Kavita Daswani - Salaam Paris

Kai was thrilled to be recognized as we were checking in, although I told him that it was his orange sequined scarf and purple pointed cowboy boots that gave him away.

“Welcome, Mr. Kai,” the manager said, greeting us warmly. “We’re so thrilled to have you. We’ve reserved one of our best villas.” He glanced over at me, smiled, then added, “We think you will be pleased.”

“Um, how many bedrooms?” I asked as Kai kicked me lightly in the foot.

“Oh, this villa in particular has just the one, miss. I’m assuming that you are together?”

“Yes, yes, we are,” I said hurriedly. “It’s just always nice to have a second room to put things in, stretch out.”

“Miss, our accommodations are spacious. I’m sure you will find plenty of room to do all you need to.”

The view was sumptuous, overlooking the translucent waters outside. There was something pure and uncomplicated about the bedroom, with its canopied four-poster bed covered in spotless white sheets, yards of muslin tied around each pole. For all its simplicity, it was, without a doubt, the centerpiece of the room, as if everything else had been built around it. It looked like it had been designed for genuine lovers, for people to spend all day in, eating off mother-of-pearl-inlaid trays that would be delivered by room service, stopping their caressing only for that.

For Kai and me, it was completely useless.

“You can have that,” I said to him, indicating the bedroom. “There’s plenty of room for me here in the sitting room.” I fully expected him to demur, to insist that now that he had dragged me all the way here, I should have the only bed in the villa.

“Oh, you sure?” he asked, tossing his luggage onto the floor as if to stake out his territory, then pressing a button to call for our private butler. “That’s great. I could really use the rest,” he said, stretching. “Of course, feel free to come in here whenever you want, maybe take a nap in the middle of the day when I’m not using it.”

“Kind of you,” I said, shutting the paneled doors between us.

Kai spent most of his time scuba diving with a young mixed-race instructor named Trey, whose last job had been at the Club Med in Bali. Kai had been raving about his adventures beneath the ocean since the first day, citing for my edification how Jacques Cousteau had described the island as one of the top-ten best scuba spots in the world. He and Trey would frolic for hours beneath the sea, shimmying between strands of seaweed and past hordes of luminous, wriggling fish and coral reefs that Kai said were as intricate as carved Chinese mahogany furniture. Down in those depths, my boyfriend was assured that even the longest lens of the most persistent paparazzo would not be able to find him.

I, as always, spent time alone, reading in our room, swinging on the Balinese hammock on our veranda or walking down a sandy beach by myself, picking seashells as I went, just as I used to do when I was a young girl with my Nana in the Mumbai suburb of Juhu. I looked out over the ocean, blue and clear as far as the eye could see, and wondered if my grandfather ever thought of me, the way I thought of him.

It was going to be my first trip back to Paris since I had left for New York, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. The city, as magical as it was, represented everything significant that had ever happened in my life. It was my first escape from my family and also my final alienation from them. It was the place where I was discovered and also the one where I discovered that I wasn’t the girl I had always believed myself to be. It was the city where, even if I had never acquired the poise and sophistication I had gone there to seek, I had come closer to it than at any point in my personal history. In an odd sense, it would always feel like home to me.

Shazia was waiting for me in the lobby of the Bristol Hotel, her eyes wide and a big smile stretched across her face as she saw me enter, Kai at my side, two valets with our luggage behind us.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Just look at you! What the hell?!” she exclaimed, her hands on her hips. “You look fabulous! Like a movie star!”

I shrugged my shoulders, embraced her, and asked how her mother was doing.

“Fit as a fiddle, would you believe?” she said, her eyes fixed on Kai’s exhausted face. “OK, maybe not quite, but she’s in a lot better shape than when you last saw her. I guess the fact that I keep coming back helps.”

She stuck out her hand in Kai’s direction, waiting for him to grab it.

“I’m Shazia, Tanaya’s cousin, almost like sisters really,” she said, glancing over at me again. “It’s so great to meet you, I’m such a fan!”

“Any chum of Tanaya’s is a chum of mine,” Kai said, not very convincingly, shaking Shazia’s hand. “Glad to meet you; hopefully we’ll see you around. Boys, up this way,” he said, beckoning the luggage-bearers to follow him up.

“He’s tired,” I said to Shazia. “We’d better get upstairs. What are you doing later? I have a show at five; you’re welcome to come and hang around backstage, and maybe we can have dinner afterward?”

Valentino had asked me and some of the other girls to join him for a post-couture show supper, to celebrate what appeared to be the unanimous thumbs-up given to his collection of frothy beaded gowns and smart city suits. I kissed him on the cheek and told him I had other plans.

Shazia rode along in the limousine with Kai and me to the restaurant, chatting about Birmingham, her eager face watching his. We arrived at Le Martel, in a part of town I had never been to, not even in my earliest days when I was poor and adventurous. The surroundings were shabby and dark, but a friend of Kai’s told him that it was absolutely the place to be seen in town, and if there was one thing that was evident about Kai, it was that he loved to be seen.

The place was packed-expected during the couture shows-but we had been given a prime table. The girls were already waiting for us-Juliette and Teresa and Karla-their faces expectant, Mathias cool as ever in their midst. I had never before in my life been so thrilled to see a group of people. I rushed over to them, hugging them all, even Mathias, with whom I had always been reserved. They oohed and aahed over my dress and shoes and metallic clutch bag, and I waved off their gushes of admiration, and introduced Kai. The restaurant, previously clattering with post-show buzz, suddenly turned quiet, its patrons looking our way. Shazia, standing next to me, whispered, “Wow, this must be what it feels like to be J.Lo.” In the dim lighting from the globe lamps overhead, my friends looked radiant. With all the recent chaos of my life, I realized that now, tonight, I could take a deep breath and just relax. We ordered artichoke hearts and pasta and grilled vegetables, and Mathias insisted on getting champagne for the table, saying he was in a celebratory mood. When a frosted bottle of Cristal arrived, he raised his glass and tipped it in my direction.

“To our dear Tanaya, who has returned triumphant, as we knew she would,” he said, his eyes shining in the soft light. “We all miss you, but, chèrie, you have done us proud.” Karla filled a glass for me and pushed it my way. “You have to drink a little now,” she said. “Even just a sip. We are toasting you. We are celebrating all you have accomplished, against all the odds. It is no time for rituals. You are a grown woman now, a woman of the world. Come, join us. Drink.”

I stared at the pale golden liquid, fizzing in its slender vessel, and glanced at the eager, nodding faces around me. There were plenty of Muslims who drank alcohol, I reasoned with myself. And after everything I’d done, was I even considered a Muslim anymore? Did Allah even care about me now? My hand reached across the table; I picked up the glass by its skinny stem and held it up to the light. Then I turned toward Kai, handed him the glass, and told him to enjoy it.