she saw the whole city of Paris flushing before her eyes.

Menon had once brought her Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Chobir Deshe Kabitar Deshe (In the Land of Paintings and Poetry) sometime in the 1990s. Theirs was a long-distance romance over letters, thankfully in an era when mechanics of emails had not robbed that elusive feel of spreading fingers on ink. That book had awakened in her a strong desire to visit Paris with him. How distant it all looked now!

Champs de Mars was on the bank of the Seine. She could see Monet Museum on its far west. How she longed to walk through its corridors with Menon’s arms resting affectionately on her shoulders! Long time, indeed, but she hadn’t ever outgrown what she felt were small yet meaningful gestures of belonging. The sunlight that came through the thick grilled glass walls played with the faint smile on her face. She wondered at the construction of the tower. It suddenly became clear why so many people return to visit the tower; it was an actual gateway to the cultural centre of Europe.

“Look over there, ma! That’s Louvre!”

The child indicated towards the Place du Palais Royal from where they had had just rushed in to be in time at the Eiffel. She did not want to leave so soon, but the boy could not enjoy because of the crowd. He had learned in school about the Mona Lisa and Vinci, and Da Vinci Code was already his favourite film. So, his only interest was the Vinci Hall, but with so many people gathered around the masterpiece, the child was never to see the painting. Suddenly a tall man in the crowd picked him up and placed him on his shoulders, and the child was clapping with his lips touching his ears. She was not surprised, these Parisiennes are funny and friendly people, perhaps a bit philosophical too. She suddenly remembered Jonathan, that tall and thin guy at her institute, doing a PhD on aporia. With his quiet demeanour and lovely big eyes, he was an enigma to her. At times she thought he was facing aporia in his own life, when all of a sudden he would be at a loss and struggle for words. And finally, when she would offer a list of words he would grin with a shake of his curly long hair, and agree to one of those. This tall guy resembled Jonathan so much! She felt a sudden pain in the chest. Was it breathlessness? Perhaps not. It must be the pain for the loss of the only possible romance in her life amidst hardships of raising a child singlehanded and continuing a career far away from the temperate climes of homeland. Menon’s face looked so distant, and then Jonathan, Russel, Maddy, who else could she remember from her class? She felt she was gazing vacantly at the summer sky through the chinks where the roof of the Concord Palace was shining bright. They have done another loop already! Not a bad progress.

“Ma, we are on the 13^th floor. I want to have an ice-cream.”

She needed to go to WC too, but where to keep the boy? She asked him if he would come with her. They usually took the ones for the handicapped, so that both mother and child could use the same washroom. Now-a-days he understands that ma fears to lose sight of him; and he stands in a corner with his back towards her so that ma can ‘do’ it too. She must start sending him out, it is time now. If anyone in her circle came to know, it would be a shame.

The ice-cream parlour offered a small ice-maker with not many flavours to choose from. The French may be good bakers, but ice-cream is not their delicacy.  She took a Crème Brûlée instead, while the boy chaperoned the playing horse with his ice-lolly. Around the corner of her eyes she could detect the tall guy from the Louvre. Already out? She suspected him to be a native, but now she realised there were many around here who were on a short tour like her.

It was the child’s seventh birthday and she promised him she would bring him to Disneyland Paris. The Ryanair cheap flight was so boring, but luckily it was a short one. These European flights don’t even offer light refreshments. Chotolok! The very word came to her lips every time she thought of these people coming to India in the sixteenth century to hunt their fortunes. The British triumphed over all other races, and see how they are selling the ransacked treasures now. They really owe us reparations galore! She was swearing like anything when she could not enter the Jewel House in London to see the Koh-i-Noor some years back. The French were at least less aggressive expansionists in that sense. They were friendly to the local people. She remembered the beautiful tavern in Serampore that was built by the Dutch East India Company. Not all these European colonisers were blood hounds like the English.

“Ma, can we get going now? It’s late and they will close before we reach the top.”

Her mind was away again; she was driving Sujit’s car in Serampore. She was shy and shaky because her driving license was new and it was not an international one, but Sujit was insistent on seeing her at the wheel. She drove around the area slowly, but then Sujit’s continuous praise made her blush. Beautiful memory. Flirting is an art and some men know it. Sujit is the one who pampered her too much; perhaps he loved her to the moon and back, but she did not dare. It was so very difficult to decide anything before the child was eighteen. She would never give up on the child; it was hers, only hers. No matter what proclivities the boy inherited from his dad, he was her only possession in life. Yes, she calls him her possession, though she knows some day she would have to let him free. He must grow up.

“Ma, we are almost to the top. Are you okay?”

The boy was panting for breath now. She searched for the inhaler in his pocket and helped him take a puff. She did not notice when they had ascended to the highest layer of the Eiffel. The Orsay Museum, Castle of Bastille, Montparnasse Tower – all looked like tiny pieces of hazy structures dotting the city line. The sun was down and the iridescent rays of the late summer kissed her cheeks that had forgotten what it felt like even to be patted. With her eyelids lightly shut she immersed quietly into her own presence.

She was there, the boy was there. They’d made it together.