MARRIAGE

On a winter's afternoon around seven years ago, the wife of Aloka's younger brother had drowned in the Damodar, the river that ran along the western edge of the town. They had been out on a picnic along with other married couples their age and several infants. At the sight of his young wife being swept away by the rushing undertow, Aloka's brother had jumped right in, tipsy enough to disregard the fact that he did not know how to swim. 

Later that evening, their companions had discovered the woman's body a few hundred feet away, wedged between rocks on the craggy riverbank. It had taken another week to find her brother's corpse, several kilometres downstream, his face mauled into obscurity by the claws of some angry animal. Joy and Bubu were just four years old.

In life, some people are tried more than others, Aloka had convinced herself. It had made it easier for her to raise the orphans and hurt less when Molly's marriage proposals had repeatedly crashed into pieces. After every rejection, Proloy would bury his face into the pillow and silently sob into the night, so that the girls would not find out. Aloka would be next to him, stroking his back, dredging up an old saying she had heard as a child from her grandmother. Finding a groom is like looking for a serpent in a dark room, she would tell him. You know it's there but there is no easy way to find it.

Aloka never let her emotions get in the way while arranging for these visits. The trick was to treat it like any other work. She had to rein in her twin daughters. One look at those pretty, flighty girls and Molly would not stand a chance. 

Cardboard boxes, filled with sweets and pastries, were stacked inside the refrigerator. Those needed safeguarding from the boys and their nimble appetite. Aloka had confronted them once last year, after they had wiped off some twenty nolen gur sandesh in a matter of minutes. They had stood quietly, looking at her with forlorn orphan eyes, like two sad cows caught grazing on someone else's pasture.

It is how God plays with us, Aloka thought. She felt a surge of hope about the next day. Molly's photograph stood approved, horoscopes had been matched. What could go wrong? The family stopping for lunch had requested one indulgence: to arrange for some hilsa fish. It was not the season but not impossible to get. 

She had but one persistent fear. Rinku and Rimpa were brilliant, in an almost effortless way. They would go to university, get jobs and one day come home with the men they wanted to marry. Aloka had to make sure Molly was not lingering around to face that day.

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