Dahanu Road: A novel by Anosh Irani

am?”
    “No.”
    “Come on, let me show you.”
    Then he growled like a tiger, and she knew what that meant. It was a game they played. He called it Tiger-tiger.
    He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. She loved how muscular his arms were. The old wooden bed was covered by a mosquito net. Shapur Irani hated the mosquito net because he wanted to throw her on the bed, and he had done so once and the mosquito net had ripped, and she had shouted at him, and she was in no mood for any tiger after that.
    “You and your mosquito net,” he said as he put her down.
    “There’s nothing wrong with my mosquito net,” said Banu as she straightened her nightgown. “I don’t like being bitten.”
    “But which tiger stops when he sees a mosquito net? It doesn’t make sense, Banu. You’re spoiling it all for me.”
    “Just wait. Always in such a hurry, you men,” she said as opened one side of the mosquito net and let him in. “There, the tiger is in. You can start growling again.”
    “I don’t feel like it now.”
    “You’re such a child.”
    “And what did you mean when you said, ‘you men’? How do you know what men are like? I thought you had only been with me.”
    “I’ve been lost in the woods many times, my dear.”
    And that was enough for him. He put his hand under her nightgown and climbed on top of her.
    “Always in such a hurry,” she said.

    The tiger did not last long. Banu wanted him to go on, to growl and growl, but he had failed her tonight. He lay next to her and was snoring loudly, on this bed that had been in her family for generations. After she got married, she insisted on bringing this bed to Dahanu. Shapur Irani was very uncomfortable with this. “How can we sleep on this bed when your grandmother has slept on it? Do you want me to think of Najamai when I undress you?” Banu insisted that she would not get sleep on any other bed. “But we are newly married. We are hardly going to sleep,” he said. The wink made no difference. The bed stayed. She had played cards on this bed with her mother, and she had heard stories from her grandmother Najamai. She always admired Najamai’s teeth. For an old lady she had most of her teeth, and Najamai insisted it was because she always tried to speak the truth. “The more you lie, the more your teeth fall out,” she used to say.
    In the darkness, she snuggled close to her husband, tickled his forearm and listened to the crickets. He was built like a truck, this man, and his skin was reddened by the sun, and when he drank, his face became even redder and his neck looked like it was about to explode. She giggled to herself when she thought of his tomato face. He was eleven years older than her, and she liked that he was experienced. At timesshe found his strength funny, especially the manner in which he shook her hand the first time they met, as though a colonel was shaking the hand of a soldier—firm, commanding, and awkward. She had laughed out loud and her mother shouted at her for that, but Shapur Irani was amused. He confessed later that he was surprised he was not angry. They met three times after that, always at her house, and her mother would eavesdrop from the other room. Banu had wanted to go for a walk with him alone, but her mother had refused. “It’s not what a respectable girl does,” she had said. All it took was four meetings and the date was decided, the prayers were said, rings exchanged, promises made, and then she was off to Dahanu. The chickoo farm was a big change from the city, and she missed the bazaars and the trams and the opera houses, but she loved this man, and he loved his farm. “In marriage there is always give and take,” Najamai had said. “We are the house-makers and they are the house-breakers.” She did not think of her husband as a breaker at all. He was good to her, and even though his snoring prevented her from sleeping, all she needed to do was punch him hard in the stomach and he