Case Closed

art work by shavyasachi

I even remember the dream that I had last night. Usually I don't. I dreamt a huge raging bull was chasing a mouse with a cheese. I was laughing in my dream until I realized that the frightened mouse was but me. I was clinging to the piece of cheese. I must have remembered the milk-ad that says 'cows-want-them-back!' Silly ad, why would a cow want her milk back. The cow is a four-footed domestic animal, a caring bovine. It gives us milk, bones, hide...

Oh my leather wallet! I had 545 Taka in cash. Yes, when I bought that packet of cigarette I had 600 taka in just two big notes. How could I forget? I bought that packet from the corner shop after fuelling the car with octane worth 400 taka. I took that 1000 taka from Tapu right before I left the office. I didn't spend any cash at the Club. I paid with my Visa card. That reminds me, if my wallet is really lost then I must cancel my credit cards. And there were some business cards and important papers as well. And the email address from last night at the bar. Great, there ends a possible You've Got Mail! I'll have hard time in simply remembering what else was there in my wallet. Oh, where could it be?

My frantic search for the wallet soon turned the room into an installation art. By God, Sheuly would not be impressed. She had gone to drop Rohan at school. She would never touch my wallet without asking me. Rohan is too young to know what money is. He asked me to buy him a real aeroplane the other day; the very day he was asked to draw a plane in the class. I have already asked Helena about the wallet. Usually, when something is lost the blame automatically goes to the maid. I don't want to make a fuss about 545 taka. If Sheuly comes to know about it, the poor girl is likely to get a beating. We have this young girl working for us for a couple of years now. Nothing like this has happened in these two years. So I'll give her the benefit of doubt.

But that doesn't help the case of my missing wallet, does it?

Well, the wall ate my wallet. That's a nice rhyme. I better continue as I steer along the road....

The Wall ate the Money.
That's very unpoetic. Maybe I could use a pun here.
The wall ate money,
The wall ate many.
My pen neigh.

That's better. Now the wall can stand for a wall that will play with the memory of the reader. Maybe the wall will allude to the Berlin Wall. It will make perfect sense once 'Many' and 'Money' starts corresponding with the mass and capitalism. Great, I haven't lost my touch after all. I stopped at the traffic light. I have always been troubled by the question as to why one should study literature. As a banker, whose main game is to toss-up between deciding for either debit or credit and to meet clients with a painted face, I have always felt awkward when people ask me about my major at university. English Lit! What do you actually study? It's probably not fair when you have scores of MBAs and technical hands working under you. 'No, we don't study. We learn to remain human in a mechanised world.' But that's an answer that I never give. I don't expect them to understand.

I stopped over at Aarong to buy a wallet. For some reason, I chose the same design that I just lost. I don't know why I did that. Probably, I just wanted to forget the fact that my wallet was missing. Or maybe it was just to spare myself from Sheuly's interrogation. Or maybe I didn't want to get the poor maid into trouble. I was just happy that the amount was negligible and things could go back to normal without much complicacy.

That was not to happen. The next day my chapstick was gone. The Labello didn't roll under the bed nor was it left back at the office. Convinced that none of the other three souls of the house had any use of my lip-balm, I again decided not to probe into the matter.

It happened again the day after. This time my handkerchief was gone. Was it in the wash? No, Helena via Sheuly assured me. Did I drop it off somewhere? Possibly. But usually when I get back home I empty my pocket on the side-table before slipping into something comfortable. It is the only time my personal belongings that bear witness to my day's deeds come out to rest with me under the bedside lamp. Something weird was going on. If somebody had broken into the house, then the other pricier objects would have been the first to disappear. My music system and the CDs should have been the prime target. Sheuly is too serious a type to play pranks with me. Rohan, even at the age of four, is as private as you can get. He has a very reserved mind of his own. I can't imagine him hiding my hanky or chapstick.

Because of the air-conditioning the windows of my bedroom are hardly opened. That leaves out possibility of outside intruders. And, drunk or not, it is simply unlikely that I am simply losing my personal items outside my home and searching for them inside. I am not Nasiruddin Hodja to search things in the bedroom, rather than outside in the dark, just because there is a lamp on my bedside table!

Well, the list of missing items was getting bigger by the minute. It soon appeared that I was not the only one. Sheuly had been losing her stuff as well. She lost her phonebook, money, receipts from the laundry, newspaper bill, cable television bill, cleaners' bill in the last few days. And Rohan lost his favourite sticker album and some of his sketches.

Helena had already been interrogated. Then my car key was gone. I had to hire a CNG that day and managed to go to the office without being mugged. Maksud, our apartment caretaker, came with a key-maker and made me a couple of spare keys. Every time something went missing, every nook and corner of the room was searched, and nothing was found. Rohan was convinced it was the monsters from the animation film, Monster Inc. Those creepy-looking monsters from the closet were taking all our things to punish me because they couldn't find any little boy to scare in this room. Poor soul. Ever since he had been shifted to his own room, he was trying to find an excuse to get his niche back between his parents. He was too scared to sleep on his own, even though he liked playing in his own room the whole day long. So all three of us were back to the haunted room. Our effort to train Rohan as a grown-up had to be momentarily suspended. Way to go, you mystery thief!

It is not only the material loss but also the psychological impact that gets onto your nerve when you are robbed. Every moment I felt that someone or something had intruded into my personal world. I was being watched. The shield of my outward self that I had so deliberately polished had been breached. Someone or something was just watching my vulnerable inner self and taking a voyeuristic pleasure. And I could do nothing about it.

This continued for nearly two months. Then one day when I was shaving in the bathroom, in the mirror I noticed a brown string hanging from the wooden cabinet behind me. It was nearly four inches long and dangling as if to tease me. I tiptoed and opened one of the curtain rods and stood on my reading chair. I cautiously poked the string, and wow, a huge brown creature appeared. Believe me, it was a rat of the size of a kitten. Before I could appreciate its size, it just ran along the wall and disappeared.

I cried for reinforcements. Rohan clung close to his mother. Helena curiously watched from the main door. She had a broom in her hand. Sheuly was holding her saree high up to her knee and standing on her toes, for reason unknown to me.

"It mustn't escape," I warned them. I pulled the cabinet a bit, and then noticed a small hole on the false ceiling. I started hitting the hole gently. The brittle hardboard roof gave in. My chapstick dropped on the floor. I kept hitting the roof and the hole got bigger and bigger. Down came a heavily chewed-up wallet with traces of papers in it, my car keys. plus tons of other stuff that we didn't even know about. Soon there was a mound of all our lost memories.

A trap was set the next day with a big piece of cheese. Like a raging bull I saw to the end of our thieving guest. It was a bloody affair administered by our apartment caretaker.

The case of missing items was closed. But somehow the room felt empty.

Shamsad Mortuza is on leave from English department, Jahangirnagar University for PhD studies at London University.