The Seine at Noon

About this book

Haunted by the death during the First World War of his parents, immigrant Jews from Kerala, Stefan lives out his days in Paris selling curios in his shop—objects of beauty and intrigue fashioned out of clay, ceramic, gold, turquoise and lapis lazuli. A chance encounter brings him in contact with Jacques—a Frenchman, son of a rich mother who is eking out a living on his boat on the Seine, fashioning miniature boats out of wood, and is a sailor, and a carpenter who plays the violin in the Metro—in essence, unemployed. This friendship is the axis of the story, and the River is the witness to their friendship. The Frenchman and the immigrant are friends who accompany one another through many happy and catalytic moments, as well as the crises of death and bereavement. Both men know the intensity of love and longing for a woman, even when she is constantly with one, and when she is not. Stefan’s passion for his wife Esther is all-consuming and eternal but though she reciprocates it in her fashion, he cannot prevent her escaping from him when she chooses. Jacques’ wife Tatiana has left him to paint on the sidewalks of Montmartre, ever in search of a union with her Muse, Dali. Jacques professes not to care, but she remains for him the one woman he continues to seek. Bianca, gentle and timid, is their daughter. Loving each of her dysfunctional parents with equal intensity, she carves a space for herself in the narrative, keeping alive with great charm the innocence and vitality of youth. After Esther’s death, Stefan, Jacques and Bianca go on a journey to Kerala, to the ancestral house that Esther has bequeathed to Bianca, her adopted daughter. There, Stefan meets a sudden and horrifying end in the land of his forefathers—a cataclysmic event that sends Bianca eventually to another country—America—and Jacques back to Paris, the only city that he could ever call home, even in the absence of all whom he called family.