written By
Velu had seen enough Hollywood romcoms and TV sitcoms to know exactly what it meant when an attractive woman lingered at her doorway and asked a man to come up for coffee. The perilous possibilities behind such an invitation were not lost on him. But as a twenty-nine-year-old virgin from a traditional Hindu family who was destined for arranged marriage, and as a postdoctoral researcher of arcane matters who worked in an obscure basement cubicle, he never thought he would encounter such a question in his own life.
His panicked reaction to the question was triggered even though the woman in question, standing in front of him dressed in modest Muslim attire, with a six-year-old daughter in tow, and perhaps a husband behind the door, was hardly channeling the effervescent energy of a romcom heroine. And the chances of those possibilities turning into anything earth-shattering, like in the movies, were close to zero. Besides, she had asked him to “come in for chai,” not “up for coffee.” So, there was that!
Steadying himself, he nodded shyly in acceptance as she opened the door. A pleasant mélange of Indian food aromas wafted out from the unlit interior, though a tad heavy on the garlic for his liking.
Slipping off his shoes at the door, he stepped inside, still trying to parse the smells. He blurted out, “Your daughter was right, professor. You do have a rodent infestation in here.”
***
That evening in Berkeley had taken a strange turn well before the chai invitation, back when Velu, huddled in his parka and cigarette in hand, had parked himself on a bench outside Dwinelle Hall.
“It’s nice here. I’ll stick around for a little more time,” he told his friend, waving him goodbye. He nibbled on the syrupy badusha he had snuck out in a paper napkin. It was the week before the finals, and only an occasional student or two strolled across the quad, leaving him to relish the tranquility of the chilly gloaming of early December in solitude.
“Thank you,” a woman’s voice addressed him.
He looked up. It was a woman, perhaps his age, in a beige peacoat and matching silk headscarf, holding the hand of a little girl. When the same pair had entered the full auditorium an hour earlier, he had vacated his seat for them and moved to join the few people standing at the back.
“It was nothing,” Velu mumbled, face flushed. He lowered his eyes to meet the child’s, smiling at her feebly as he crushed his cigarette on the bench behind his back. The girl had her own badusha in her hand, but she ignored it to study Velu with her beautiful, wet, saucepan eyes.
“So, did you like the play?” the mother asked.
“Frankly, I liked the food better,” Velu said, holding up the badusha as evidence.
“So what brought you here then?”
“My roommate. He’s North Indian and doesn’t speak Tamil, but I think he’s got a crush on a girl in the cast. And I’ve been missing hearing my language around here, so…”
“Ah!”
“And I had heard Prof. Maragatham usually cooks up a storm for these plays.”
“That she does. Glad you found something to like.”
“The play was not all bad,” Velu said, now nervously looking at the woman. “Well, the kids tried. But you know, it’s hard for these American-born desi kids to get the Tamil consonants right. But the main issue was that the professor clumsily expanded the play to fit all the kids in the class. They spoke the words, but I don’t think they really understood Jeyakanthan’s leftist ideologies.”
Pausing to look at her to guess who she could be, he continued, “Anyway, don’t mention this to your friends in the class. I wouldn’t want it to reach the professor’s ears that a guy sitting outside on a park bench is throwing shade at her work.”
The young woman smoothed her long skirt, not quite an abaya, but some kind of less severe Muslim outfit, as she sat down next to him. She looked at him with her gorgeously brilliant eyes and beamed. If only she were two shades fairer and two inches taller, she could be mistaken for a popular Tamil movie star.
“Itjust reached the professor’s ears, mister,” she said. “Tell her more.”
Velu gasped and lurched to the edge of the seat.
“But … Prof. Maragatham …”
“I took over the class from her this semester. She’s retiring, you know.”
Velu’s face went ashen, or as they say in Tamil, looked like it had been slapped by a ghost.
“I am sorry, really sorry,” he mumbled. The little girl stuffed the last piece of her badusha into her mouth, wiped her sticky fingers on her leggings, and turned her full attention to his cringing.
“No need to apologize,” the professor said, with a milky-warm voice, mock-stifling her soft laughter by delicately raising her hand to her mouth, setting off a tinkling melody as golden bangles slipped down her wrist. “Your criticisms are valid. You seem to know your Tamil literature. I haven’t met you before; are you in Professor Winslow’s group?”
“Oh, no! I have nothing to do with your department. I am just a postdoc in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics who wandered in for free food. I know little about literature. Just a passing interest, you know. I dabbled in theater when I was a student at Annamalai University.”
“Whew! For a minute, I thought I would have stiff competition for the tenure-track position I am aiming for. But you are right; I don’t know much about twentieth-century Tamil Literature. My specialty is Dravidian Linguistics, actually. I am just subbing for Maragatham.”
Switching to speaking in Tamil, she continued, “I am Fatima Hamid, visiting from the University of Jaffna. Perhaps you can help me direct the spring semester class play.”
“Oh, let’s please not speak in Tamil, Professor,” Velu responded. “Your pure Sri Lankan Tamil embarrasses me. You will laugh at my Madras Tamil; it is such a horrible pidgin.
“Quite the contrary! As a linguist, I would be very interested in hearing your pidgin Tamil.”
Velu stood up and slipped his backpack over his shoulder. He said with a chuckle, “Topic for another day. Well, Professor Hamid, my name is Velayudhan. It was nice talking to you. As long as it was in English.”
Their attention was suddenly diverted as the little girl, who was skipping around behind the bench, burst into giggles.
“Uncle feeds squirrels,” the girl said to Velu, quickly glancing away as she edged behind her mother’s legs.
Velu and Fatima both stared at the kid, perplexed.
“I see you in the park every morning, when Amma walks me to school,” she said. More giggles.
“Which park, Zarina?” Fatima asked her daughter.
Velu looked at Fatima and asked, “Do you live near Willard Park?”
“Yes! On Hillegass and Derby.”
“Oh! That’s right near where I live,” Velu said, a bit surprised. “My apartment is just a block away, on Regent.”
***
It was not clear who suggested what, but they walked home together. Before the surprising twist in the conversation, he had meant to head back to his cubicle. But considering the serendipitous encounter, he felt it would be a shame to let the night end abruptly. And without realizing it, Velu had slid into the comfort of speaking in his mother’s Tamil.
“Atonement. That’s what it is,” he said. “Before I do my breathing exercises in the park each morning, I feed peanuts to the squirrels. It brings me a bit of solace. I’ve killed so many rats and mice in my life; it haunts me. Squeezes my heart. They are God’s creatures like you, me, and the little one here, trying to survive in this cruel world.
“Amen! And what led you to this campaign of bloodlust?”
The peculiarities of her orthodox dialect didn’t seem to bother him this time around.
“My research area is the economics of grain storage and waste management. Back in India, a huge percentage of the harvest is simply lost to marauding mice. In my fieldwork, I tried to come up with systems to help farmers protect their rice from rodents. I didn’t know my education would lead me to this. Poor mice. Drawn to death by their basic needs!”
“Henry doesn’t eat rice; he only eats cheese. Please don’t kill him,” Zarina pleaded gently, interrupting his lamentation.
“Henry?” Velu looked quizzically at Fatima.
“A mouse from a TV show she watches,” she said, shielding her whisper with her hand.
“He’s a real mouse, Amma! He comes to play with Jennifer.”
“Her doll,” Fatima mouthed.
With deliberate kicks, Zarina sent a few spiny sweetgum seeds skittering off the sidewalk, clearing her path.
Around this time, they reached Fatima’s dark, cedar-shingled cottage. The house’s age showed, but it still had a certain charm, tucked behind a compact garden of camellias, primroses, and hellebores. Before Velu could say goodbye and continue to the next block, she surprised him with the invitation for chai. It was unexpected but welcome, like being invited to speak at a prestigious conference.
***
“Are you serious? How can you tell?” Fatima asked.
“I can smell a rodent infestation from a mile away,” Velu said, with a snort.
“Oh, my God! I didn’t know. You can tell me more later; let me start on the chai,” she said, motioning him towards a tired-looking couch which stubbornly carried a few remnants of its original color at its peripheries.
“Nice place,” Velu said absently, looking around the quaint wood-panelled room. He followed Fatima into the kitchen, her previous gesture going unregistered, his senses focused elsewhere.
“It’s okay. I can barely afford to rent even this tiny one-bedroom with what they pay me, what with the constant demands of my mother back home,” she said, puzzled to see him advance towards the fridge.
Without warning, he grabbed the fridge and pulled it a few inches off the wall. He brought out his cellphone from his jeans pocket, switched on the flashlight and shone it into the recess behind the fridge.
“Aha!” he cried.
“What? What?” Fatima responded, voice trembling.
“Mouse droppings! You have had a few visits from our friend Mus musculus. Perhaps even a Rattus rattus? No, probably not. Just a big-sized mouse. Recent arrivals, I would say, looking at the volume of scat. Three juveniles and one adult; they have been here for less than ten days, and …”
A soft whimper from behind his back stopped Velu’s joyous faux forensics. Turning back, he saw Zarina standing behind him, clutching a cute, but well-worn rag doll, whose blond flossy locks streamed out from under a floral-printed bonnet. On the other end, strands of felt were peeking out from a hole in the toe. Henry’s teethwork? The cheer of the doll’s embroidered smile stood starkly against the doleful eyes of Zarina.
“Are you going to kill Henry?” she asked.
Velu looked at Fatima in despair. Using his behind, he gingerly pushed the fridge back to its original position.
“No, dear, nobody is killing any, um, anything,” Fatima said firmly. She asked them to sit at the tiny table in a corner of the kitchen, which had two mismatched wooden chairs from the seventies and a third tall one for the kid. She grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and poured out a small glass for her daughter.
***
“Is she asleep?” Velu asked, looking up when Fatima returned from the bedroom. Now, without the peacoat, her elegant silk blouse stood out in the dim light.
For the past twenty minutes, settled into the old couch, he had been studying the room as he nursed a cup of fragrant tea. Like their Tamil dialects, their tea brewing methods had subtle variations, too. Fatima had used powdered milk for the tea, which was a novel concept for him.
Another intriguing observation was that none of the numerous “family” pictures on the walls had anyone who could be construed to be Zarina’s father.
“Yes, finally,” Fatima said, taking a chair facing him. Her lipstick was smudged and her headscarf had slipped, revealing her neatly combed lustrous hair, but she seemed unbothered.
“So … Henry!” she said.
“Yes, Henry!” he smiled, shaking his head.
“Well, thanks for figuring that out. I guess I would eventually have seen one of these mice scampering and panicked. I will call the landlord tomorrow and have him send an exterminator.”
He nodded in agreement.
“Zarina’s such a sweet girl,” he said. “How’s she taking the move?”
“She loves it here. Her new school, friends, everything.”
He couldn’t stop watching her, a dopey smile fixed on his face. No words came to his mouth, but several did rustle into his mind. He was sitting in a Muslim woman’s house; what would his mother think? And this woman had a child. His family would go ballistic. Where was her husband? Why were these strange thoughts developing, and why were they racing in strange directions like unguided fireworks? And they had met barely an hour or two ago. He had to get a grip on himself.
“So, your family is in Jaffna?” he finally asked.
“If you are asking about my husband,” she said with a mischievous smile, “he is not in the picture. He left for the Gulf when Zarina was one. I don’t think he planned to come back.”
“Oh, no, no! I didn’t mean that. I meant your parents, brothers, …”
“They are in Colombo. Well, most of them. My father didn’t survive the war. I went to Jaffna for my job. What about your family?”
And they went on like that for a while, like two wrestlers carefully edging around the periphery of the ring, observing each other. Velu, lacking experience in such social subtleties, folded first. He thanked her for the chai, picked up his backpack, and stood up.
He must have stood in the middle of her living room for a while, for when his awareness returned to the room, he saw Fatima quizzing him with her eyes with soft amusement.
“Exclusion!” he said.
“Pardon?”
“The best way to keep mice away is through exclusion. Which means we should find the entry point or points and seal them well. Once we do that, we just have to take care of the rodents already inside.”
“But I said I was going to call the landlord …”
“Don’t do that. They will kill Henry.”
“You mean they’ll kill the vermin, right?”
“Look, there are humane ways to trap mice. Exterminators have time constraints; they won’t care. Don’t call the landlord. I will find the right traps.”
“Wow! But I don’t want to bother you!”
“No bother at all. I don’t want little Zarina to feel bad. I can explain everything to her.”
“I hope this scheme of yours isn’t going to be too expensive.”
“Hey, I have worked with farmers in India. I know how to rig up traps from this and that.”
She locked her eyes on him, for him to see her unconcealed admiration that words would only obscure.
“But what would we do with live mice you catch? You’ll catch them, Inshallah.”
“That’s where I will need your help. I don’t have a car, but we should release them at least a mile or two away from here.”
She laughed out loud. “You think Ican afford a car? I haven’t been able to save up for a bicycle for Zarina.”
“Well, that gives us a reason to take a two-mile walk.” It just came out.
He immediately turned red. Why did he say that? Why did that thought even come into his mind? Exclusion, Velu, exclusion.
He spoke again, looking at the floor, “Actually, I shouldn’t bother you. I will transport them myself. Up in the hills, above Memorial Stadium, should work.”
“Your first idea was much better, Velayudhan.”
He always knew Sri Lankan Tamil sounded purer, but he didn’t realize till now how sweet it could be on the ears, especially when she spoke his name.
***
Velu and Zarina had been crawling on their fours for a while, with Velu helping to move furniture, appliances, and such. He had given Zarina a dime and asked her to find a hole anywhere in the wall bigger than the coin she was holding. She was really getting into it. Velu even switched off the lights for a bit and tried identifying mouse tracks using a UV flashlight he had purchased from Amazon.
“Extra scoop of ice cream for whoever finds the hole,” Fatima called out, taking a pause from setting the dinner on the little table.
“Is this big enough?” Zarina called out, peering into the under-sink cabinet.
Velu quickly joined her and shone his flashlight. Whoever put in the cold water supply valve had skipped installing the metal flange on the sheetrock. There was a small dark hole adjacent to the pipe. And on the cabinet floor, right beneath it, was a cone of sheetrock dust, decorated with sprinkles of mouse crap.
“You found it! You found it!” Velu exclaimed.
Zarina went into a celebratory dance to the beats of her mother’s enthusiastic clapping.
Exclusion, exclusion, Velu told himself, stuffing steel wool into the hole.
“Where’s the bag with the spackle?” he asked Zarina, in a more sombre tone.
***
On a cold and foggy Christmas Eve, a man, a woman, and a child walked uphill along desolate Berkeley streets till they reached a small copse of trees behind the empty frat houses.
“As I told you before, Zarina,” the man said, “Henry will be happier here. They don’t like human food; they will like the nuts and seeds here much better. I love your mother’s biryani, though! It is super yummy, but only for us. Not for Henry.”
He walked a few feet into the woods, off the trail, and laid the five-gallon bucket contraption he was carrying on the wet grass. As he tilted the bucket and opened the lid, four little critters darted into the brush and vanished within a second.
Fatima tousled her daughter’s hair. “Say goodbye to Henry, dear.”
To Velu, she said with a big smile, “Thank you for everything.”
“Let me come back with you. I will help you vacuum and disinfect. I think your home should be fine now.” As an additional precaution, Velu had purchased a bunch of plastic containers and bins from the dollar store and had secured all food in the pantry into mouse-proof boxes.
When Fatima once again stood in front of the door, this time too inviting him for chai, but using only her eyes, Velu did not have to answer. Instead, he reached behind a camellia bush tucked along the house’s side wall.
“Look what Santa left for you, Zarina,” he said.
“Santa??”
He wheeled out a little pink bicycle, somewhat worn but functional, its handlebars decorated with satin bows. He glanced at Fatima to make sure she had no religious objections, then turned to take in Zarina’s joyous face.
***
A few nights later, Velu was listlessly reviewing a series of journal papers, running various strategies in his mind to score another cup of chai at Fatima’s house, now that the mouse business was taken care of. That’s when his phone’s new text notification indicator clanged.
“Henry’s back!” it said.
The shame of defeat could not have come with a more thrilling chance at redemption.
The next evening, he was back again, peering under the kitchen sink. The seal he had made over the hole was still intact. However, there was a pile of sheetrock dust and mouse droppings beneath it. This was the spot he had completely cleaned and disinfected during the last campaign. He craned his neck into the cabinet and looked from every angle. He was sure there was no potential entry point there. Henry must have found a different one. But what was the sheetrock dust doing there?
He went all over the house again. Moved the furniture and appliances, checked the baseboards and electrical outlets. All he found was mouse droppings, but no entry points. After two hours of searching, he gave up. Did he not clean up well enough last time? He vacuumed all the spots thoroughly and set up the trap again. For a safe measure, he got caulk from the hardware store and sealed the edges of the heater vents, even though he knew the gaps were not large enough for a mouse to pass through.
“Forget about the mouse for a bit, and try these,” Fatima said, bringing over a tray of eggplant bajjis. She sat him down at the dining table and said, “Let’s talk about something else.”
Velu shrugged and asked, “So, how’s your tenure track position looking?”
“No new news. The Dean says he’s waiting for the funding to get approved, the new administration is backpedaling. The usual stuff. Who knows, I might have to just go back to Jaffna next year.”
Neither Fatima’s gentle words nor the redolent cup of chai she served could lift the shadow from his face.
“I totally understand this funding hell. Mine ends next year, too. I am not like these tech guys who can bag a six-figure job in the Valley right after they are done. Even worse for me, I am on a J-1 visa. Which means I might have to go back to India once my contract ends.”
“Don’t lose hope. He will find us a way,” she said, pointing at the ceiling.
He latched onto the word “us” in her solace. It sent tingling sparks of optimism and excitement down his spine.
“We’ll get Henry,” he said. “I will be back tomorrow.”
***
The cycle repeated for three nights. New droppings, new sheetrock dust, and repeated cleanings. Higher prizes are offered to Zarina for finding a hole. But no mouse in the trap.
He knew something was incorrect with his assessment. He peered under the sink again to check his seal. That’s when he saw the gnaw marks on the spackle he had spread. That made no sense! The mouse had to enter from the other side of the wall; why was it gnawing on the inside wall, creating sheetrock dust?
“Oh,” he cried. “Fatima, I was so dumb! I see it now. This isn’t a mouse trying to get in; it’s a mouse already inside, confused because I’ve sealed all its exits. The exclusion backfired; it turned into an entrapment.”
“But the bucket trap?” she asked.
“Some mice avoid humane traps through conditioning. Unfortunately so. Let me run down to the hardware store. I will be back in half an hour. Make sure Zarina’s gone to bed.”
An hour later, using the ultraviolet flashlight, Velu found Henry’s favorite resting spot. On a classic snap mousetrap, he set the lethal spring and the peanut butter bait, and gently placed it on the floor.
For a while after that, they did not speak while they sat in the living room, sipping their chais.
“It should work,” Velu said finally, his eyes focused on a picture of a smiling Zarina on the wall, and his heart fluttering. As for her mother, he dared not meet her inviting gaze, lest she peer through his eyes into his thoughts.
“It?” asked Fatima.
They both heard a loud snap in the kitchen.
“Fate!” whispered Velu, observing the last bits of foam pop out of existence at the bottom of his cup. “Poor Henry! He didn’tleave when he had a chance. Once he was inside, he was all the way in. There was no exclusion.”
