Dahanu Road: A novel (26 page)

The moment she came, he went to her. He did not care who was watching.

He wanted to get away from the farm, from its bathtubs and black pipes, to a place without Iranis, where no one would recognize him or her.

The drive was muted and sober, Kusum sitting next to him with a defeated stare. It was pure acceptance of the fact that pain was inevitable, a hacking cough from which she would get no release. By the time they reached Dahanu Village, every single thing that Zairos could have done to prevent Kusum from getting hurt had sizzled in his brain.

It was early morning but Dhenu Gaam had already woken up long ago. The Portuguese and the British had galloped through its streets through the centuries, but the only lasting mark was the Fort of the Marathas, which now served as the town prison.

The streets were extremely narrow, with houses on each side. Marwari moneylenders, small-time lawyers, Jain priests, and government officials lived here, exchanging pleasantries from their verandas, lying on their cots, Gujarati newspapers on their undulating stomachs, snoring like a hundred babies in a fairy tale, their wisps of hair flying in the breeze of table fans, while their servants ran errands on Hero cycles and cooks inhaled the tanginess of their rivals’ dishes, mixed with the smell of snuff, attacking their mucous membranes, as their masters’ bellies rose higher, a mountain of pride, until they finally awoke from their slumber with the smiles of men who had wiped, cleaned, and fed.

As at Anna’s, languages bashed into each other, on some days a train wreck, on others a tasty mix bouncing into temple bells, sinking into yellow laddoos and other sweetmeats, the Jains trying not to let any of the languages defile them, the Marwaris
welcoming the defiling and murder of words, the sulphur dioxide from the thermal power plant coating the languages, giving them an acidic smell.

A smell that was making Zairos anxious.

“Why are you silent?” asked Kusum. “Don’t you want to know what he did to me?”

“No,” he answered.

“Laxman got into the hut at night and started kicking me. He dug his heel into my stomach. Then he pulled me by the hair and I started screaming. By the time the men came from the nearby huts, he was gone. In the morning I saw some of my own hair on the ground.”

Zairos held on to the steering wheel. It had black leather covering on it which absorbed his sweat.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “We have given your husband money and we have given him a beating. Your husband has lodged a police case against me.”

“Seth, you will pay the police some money and the matter will disappear.”

Zairos looked at her lips when she said this. When a person spoke the truth, the lips took on a strange form, of one possessed. He had seen it happen when his grandfather spoke of burning his wife’s books.

Ahead, a goat chewed an old newspaper. Women sat in their nightgowns under the arches of small cement homes and they reminded Zairos of courtesans in an ancient kingdom. A man energetically swept the courtyard of his tailor’s shop. His feet were swollen. Everywhere Zairos looked, young women were asleep on cots on their verandas. These young women were a little better off than Kusum. They were free
for the moment, but at some point they would marry an old moneylender or the tailor with swollen feet, and they would lead unfulfilled lives, and their husbands would know it, the women would know it, the grass would know it, and yet nothing would change.

They approached the fairground next. At night, the lights of the giant wheel drew the Warlis here, and some of them dared to buy a ticket while others stayed on the ground considering it unwise to share the skies with the gods.

He drove the car to the edge of the village, to where the fishing boats stood on the shore with orange and green flags lazing in the morning light. Far away, a man sat on a stone and read a newspaper. That man was the only one around.

Zairos ran his fingers along the bald patch on Kusum’s scalp. She flinched a little. He blew on it and she smiled.

“The hair will grow back,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

“You should. You’re still young.”

He looked at her face. There was not a single line on it and it could not be touched by sun or grief. He put his palm against her cheek, the way he had some time ago.

But this time he would not stop there.

She needed more than comfort, more than just a palm.

He needed something too, he needed it all.

She was breathing softly, her mouth admitting what her body already knew, and it sent a surge of power up his spine, as his mouth moved closer to hers.

He raised her chin slightly, but she did not look into his eyes. She watched her own hand as it went inside his shirt. She traced her own fingers as they ran across his hairy chest.
Her hands were rough, they had been roughed up on the soil of his own farm, and they were now tending to his skin.

Slowly, he lowered his lips on hers.

Never before had she felt the touch of an Irani seth. She pushed herself against him, and he kissed her hard, tasted her in ways only lions could, licked her neck and shoulders, coating her, protecting her for life. That was when she pulled him back, and now she tasted him, and they lost track of who was master and who was slave, it did not matter anymore, and Zairos challenged the god of breath, if there was such a god, to distinguish which breath was which because they were both just as proud, just as scared, and just as angry.

In order to save Kusum from her world, Zairos needed to bring her into his. At first, he dismissed the thought. But he realized he could not just drop her off at the farm. Their love-making had left him electric.

Anna’s was his world, but he could not take her there. To be honest, he could not take anyone there.
A crazy place for a crazy race
was what Hosi had scribbled onto one of Anna’s walls, and it was true. No matter how strong, wise, handsome, beautiful, spiritual, crippled, deformed, deaf, dumb, deaf
and
dumb, or close to genius a person was, if they were not born into it, the environment at Anna’s could easily set them back an eon or two.

If Anna’s was completely, utterly crazy, the Crazy Crab, an outdoor restaurant by the sea, was only borderline demented. It would be perfect for their first outing together. But he would
have to wait for lunchtime. So after leaving the fishing boats, they walked around the village, where they shared an ice cream cone. He saw her smile for the first time and wondered how her teeth were so white while his were pitted with cavities. He wanted to let down her hair and see her in all her glory, but it was not the right moment.

When they got in the car again, she decided to take him somewhere, to her haven. They sat on the steps of the lake outside the Shree Kevda Devi Mandir. Pink lotuses floated on the still, green water, and coconut trees lined the shore on the other side. Like the farm, it gave Zairos the feeling of being alive a century ago. So did the way the pujari rang the temple bells from time to time. It was a gentle reminder of devotion— there was no hysteria, it was playful, like cherubs revealing secrets to each other.

“Seth,” she said. “This used to be the village of the untouchables.”

He looked around, at the life surrounding the temple. A boy, no more than three, was alone in a green tub pouring water on his head with a mug, occasionally opening his mouth and swallowing some of it. Women walked around with small branches in their arms. There were the usual goats as well, but they were serene, there was no fear of them being slaughtered, and an old lady was washing clothes, beating orange and green robes with a soft mallet.

They did not enter the temple. Neither of them felt like it. The bells, the lotuses, the sun setting soft fire to the coconut trees was enough for them. When she walked to the car, he made sure he stayed behind her. He wanted to follow the way her hips moved; her hips were like something that had been
calibrated, just the right amount of swing, enough to titillate, to drive wild. And she had the strongest back he had ever seen on a woman. Beneath the brown flesh shining with sweat, the muscle was alive, trained to hold any amount of weight. But the flesh itself was so soft and smooth—he was only a lick away from ecstasy.

In the car, by the sea, with the tires sinking slowly into the wet sand, he had her again. The back seat did not give them much space, but they relished it, turning this way and that, coiling, winding, stopping, exhaling, and when they were done, they leaned against the seat and let the salty wind hit them. Another couple were farther away, on a Vespa, the man shirtless and in trousers, the woman in a green sari, kissing each other.

“Jairos,” said Kusum.

He laughed when she said his name. He laughed because she could not say it, and he rejoiced because she had said it in the first place. For the first time she had not called him “seth.”

“Z … Z …” he said.

If only his English teacher Mrs. Costa could see what he was using his pronunciation for.

“Try and say my name correctly,” he said.

She put her head on his chest and said it again, “Jairos.”

“Z …” he said again.

Zairos wanted to know this woman. He wanted to know everything her lips could reveal, the howls her ears had heard, the weight her arms had lifted, the cracks in the soles of her feet which stuck out like the marks left by a razor blade.

When Kusum saw the Crazy Crab, its tables with maroon cloths, the white plastic chairs, the large fans standing like sentries on the side, she did not want to go. But when he said, “Look at the wall, they are straw walls just like your hut, and even the roof is just a shelter. It’s like putting tables and chairs in your hut,” she squinted at him, the tiptoe of her nose the pointe of a ballerina, and finally got out of the car.

When Zairos walked with her, it gave him a feeling of power and purpose. The Crazy Crab was one of the spots that the Iranis frequented, but it was a nighttime haunt. It was amusing for the tourists staying at the Pearl Line Resort to suddenly see an army of tall, strong men in jeans and goatees and five o’clock shadows walking in, young men, rich men in expensive shoes and belts who gave off the smell of family inheritance and told jokes and smoked Marlboros.

The restaurant was fairly empty. An old man sat at a corner table reading a newspaper, enjoying a cold beer and peanuts, and three tables away middle-aged women conspired against their husbands. Gambhir, the manager, was behind a wooden counter, his head buried in yesterday’s accounts, his hair prematurely turned white and too thin for a man his age.

A gentle breeze came in from the sea, and Zairos admired the old Parsi mansion that was a short distance away. Even though no one lived in it, and the building was yellow and tattered, it still had some grace, a trace of its former glory. Kusum had her head up, she was trying to be strong, but as soon as the waiter arrived with the menus, she clenched her hand into a fist.

Zairos had no fear of anyone asking Kusum to leave. Even if Gambhir noticed a Warli straight off a farm, he would ignore her. Aspi Irani had given Gambhir a hefty sum of money for
his cataract operation, so if Gambhir did see Kusum, Zairos would remind him it was due to his father’s generosity that he could see her, or anything, in the first place.

The waiter hovered, bent, and placed the menus on the table like an arched, ugly bird. Kusum looked down again but could not find her feet. She found the surface of the table instead, scanned it as though her life depended on it.

“You can look up now,” said Zairos. “The waiter is gone.”

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

“To eat.”

“You got me here to teach me a lesson.”

“And what lesson would that be?”

“That I am different from you. You don’t need to teach me. I know,” she said. “Why do you want people to see us?”

“I don’t
want
them to see us, but if they do, it’s fine.”

“I don’t like it here. I want to go.”

“Let the food come. Then you’ll not want to leave.”

“I want to go. Please.”

The sea breeze came in, circled around them, confused about what a young Irani man was doing with an even younger Warli woman. The sea breeze had seen such a union before, but in darkness, or behind closed doors, and it was always a one-sided attack, the Iranis sinking their teeth into unwilling Warli skin. But this was something new for the sea breeze, this conversation that took place in a restaurant.