“Right.”
They had pulled out of the motel compound and dodged a sudden flock of chickens crossing the street—the old joke made Smita smile—when she thought of something. “You don’t think the front desk guy has been suspicious about the beer bottles you’ve been bringing to your room the last two nights?” she asked.
Mohan’s lips were set in a straight line. “One thing you have to understand about India, Smita,” he said, “is that half of these customs exist just to save face. As long as you don’t rub it in their faces, nobody cares.”
“So, it’s a country of hypocrites.”
He smiled as if he was wise to her. “No. It’s a country that puts a premium on saving face.”
“Just like Meena’s brothers.” Her tone was bitter. “That’s what they were doing, right? Saving their family honor.”
Mohan nodded but didn’t reply. He had come to her room before dinner the evening before with two bottles of beer and a bag of cashews. He had made her splutter with laughter as he told her, in his droll, deadpan fashion, story after story about the pranks he and his friends used to play on their schoolteachers.
Now, he glanced at her. “Everything okay with you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Only because you haven’t argued with me in the last three minutes or so.”
“I guess I’m slipping.”
“Yah, you’re probably pining away for that fat baniya who sat at the dinner table next to ours last night. Maybe you liked the way he was licking his fingers?” And he did such an exaggerated pantomime of the man that Smita burst out laughing.
“You know, you have a great laugh,” Mohan said.
“Everybody tells me it’s too mannish.”
He frowned. “Who?”
Truth be told, it was only Bryan who had said that to her once, when they were having problems. But the comment had stuck, the way insults always did. “Everybody,” she said vaguely.
Mohan fiddled with the car radio, trying to pick up a station. “Do you have any favorite Hindi film songs? From your childhood?”
“Not really,” she said. “Rohit and I were more into rock and roll anyway. But my mom used to listen to ghazals.”
“Not your papa?”
“Nah. He was more into Western classical.”
“What? Almost every member of your family listened to something different?”
“Pretty much.” She glanced at him. “How was it in your family?”
“My father is a huge Hindi film fan. So mostly, we grew up on that music. They’re pretty traditional people, you know? Teetotalers. Vegetarians. Proud to be Gujarati.”
“Did they have an arranged marriage?”
“Yes, of course. In their time, nothing else was possible.”
She nodded, suppressing the urge to tell him that her mother had eloped with her father. “So, will they find a bride for you?”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “They’ve tried. But I told them I wasn’t interested.”
“Not interested in what? Marriage? Or an arranged marriage?”
“I’m not sure. Probably both at this point. At my age.”
“How old are you? Sixty-four?”
“Ha ha.” Mohan honked at a car that came too close. “I’m thirty-two,” he said. “Getting too old to marry.”
“What nonsense,” she said. “I’m thirty-four. You’re just a spring chicken.” She looked at him curiously. “You’ve never come close? To marrying?”
He was quiet for so long that the silence began to feel uncomfortable. “Hey, I’m sorry,” Smita began. “It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s okay.” He paused. “I came close once. But it was many years ago.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. She was with me in college. She wanted to marry while we were students. But I—I wanted to make something of myself before we settled down. In those days, I had an old-fashioned notion that the man had to support the woman. My upbringing, you know? So I hesitated. And she got tired of waiting. She married another classmate.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget it, yaar. It was a long time ago.” Mohan shook his head. “Besides, she wasn’t a Gujarati. So my parents would’ve probably had a heart attack. It’s just as well.”
“You wouldn’t have defied them?” Smita heard the judgment in her voice and knew that he had heard it, too.
“Yah, probably,” he said. “If it had come to that.”
They fell into another silence. After a few moments, Mohan said, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You never married?”
She shrugged. “No. It never took.”
He made a small, enigmatic motion with his head, the meaning of which she didn’t get. “Did you ever date a desi guy?” he asked after a moment.
“No,” she said, suddenly embarrassed. “That is, I went on a few dates that my folks set up. But in my line of work, you know, I don’t meet too many Indians.”
“Huh. And you don’t meet boys outside of your line of work? Like, at parties and all?”
She smiled, acknowledging the dig. But how to explain her nomadic existence to Mohan, rooted, steady Mohan? What would he make of the packed suitcases in her austere Brooklyn apartment? Would he disapprove of the hook-ups she had with the correspondents she met in far-flung places? What would he think of the expensive Sunday brunches she shared with her single friends in New York, during which they lingered over mimosas, complaining incessantly about how all the good guys were married or gay? Would he be bemused or impressed by their chatter, the fact that they talked almost exclusively about indie films and politics and the latest exhibit at the Met? God, how stereotypical her life in Brooklyn was. How American.
She realized that he was waiting for her to answer. “I don’t really go to a lot of parties,” she said.
“And what about your parents? Were they not pushing you to get married?”
Smita pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “They would’ve liked me to, sure. Mummy, especially. Wanting to marry off their children is part of the DNA of Indian parents, right?”
“Why just Indian parents? Don’t all parents wish this for their children?”
Don’t take the bait, Smita said to herself. “I guess.”
After a minute, she said, “Tell me something. Are you sorry you let Nandini talk you into accompanying me? Instead of being with Shannon?”
“Not at all. Shannon sounded so good when I spoke to her yesterday. They already have her doing physiotherapy. And this is a new experience for me, going on a story with a journalist. Although I’m not sure I should go in with you when you interview those brothers. Because I will want to kill them.”
“That’s the thing about being a journalist,” she said. “You can’t let your emotions get in the way. I have to be able to interview them without judging them.”
“I honestly don’t know how you can do that.”
But she had done it many times. Smita told him about her first tough assignment, as a young reporter in Philly. How she’d interviewed the two straight men who’d gone into a gay bar, left with a much younger guy, and then brutally beaten him and left him for dead. The boy, from a small town thirty miles from Philly, was nineteen years old and had screwed up his nerve to visit a gay bar for the first time in his young, closeted life.
“Did he die?” Mohan asked as he swerved to avoid a pothole on the road.
“Yes. After a week in the hospital. His pastor-father refused to visit him because that would’ve meant ‘condoning’ his sexual orientation.”
“I didn’t realize America was so backwards, yaar. I mean, we see pictures of those gay pride parades and all on TV.”
“Well, it’s still easier to be gay in the big cities than in small-town America. But things have definitely changed. This is from when I first became a reporter—from before I was an old maid.”
“What was the hardest story you’ve ever covered?”