Free Arresting God in Kathmandu by Samrat Upadhyay Page B

responded, “She’s a very good girl.” She was a year younger than Moti, she added, and a perfect match. “Of course, you’ll have to drive it into his head that his old ways cannot continue, or the girl’s life will be destroyed.”
    Hiralal debated whether to tell Rudra’s wife that Moti still needed to be convinced. But she might take that for a no and stop the negotiations. After all, her reputation as the middle woman was at stake. “He’ll come around,” Hiralal said, and kept the photograph to show to Moti.
    Late that night when Moti came home, Hiralal took a plate of dal-bhat to his room.
    “I’m not hungry,” Moti said. He was struggling to get into his pajamas. The room reeked of cheap liquor.
    “You have to eat something. With all that drinking—”
    “Ba, I already ate.” He sat on the bed.
    Hiralal sat beside him and held up the picture. “Here, take a look”
    Moti gave his father a quizzical glance and then laughed. “You don’t give up, do you? I told you.”
    “Just take a look.”
    Moti nodded at the picture and said, “No.”
    “Look closely. See how beautiful she is.”
    “Ba . . .” Moti started to say something, then took the picture and peered at it. Hiralal, watching his face closely, thought Moti’s drunken eyes lit up. “She’s okay,” Moti said after a moment.
    “So, I’ll arrange for a viewing?”
    “As I said before, I’m not getting married. I’ll go for your sake, but I won’t marry her.”
    Hiralal put his arm around Moti. “Son, she’s a good girl. You’ll get married, get a job, I’ll have grandchildren.”
    Moti chuckled. “I’m just nineteen, Ba. What will I do with a wife? Just produce grandchildren for you?”
    “What’s the harm in looking? If you don’t like her, you’ll say no.”
    Moti leaned back on his elbows.
    “Think of your mother,” Hiralal said. “This is what she’d have wanted.”
    After a moment, Moti said, “All right, I’ll look. But I’m warning you, be prepared for a no.”
    Hiralal left the picture by the bedside.
    He couldn’t sleep that night. This was the girl meant for Moti. After he saw her sweet face, Moti would change his ways. At two o’clock, Hiralal turned on the light and looked at the framed photograph of Rammaya hanging on the wall next to the bed. She was wearing a traditional Nepali shawl, the khasto, her broad face smiling at the camera, her hand holding the brass plate she used when she went to a temple, her forehead marked with vermilion paste. Hiralal remembered when the picture was taken. She had just come back from the Kathmandu Geneshthan, the temple of the elephant god, only a short distance from their house, and Moti, then sixteen, asked her to pose in front of the garden in the courtyard. A few weeks before, Moti had seen the camera in a shop and had relentlessly pestered Hiralal to buy it for him. When Hiralal pointed out that it cost three thousand rupees, an entire month’s salary, Moti went to his room and slammed the door. When he didn’t eat for two days, Rammaya sold her gold ring and handed the money to Hiralal. She refused to listen to his objection and said, “He’s our only son.”
    Hiralal watched as Rammaya stood next to the white roses and complained as Moti asked her to move this way and that. Moti said, “Smile,” in English, as if he were one of the foreigners who clicked cameras in the nearby Durbar Square temples. When Rammaya smiled, Hiralal couldn’t help smiling himself.
     
    Hiralal, Moti, and Rammaya’s uncle, an old man with a stoop, went to the girl’s house for the viewing. She was seated, Hiralal noted with relief when they entered the living room.
    A servant brought tea and biscuits, and the girl’s father, a large man with a paunch, said, “Rukmini is our only child.” Hiralal nodded. “Moti is my only son. Our first child, a daughter, died when she was a child.”
    They chatted for a while, and eventually Rukmini’s father said, “Well, I expect