Dahanu Road: A novel (18 page)

“There is no father sun. Najamai used to say that the sun is God’s female creation.”

“So God is a man, hah?” he said as he puffed his chest.

“That’s what Najamai used to say.”

“She was a wise woman.”

“Shapur, where are you taking me? I don’t want to walk too much. It’s so cold.”

“I want to show you something.”

He took her through the trees, and she had to bend a little to avoid being hit in the head by low branches. Motes of dust were illuminated by the morning sun—angel breath.

Soon they reached a clearing and Banu removed her slippers. She wanted to feel the morning dew on the grass. She curled her toes and felt every bit of moisture on her soles. She thought of Najamai again, who had an explanation for all of nature’s beauty. “Dew is the jewellery of grass,” she had once said. “Just as the sky has stars to decorate it, the grass has dew to make it sparkle. Even nature likes to dress up and go out, my dear.”

“Look at this,” said Shapur Irani. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

“This big hole?” asked Banu.

“Do you like it?”

It was more than forty feet deep, and to Banu it looked like an open sore.

“It’s … it’s really lovely,” she said.

“Are you teasing me?”

“Darling, what else do you want me to say?”

She moved away from the edge of the hole, but her husband did not let her go too far.

“This is my new well,” he said. “When it’s done, it will be the deepest well in Dahanu.”

“Why do we need another well? The one we have is quite deep, no?”

“What if the monsoons fail? Our lives depend on nature. We cannot take too much for granted. That’s why I want one more well, so deep it can store enough water for us.”

“Have you found water as yet?”

“No, not yet. But the Warlis are sure this is a good spot. There were holes in the ground, holes made by crabs … there was wet mud around those holes. The crabs have gone inside the earth and have come out with wet mud. It means there is water underneath.”

“Don’t worry, Shapur. In a couple of days, you will get water in this well.”

“Oh? And how do you know?”

“When my water bursts, I will empty it in this well.”

Shapur Irani roared with laughter, and Banu was thrilled to hear that sound again.

Things were going to be okay. There was fruit on the trees and dew on the grass, and the baby sun was shining, happy in its softness, and as Najamai used to say, the grass had worn jewellery because it too wanted to celebrate the birth of a child.

A week later, Sohrab was born. The minute Jeroo told Shapur Irani that Banu was fine, he went to the teak cupboard. He had stuck a picture of Zarathushtra on the inside of the door. He folded his hands in prayer, bowed his head to the prophet, and whispered a thank-you.

Jeroo was in a good mood. She even spoke with Shapur Irani quite cheerfully. Of course, ever since the day of Vithal’s beating, she had been cold with him. Shapur Irani had wanted
to explain that his actions were necessary, but the look on Jeroo’s face told him that he did not stand a chance. She had formed an opinion of him, one that he deserved. However, he appreciated that she had not mentioned a word to Banu, as it would have surely upset her.

“Now you have two healthy sons,” said Jeroo. “May they grow up to become strong men.”

“They will be men of the soil,” said Shapur Irani. “I shall teach them all I know.”

“What about me?” asked Banu. “No one is congratulating me?”

“Yes, my football,” said Shapur Irani. “Let me congratulate you.”

Jeroo slipped out of the room. Shapur Irani sat beside the bed. The baby was at Banu’s breasts. “That’s
my
job,” he said. “You little rascal, that’s my job.”

“Chee, Shapur. How dirty.”

“Whenever you use the word ‘dirty’ you know what happens to me. I have to show you how dirty I am.”

“Shapur, not now. I’m feeding the baby.”

“Feed me also. How am I supposed to celebrate the birth of my son?”

“I don’t know. Go out and pick some fruit.”

“I want to pick
your
fruit.”

“Shapur, Jeroo is in the other room. She can hear us.”

Shapur Irani laughed again. This was the second time this week he had laughed from the heart.

Banu had a feeling that Sohrab’s birth would change everything. Happiness was theirs now. In a few days, after Jeroo would leave, Banu’s mother would come and look after her.
Maybe Shapur Irani would allow Banu to go to Bombay for a while. She knew he did not like her going anywhere without him. She would bring it up later, perhaps. Right now, she was content to feel his hard skin against her cheek, his cold nose nuzzling against her neck. Later, he put his shotgun away. He agreed with Banu that he was being unreasonable, and with two sons now, a gun had no place in their bed.

Even though it was past dawn, the windows were still closed because it was unusually cold. Banu had two sweaters on, and even Shapur Irani, for the first time, was feeling an extreme chill.

“Come here,” said Banu. “Let me warm you up.”

He went close to her and kissed her hard. He took one sweater off, and then tried to take the next one off, but it got entangled with the first and she giggled. Just then, there was a loud thud. Shapur Irani froze. He listened. One more thud. Then something hit the window and there was a large crack in it. Jeroo came running into the room with the baby. Khodi was awake too. “Mama,” he said.

“Stay in here and don’t open the door,” said Shapur Irani.

He opened the cupboard and took out his shotgun. The Warlis were stoning his house. But why now? The violence had ended throughout Dahanu. Where was Ejaz? He needed to go out and shoot a couple of Warlis. It was only a matter of time before they broke the door and came in.

He slowly opened the main door. He could see no one. Yet there was another loud thud on the wall of the house. He fired one shot in the air. There was no point in going out and exposing himself unless he could spot one of them. Then he closed the door. It was too risky. If they rushed in, he would not be able
to fight them indoors. He cursed the Warlis under his breath. “I’ll kill them all,” he kept saying to himself. “I’ll kill them all.”

He bolted the door and went to a window. He broke the glass with the butt of his gun, put the nozzle out, and fired. There was complete silence. He watched through the hole he had made. He could see only chickoo trees. Then he saw a rock hit the bark of a chickoo tree. He could not believe it. This was not coming from the Warlis. This was coming from the heavens. He opened the window and saw pieces of ice falling from the sky. They hit the walls of his home, they hit the bark of his trees with great force and he flinched every time it happened.

No, not my trees. Please, not the trees.

A few of the workers were running for shelter. Shapur Irani opened the door and stood under the roof of the porch. His trees were being hacked and there was nothing he could do to stop the slaughter.

Shapur Irani believed that the ice was a punishment for the shooting on Dahanu beach. Now, even though the violence had abated, the violence within Shapur Irani’s heart was alive. Perhaps it was not violence but fear, and he recognized that something was amiss, that his heart was not as strong as it used to be, but he told himself that the birth of a child could soften up any man.

Three months after the hailstorm, they left the farm in the morning in a new horse carriage that Shapur Irani had acquired. Banu was not comfortable with the idea of horses
carrying so much weight. Still, she sat in the carriage with the newborn Sohrab in her arms. Shapur Irani made Khodi sit beside him.

“Khodi,” he said, “don’t sit with your back hunched. Sit like a man of authority. Sit like you own these horses.”

“Shapur,” Banu whispered, “he’s only three. Calm down.”

But Shapur Irani wanted to treat his son like a man. There would be no room for weakness in that heart of his.

“Let’s give these horses names,” said Banu.

“No,” said Shapur Irani. “No names. They are not pets. They are workers.”

“See?” said Banu. “Even Sohrab is crying. Even he wants the horses to be named.”

“Ejaz!” called Shapur Irani. “Let’s go.”

Banu did not like Ejaz the Pathan. He was too bulky and powerful, and that black beard of his had so many knots in it, a sign that he was crooked. Even her husband was just as mighty as Ejaz was, but her husband was not crooked. She hated the wooden club Ejaz carried with him everywhere. Just a few hours ago, she awoke to the sound of glass breaking. When she opened the front door, she saw her husband and Ejaz smashing empty bottles on the porch. When she asked what they were doing, Ejaz replied, “We are using the glass for my club.” Banu did not like the fact that Ejaz answered when she had asked the question to her husband. But the club Ejaz had made fascinated Shapur Irani and he painstakingly inserted glass shrapnel into the end of the club himself.

“Does he have to carry that club with him?” she asked, as Ejaz took the reins in his hand.

“Yes,” said Shapur Irani. “It’s for safety.”

“But it’s such a beautiful day. Why spoil such a beautiful day?”

“Terrible things can happen on beautiful days.”

They set off for the bazaar where a mela was taking place. Khodi had never been to a fair, and even Banu wanted to eat candy floss. The first time she had tasted it as a child, her mother had told her that it was just like eating clouds, and then she said, “But in truth it is an old man’s beard. You are eating the beard of a dead old man!” And Banu shrieked in fright but ate the candy floss anyway. If an old man’s beard tasted so delicious, she did not care.

On the way to the fair, she marvelled at how pristine the air was. She took in deep breaths, and Sohrab puckered his lips, and even though she knew it was time for his feeding, she did not want to do it in front of Ejaz. She also did not like how Khodi was staring at Ejaz’s club. He seemed to have the same fondness for it that his father did. This was a time for toys, for colours and fairy tales—not clubs. To distract herself, she closed her eyes and listened to the clip-clop of the horses. When she was a little girl, she would wake up in the middle of the night and rush to the balcony whenever she heard a horse carriage. There was something about those empty Bombay streets and two majestic horses …

A cry from Khodi brought her out of her reverie. He had cut his finger on the shards of Ejaz’s club. Instead of shouting at his son, Shapur Irani took the finger and put it in Khodi’s mouth. “Suck the blood off,” he told his son. “It’s good. Now you know what blood tastes like.”

“Don’t do that,” said Banu. “What are you—?”

But a deadly look from her husband silenced her. To placate her, he sucked Khodi’s finger himself and made bird sounds
to distract the child. By the time Khodi was quiet, Banu’s fear and anger had gone in and found a resting place somewhere inside her.

Once they got to the fair, Banu said she wanted to eat the old man’s beard. “Here, take him,” she said to Shapur Irani, and she handed Sohrab to him. She made Khodi walk with her, and he tumbled along, hanging on to his mother with one hand and rubbing his nose with the other.

“Why didn’t you bring Jeroo?” Shapur Irani grumbled. “What is a midwife for?”

“You
didn’t want her, Shapur.”

She giggled at the sight of him, this giant of a man standing in a fair, holding a newborn in his arms. He looked just as ridiculous with Sohrab as she herself would look holding Ejaz’s club. She immediately regretted that thought.

“Have some candy floss,” she said, offering her husband some.

But Shapur Irani had to refuse. Sweets of any kind triggered a painful memory, that of Aflatoon of Esfahan. Perhaps the celebrated confectioner’s heart was not as pure as his father had thought it to be. Why else would disaster strike with such force? It was a day when his father’s tongue should have tasted cream and butter, not his own blood.

Or maybe Aflatoon’s heart was noble. Perhaps he sat there at the counter of his shop, his head hanging in shame, and said a prayer, sweet as the fillings in his delicacies, for young Shapur. That was why in India, another confectioner, Daryoush the baker, provided what Aflatoon of Esfahan could not. And for that reason, Daryoush was the greater artist.