Her son turned 28 last week. Dating was complicated for Avi and often a clumsy dance even in the best of times. Given the pandemic and the fear of a highly contagious virus for which there is yet no cure, he had resisted every conversation Priya tried to have with him about going out and meeting someone.

“Bumble allows virtual or socially distanced-with-a-mask dates,“ she said to him at the dinner table as he spooned for himself a generous helping of the chicken curry and rice. She had made his favorites in readiness for this conversation—crisp masala okra, raita with cucumbers, and Karahi chicken curry. It was a bonus time they were enjoying with him ever since he had moved back home during the coronavirus lockdown, and she was determined to get him hitched. “Or, if you have Zoom fatigue, we can try the Mumbai matchmaker from the show on Netflix that everybody’s been talking about, “ she continued, busying her hands with adding sweet tamarind chutney to a petri dish.

As she’d expected, he recoiled in horror and agreed to swipe left and give Tinder another try.

Priya stands at the open dishwasher, swallowed in a cloud of steam as she listens intently through the thin walls between them. The rising and falling of his voice as he describes his new life to his Tinder date. As she puts away the clean utensils and eavesdrops shamelessly, she is taken back to her father’s living room and the phone—bright red like a Deghi chili—attached to the wall.

The cord wasn’t so long, so she would lie on the cold tiled floor to talk or coiled on the mustard couch like an embryo. The phone was feminine looking, and she wondered if it was from one of her father’s girlfriends, as if laying claim to his home and the hidden promise to select his furniture. His girlfriends, and there were plenty—the dusky, complexioned one from Bhopal who wore a large gold nose ring or the fashion designer from Delhi who wore tight T-shirts over voluminous salwars, and a rainbow color of flats which whispered gently across the black-and-white floor—all knew her or so they said.

“Oh, you’re his daughter?” they would trill in high voices. They were super friendly to her, hoping she’d put in a good word for them. Alas, for them, Priya’s father was a confirmed bachelor, married only once to the great love of his life—Priya’s mother.

Avi disconnects the phone with a loud click, pulling her sharply from the past. Priya slams shut the dishwasher and trudges up the stairs, her breath coming in small puffs. She cannot let Avi become his grandfather—the single man afraid of getting caught.

*********************************************************************************

Shere Khan paces up and down in his enclave at the Hobart Zoo. He throws a concerned look at Begum Gulabo, who is lying listlessly against the bars on one side of their caged home. A half-eaten bowl of food sits next to her on the concrete floor.

Three weeks ago, she had developed a dry cough and lost her appetite. The zoo had been closed for four months because of that new disease sweeping across the country. Shere Khan had heard their handlers—Jake and Blake talking about it. Although he relished the quiet, he also missed the squealing children, the flashing cameras, and the cell phones accidentally dropped into their cage that he’d got used to after six years of living in captivity.

When Begum Gulabo didn’t get better, the veterinary staff finally tested her in August. It was not a simple swab. The zoo had to anesthetize his 200-lb beloved and take samples from Gulabo’s throat, and respiratory tract—Shere leaped at them, growling, and howling and snarling until he had to be physically restrained. Before they led him away, still hissing and spitting, he heard Dr. Ramson say that the samples would be shipped off to veterinary labs at Cornell and the University of Illinois. The doctor shook his head somberly, his bead-like eyes concerned as he patted Gulabo’ s head, who stared at him with glassy eyes.

Shere was not surprised that the staff was worried—Gulabo was no ordinary tiger. Bengal tigers are among the world’s most endangered animals; with fewer than 2000 left in the world, they are threatened with extinction because of human poaching and loss of habitat. Gulabo was born at the Hobart zoo, as part of its Bengal tiger breeding program.

Last week Dr. Ramson was back. Quietly, with sure, deft hands, he examined Gulabo, then sat back on his heels to look around the cage at the anxious faces of their handlers.

“Is Gulabo going to die?” asked Jake in a strangled voice. Shere Khan froze into immobility.

“Not if I can help it,” said Dr. Ransom, pushing up his shirt sleeves. “She’s tested positive for Covid-19. I’m giving her some antibiotic injections and some vitamins. I have no idea if they will work—but it’s the same treatment that has shown results in humans.”

The sun climbs higher into the sky. Shere Khan stands quietly under the shade of the neem tree planted in their outdoor enclosure. The zoo still remains ominously empty of visitors. He watches Blake administer the daily injection to Gulabo. “There is definite recovery, but the cat is not out of danger yet, “ he had heard Dr. Ransom tell Jake and Blake yesterday.

The bars slide shut, and Jake snaps the lock into place. He is whistling tunelessly to the lyrics of Dance Monkey as he walks away, a track he seems to have on endless repeat.

Wait, was that a roar he heard?

Shere Khan clears a section of the boundary wall with a single powerful leap and lands in the cage in all fours. There is Gulabo sitting up, swishing her tail like a painted fan as a bumblebee buzzes angrily on her head. Gulabo swats her claw at the bloodsucker, smashing the bee into tiny smithereens.

Stretching languidly, Gulabo looks back at Shere Khan with alert yellow eyes.

“What’s up, old man?” she asks, her dark black stripes pulsing with the beating of her heart. “Ready for a hump in the hay?”