Cockroach

by Rawi Hage

  My fingers were frozen, my house keys cold and painful to touch. The lock on the front door of my building was cold, too, and the keys would not twist in the door. I walked back to the street and tied a knot in the key chain. Like a spider, a fisher with a rope, I pulled a thin thread from my sweater and dangled the key down into the sewer, where the temperature was reasonable. I let the metal warm up from the underground steam, then I brought it back up and put it in my mouth, and it quivered like a fish. I ran back to the lock before the key slipped through my lips, before I lifted my neck and swallowed it like a fresh cod in a seal’s throat. I opened the door and took the stairs up to my home. There I took off my shoes, lay down in bed, covered myself, and slept with my clothes on, wishing I was a pony or a tiger.

  THE NEXT DAY, the janitor’s wife, the Russian lady from the basement, came up to my door and knocked. She is asleep, she told me. The old lady is asleep. We can take the trunk now.

  I rushed to the corner of my bedroom, looking for my socks. I found them. They were damp in the toes, but not wet. I put them on. Then the shoes, which I found under the bed. I pulled the laces and felt pressure on the arches of my feet. I made delicate, perfect knots on both shoes. If I can’t wear a bowtie for a Victorian encounter like this, I thought, a bowtie knot on both feet might compensate. And tidiness, for the occasion. When in Rome do as the Romans, et cetera. And now a light jacket, and I am ready for counter-imperial looting. Excitement was lingering in the corridors, excitement manifested by the rushing of our feet and the smirks on our faces.

  We entered the old lady’s apartment. Many of her photographs had turned yellow, and the sepia faces of colonels and waves of desert dunes covered the walls.

  Aha! Here it is. The infamous trunk. Yes here, here! The janitor’s wife pointed her finger.

  A small dog came up to me and started to sniff around me. Then he started to growl at me.

  Give him your hand, the janitor’s wife hissed at me. Give him your hand to sniff.

  But before I had the chance, the dog started to bark, calling me names such as “pest” and “intruder” and “thief.”

  The lady will wake up, the janitor’s wife said. Hurry up.

  The dog was yelping and twisting and blocking the way.

  We carried the trunk and started to move towards the door, but at that moment the lady shouted from her bed, Natasha, is that you?

  Yes, yes, I am here to take Elvis for a walk. Stay asleep.

  Is my husband back? the old lady asked.

  He is feeding the horses. Go back to sleep, Natasha said.

  But the dog kept on yelping. Put the trunk down. Put it down, Natasha said.

  We laid the trunk on the floor. Natasha opened it, grabbed the dog and threw him in, and closed the lid. The barking was now muffled, but the dog must have gone crazy banging his head against the wood inside.

  We took the stairs down to the basement. When we arrived at the janitor’s apartment, Natasha opened the trunk. She grabbed the dog, who was whimpering by now, and let him loose in the apartment.

  The dog was partly blinded by the sudden light. He sniffed the carpet and the legs of the coffee table. Nothing like darkness to calm an animal down, I said with a wise glance at the creature.

  Okay, Natasha said. What do you want to take? You can take only one thing.

  There were books and clothes, including a military jacket, letters, and thick leather boots. I tried on the boots. They were a little loose, but that could be fixed with thicker socks, I thought. I flipped through the trunk again and found two pairs of thick socks.

  One thing only, Natasha repeated.

  Two things, I said. Or shoes and socks count as one thing.

  Okay, you take them and go. Before my husband comes home.

  I took my loot and crawled back upstairs. On the landing between two floors I sat and took off my shoes and my socks, and wiggled my toes. Making sure that my bare feet didn’t touch the cement, I slipped on the new thick wool socks and the boots. Then I ran down the stairs and out of the building and walked above the earth and its cold white crust, feeling warm and stable.

  VI

  I WALKED TO Genevieve’s office. The grip of my boots’ soles anchored me more firmly than ever in the soil hidden beneath the street’s white surface.

  Genevieve and I sat as usual, facing each other. There were a few seconds of silence between us. I put each of my hands on a chair arm. I crossed my legs and moved my feet in my boots, bending them forwards, backwards, and twirling them a bit, thinking of the old lady’s husband marching to confront his enemies beyond the trenches and muddy battlefields. Now that I had laced my feet into boots, blood, and mud, this health clinic had started to feel homier. The door was open to the hallway and Genevieve sat across from me, looking into my eyes. She always started with an assessment: you look tired, happy, sad, or good. And I knew her words had no relevance, no connection to how I looked; they were always just an excuse to start the conversation. I usually nodded and I always agreed, but I also knew I could look like all of the above at the same time, as if I were a cocktail of emotion that was not defined, that had no scientific term, that needed a new space to exist in, a kind of a purgatory that no medical paper had ever described.

  Do you lie to me? Genevieve asked.

  Why do you think I lie to you?

  You told me that you talked to your sister on the phone once, when your mother died, and now you tell me that she was dead long before then.

  She is dead.

  So you lied.

  Maybe. I imagine things.

  You imagined that she was alive?

  You know that I imagine things. I even imagine you sometimes.

  Stop that. It is predictable, what you are trying to do. I am not even curious about what you imagine about me.

  I got up to leave.

  Do not leave, Genevieve said. Sit down. Listen to me. Sit down. Listen. Dealing with death is a hard thing. You have anger, you have guilt, and you have to deal with your loss. Are you willing to work with me? Good. Fine. Let’s go back to your sister’s death. Perhaps you think by committing suicide you can rectify what you did.

  You do not understand anything, I said.

  Well, help me to understand. Is that why you wanted to hang yourself?

  No.

  I think it is.

  No.

  What did you do after your sister’s death? Why did you leave your country? You do not want to talk? All right, you can leave if you like.

  I will.

  Good, go. Here is the door.

  I will.

  What are you waiting for?

  I stood up, took my jacket from the back of the chair, and walked towards the door. I am not coming back, I said.

  Fine. Quit. Go.

  I left. I took the fire exit. On the way down, I buttoned my inner jacket and zipped my outer jacket. I searched for my woollen hat. I couldn’t find it.

  I went back upstairs. Genevieve was standing at the door of her office with my hat in her hand.

  I walked up to her, snatched it, and turned away.

  Somehow I knew you would be back, she said.

  For the last time, I said. For the last time. Now, doctor, go home and relax, sleep on your silk sheets, turn on your giant TV, open your fridge and put your slippers on, if you ever find them.

  Stop, Genevieve said. What did you say?

  I said slippers. You lost your slippers. You can’t find your old slippers.

  It is grave, very grave, if you are implying what I think you are implying. Very grave.

  There is nothing wrong with offering some hospitality, I said.

  I never invited you into my personal life.

  No, but I went anyway.

  This therapy is over, she said. She looked deeply sad and alarmed.

  You tolerated me breaking into other people’s places, I said, but now that it is your own place . . .

  Genevieve turned and went back into her office, and befor
e she closed the door she said, I can’t help you anymore.

  I WENT OUT onto the street and I walked fast, disoriented and alone. I stopped a man and asked him for a cigarette, but he didn’t answer me; he kept on walking, ignoring me. I cursed him and called him cheap. I went to the Artista Café and walked straight up to the professor. I looked him in the eyes and said, I want back the cigarette I gave you. He was startled. He must have seen how my eyes shone. He put his hand in a pocket and started to search. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and handed it to me. I took the whole thing and started to walk away. When one of the guys sitting at the table protested, I walked back to him and asked him if he had a problem. If he did, I said, he could step outside. On my way out I heard the professor saying, Il est fou, il est fou.

  I had no fire. I stopped people and asked for a light, but none of them wanted to light my cigarette for me. Even before they heard what I had to say they sped up their steps, protected their change, their hidden wealth. To get a fire you have to have a suit and tie these days. Filth! They are all filth, these people, walking above the earth. I entered a restaurant and walked to the counter, grabbed a bunch of toothpicks and three packs of matches, and walked out. I went around the corner, and at the side of an old building I surrounded a match with my palms and tried to light my cigarette. Filthy wind, it wouldn’t let me have my fire. Every time I tried to light a single match, the wind stood right beside me, blew on my face, laughed and mocked me. I threw the cigarette on the ground and started to crush it, cursing it, threatening it, and reminding it that there was no fresh air anymore, there was no pure breeze, there was only filthy gas filled with smog and diseased coughs. I walked away from the cigarette, but it chased me; I could feel it breathing down my neck. Then I remembered the Russian restaurant nearby, and its basement entrance. I found it and dodged below the surface of the street. I lit my cigarette and walked up again in triumph, laughing at the wind, showing off my burning tobacco leaves to every passerby, every human with a dog and a leash. I felt no shame parading my triumph. I blew my smoke with the air of an aristocrat. I stood in the middle of the sidewalk with a sardonic smile on my face, my neck outstretched beside citizens’ hats, and I blew thick, dark clouds in their faces.

  AT THE RESTAURANT the next evening, I broke three plates. The owner came squeaking over to me like a mouse. He stood above me while I picked up the shattered pieces and gathered the crumbs and scooped up the stew from the floor. Then I fetched the mop and pushed the dirty water towards the hole in the floor. When I was finished, the owner asked me to warm up his car. He left the kitchen without saying a word.

  After I came back from heating the car, the owner’s daughter snapped her fingers at me. I moved my feet towards her.

  Who is the lady that was here last week? Sehar asked me.

  Her name is Shohreh, I said. Why?

  I ask you a question and you answer. That’s all. Is she coming back here?

  If I ask her to, she will.

  Is she your girlfriend?

  Maybe, I said. Do you like her?

  She is very pretty, Sehar said.

  Yes, I said. I only know pretty girls. Would you like to meet her?

  Maybe. I want to ask her where she buys her clothes. I like her hair.

  I like her hair, too, I said, but I do not care about her clothes. Actually, I prefer her without clothes.

  Bring me tea, quickly! Sehar snapped at me.

  I brought her tea with two brown sugar cubes.

  You can meet Shohreh if you like, I mumbled. Maybe you two can go shopping one day.

  Sehar poured the tea. Okay, she said.

  But I also have a favour to ask, I said.

  Oh, now the busboy wants to bargain?

  Well, this is just a question that the busboy has.

  Okay, let the busboy ask it.

  Who is that man who came here with a bodyguard the night Shohreh was here?

  Oh, Mr. Shaheed? You are asking about Mr. Shaheed.

  Yes, the short, bald man, the one who sat over there.

  He is a very rich man and he works for the government.

  The Canadian government?

  No, silly, the Iranian government.

  He seems very important.

  Yes, he is. He gives my father money.

  Have you been to his house?

  No. But he came to our house once.

  For a visit?

  On some import business, my father said. Why you are asking?

  Because I like to know how important men become rich and powerful. I wish I were rich.

  You will never be rich.

  Why do you say that?

  Because. Just because, Sehar answered with a snotty smile. She waved the back of her hand at me, telling me to go back to work as the poor should.

  The owner came back from whatever he had been doing in his warmed-up car. He’d probably stuffed another plastic bag under the seat like some old villager. The habit of sticking silver coins stamped with the emperor’s head under a mattress never goes out of style, I thought. It just gets transformed and adapted. I don’t know why the owner uses such thick, long, wide bags and then wraps the money inside a hundred times. I often see his eyes shifting as he sits at the wheel while his hand fumbles the buttock of the seat, stuffing it with that big ugly bag with Arabic lettering. He always uses the same bag. Well, at least he recycles. I know that cunning owner wanted to test me the first time he slipped his bag under the car seat. Filth! So suspicious of servants and cooks alike. I’ll bet he got that old feudal habit of spying on the help from his father, who walked the village streets with pride, twirling his long moustache, a thin stick in his hand.

  The restaurant got busy. I carried many empty plates, swept many tables, and went up and down the stairs. I pulled out chairs, hung coats, and lit candles, and at the end of the night I returned to my dark home.

  THE NEXT EVENING, Mr. Shaheed came to the restaurant again with his bodyguard. He was accompanied by another man, who wore an impeccable suit and tie and carried a briefcase in his hand. They entered to the bows and royal fawning of my boss, the meek, the degenerate, the transformed small merchant and pitiful tyrant. The man with Shaheed had blond hair and he held his briefcase straight in front of him so that it pointed the way and led him through the rows of tables and chairs. The bodyguard sat on his usual seat at the bar.

  The owner, my boss, that little food trader, snapped his fingers at me. I put down the boxes I was carrying and walked towards him. Without a word he pointed at the blond man’s chair. Despite all the hideous, monstrous organs my boss possesses, like a prehistoric turtle he only uses his neck to point. I pulled out the chair for the large blond man and, in turn, my boss pulled out the chair for Shaheed. And then, agitated, my boss chased me away with a fanning motion of the backs of his hands. He leaned over Shaheed, nodded as if to say he should and would, and then turned around, smiling. He was actually smiling — that austere food purveyor was capable of a mouth crack! He leaned over the blond man with a menu in his hand, explaining it in a drooling accent, his syrupy lips, bent knees, hunched torso, and shiny, unappetizing pate sweating under a beam of light. Then he rushed to the kitchen, briskly transformed into an erect Napoleon.

  The cook, who was the only one who could treat the owner like an equal, listened and nodded and turned his back to him. But the little Napoleon went around the island and whispered some more requests and instructions.

  While I rushed around with the breadbaskets and the pickles and up and down the stairs to the basement, I was thinking of a way to call Shohreh to tell her that her torturer was here again, eating and merry. But it was too complicated. The owner’s phone was inside the dining room, facing the cash machine. To cross the line under the bald man’s gaze would require an even more experienced cockroach than myself. And what if I managed to pick up the phone? What would I say? Under the circumstances, Shohreh would never understand or detect my ultrasonic insect sounds. I could rub my feet for hou
rs, send loud signals and wave my whiskers, she would still never understand. Besides, no one is allowed into this place, not before the bald man eats, receives bows and compliments, and leaves. After what had happened with Shohreh last time, the owner was strict about not letting anyone else in while the bald man ate. He kept repeating to the rest of us, My food is clean, my food is clean.

  Reza arrived, and when he entered the dining room he went out of his way to bow to Shaheed. Shaheed barely nodded. Then Reza turned and bowed to the blond man. The blond man asked about his box and quilt. Shaheed waved his hand to Reza and Reza laid his box on the table opposite and pulled out his santour. Shaheed was proud, smiling as the blond man asked questions. Meanwhile I tuned my mop, ready for a swing above the waters.

  The food came and both men ate. The bodyguard went to the kitchen and asked for a steak. I looked at the dishwasher and we winked at each other. The dishwasher laughed and rushed to the back, opened a closet, and handed the bodyguard a ketchup bottle. Then we all laughed, which alarmed the owner. He came into the kitchen and towards us with his wide eyes, thick-knit eyebrows, and neck that turned left and right, sniffing for subversion or any sign of rebellion.