Cockroach

by Rawi Hage

  As the men in the dining room ate, Shaheed leaned in and talked and explained and laughed. Soon the blond man pulled out his briefcase and opened it. He extracted a few papers and put them to the side of his plate. He read from the papers and explained, and Shaheed, oblivious to numbers and charts, ate and nodded, glancing from time to time at the papers. When his plate was empty and he had ordered tea for the table, Shaheed started to talk again. Now the blond man listened.

  Sehar entered and twirled around the kitchen, hungry but not knowing what to eat. She opened the fridge and leaned over the cook’s shoulder. And then she settled for a piece of Afghani bread. She held it and started to snatch little bites with her teeth, humming a feeble tune of boredom. She walked around, swinging her shoulders while eating.

  Ketchup with that? the dishwasher ventured to ask, and laughed.

  Sehar turned to him and said, with excitement and anticipation: Why, do we have hamburgers today?

  Everyone in the kitchen chuckled, and we looked at one another with fraternity, equality, and bold freedom in our eyes.

  In the dining room Reza played a soft, calm tune. The blond man glanced at Reza from time to time and smiled. He was interested in the music, as a refined, well-travelled man would be, I thought, and I wondered about the artifacts he would have in his house, all the maps and objects, the large library of books and records. He seemed to me like a gentle, well-mannered man. He was even thankful and a little apologetic for the tea I brought him.

  After a while, the bodyguard stood up and walked towards the coats. That was the sign for departure. The owner rushed over to help.

  Shaheed asked the blond man if he needed a ride.

  I will walk, the man said.

  Walk! Shaheed laughed. Why walk? It is so cold. We have a big car. We can drive you anywhere.

  I like the fresh air and I do not live far. Walking is fine.

  Sure, walking is good, but it is cold outside, Shaheed persisted.

  I know it is cold, the man said, slightly closing his eyes and giving Shaheed a small smile, but I will walk. I don’t mind the cold. I like it.

  Shaheed laughed upon hearing these incredible words.

  In any case, said the blond man, I will send you the document and we shall meet again soon. Is your stay here okay? Is the place to your taste?

  Yes, very good, Shaheed said, and thanked him again.

  Then the blond man told Shaheed that he would like to talk to Reza and see the musical instrument once more.

  Yes, yes, this is the most famous and oldest instrument in Iran; it is beautiful, beautiful, art . . . Shaheed tried to explain.

  Reza stood up and bowed goodbye to Shaheed from afar.

  I watched the blond man smile and walk toward Reza’s music box. Reza welcomed the man with a smile and the man started his questions, and a long conversation ensued that went longer than our closing rituals of sweeping, toilet cleaning, dish drying, and oven scrubbing.

  When closing time came I left the restaurant with a general goodnight that was ignored like a flat note. I went outside, crossed the street, and waited. I stood in the bus-stop shelter. There was some graffiti on the glass. I angled my face between a red circle and a bit of the graffiti and I kept a watch on the restaurant door.

  The blond man left and Reza followed him, and they talked some more on the sidewalk.

  Then they shook hands and separated. I waited until Reza turned the corner and started my pursuit of the man. He walked briskly, his briefcase brushing against his long coat. At the collar of his coat bulged a burgundy scarf that gave him the air of a tall, well-dressed bird. I followed him, wondering if he had lied to Shaheed about the restaurant’s close proximity to his house. I was hoping he had not lied because the streets were wide and empty, and the sidewalk made noises like the insides of wooden houses, and our breaths left vaporous trails that could be detected from distant mountaintops, read, and decoded by red coyotes, crazy horses, and pipe-smoking chiefs. We breathed against the cold wind in the manner of chimneys and coal trains crossing between Indians’ mountains. And I pursued the blond man, hoping he was someone who never looked back, never remembered he had forgotten a glove, an umbrella, or a paper on the floor. If he did remember, I thought, and if he went back to the restaurant and crossed my path, I would walk straight past him. I would not give him even a nod or a smile.

  But one day, I knew, I would be intimate with him. One day I would get to know him well. And I wouldn’t forget where he lived.

  TWO DAYS LATER I was up before dawn. Through a small crack in the curtains I could see a blue-grey sky reflecting little waves of colour on the glass. I alternated opening one eye and then the other. One eye at a time. One streak of light at a time. And I stayed in bed to see the sky’s progression, the slow approach of the light, and I watched the wall get slowly, gradually brighter. Some objects on the floor couldn’t be fully seen, but I knew what they were: shoes, a dirty plate, an ashtray, and a chair. When the room was light I stood up, washed my face, and decided to walk down my street in the hour before the newspaper gets thrown on doorsteps and the squirrels dig up underground roots for their morning meals. I got dressed and went outdoors. It was a bearable day. The cold had mellowed, the wind was in retreat, the wet asphalt held streaks of neon light, reflections from shop signs that skimmed its surface in the shape of unreadable letters and words that lost their meanings when flattened and splattered on the ground. But then, who wants to know the meanings of words at this hour? Everything has turned into shapes and forms that confine you and guide you, between the city streets and building walls, to your final, inescapable destination.

  I arrived at the blond man’s house. I stood across the street and waited for a minute. The cold didn’t bother me. I knew my reward would be grand: food and a morning glass of milk. Of course, the blond man would have milk. What well-established man does not own that exquisite liquid? But I couldn’t just stand there on the street for too long, not working, not moving. I would raise the neighbours’ suspicions. Everything on this street had to have a purpose. Stillness and piercing foreign eyes would soon be questioned by uniforms under whirling police-car lights. As I was drooling over my future looting, I saw the blond man’s door open. A large dog and the blond man, bundled and ready to jog, left the house. They reached the sidewalk and both started jogging, the dog trailing behind. That dog, it seemed, loved the colour red. There was no red-painted hydrant that didn’t interest him. The dog was also fascinated by upright, refined three-dimensional shapes. A true art connoisseur.

  I turned and walked in the opposite direction. When I arrived at the street corner, I grew wings and I hurried back to the soil below the blond man’s garden, seeking pipes and the road to warmth. Inside, I ate my breakfast first and then went to the living room. It was a modest house for a man with such a respectable exterior and manners. There were books, of course, many on war and politics. No TV, believe it or not, not even in the bedroom. And no wife or kids. That is good, I thought. Why have the extra expense? It is enough that one has to pay lavishly for handsome clothing and oversized hardcover books. With bread and a glass of milk in hand, I went over to his desk. Sure enough, there was that leather briefcase he happily swung in the cold the other night when I followed him home. I finished my food, went back to the kitchen, and rinsed out the glass of milk. I opened the cupboard, looked for the hot sauce, and put a few drops in the dog’s bowl. Have some spicy food, and welcome to a new world, my dear friend. Bland food is passé. Curry and exotic food are in style. I picked up the briefcase and walked out of the house, calm as if everything were routine. I walked with my head down to work, to the office in the high building, in that morning hour when the trains clear the way so the bureaucrats can be on time.

  LATER IN THE DAY I went down to the Café Artista. I looked for the professor. He was not in his usual seat. I asked the waitress where he was, and she pointed to the bathroom.

  Indeed, his coat was on the chair. I sat in the ch
air and slipped my hand into his coat pockets. Nothing was there, nothing, not even a piece of a crumb.

  When the professor saw me on his seat, he rushed towards me, rubbing his wet hands against the sides of his trousers. What are you doing in my chair?

  Oh, I didn’t realize it was yours, I said.

  Well, it is someone’s. There is a coat on it. It is reserved.

  I stood up and pulled the blond man’s briefcase out of my bag. Twenty dollars, I said, showing it to him. Leather. Real leather. I swung the zipper back and forth and rattled the buckles up and down, opening and closing the little golden locks. Solid and light, I said, thinking that it was a good thing I had emptied the files and the pens and everything the briefcase had contained. It is light, I said. Light is in, light is a brilliant marketing tool, light meals, light women, everything is valued by its lightness these days.

  The professor forgot about our territorial dispute. He picked up a napkin from the table and passed it around and between his fingers, looking at the briefcase.

  Fifteen, I said, and pushed it towards his chest.

  He held the briefcase. He flipped it over. He couldn’t help but take a peek inside. Is it yours? he asked me.

  It is yours, I said, for ten dollars.

  I do not buy stolen goods, he said.

  Well, professor, I said, what land is not stolen, what seat is not claimed, what container is not the product of theft and destruction? We are all coyotes in this land.

  Non, je ne peux pas faire ça. You should take it back to whomever you took it from. But the professor held the case tighter and closer as he said this.

  Fine, I said. Just buy me lunch and a coffee to go, then.

  I took the food and went to the back alley. I couldn’t eat in the presence of that dishonest hypocrite. I vowed I would never share a meal with him. Hypocrite. I knew he would soon walk the streets like a lawyer to an office. It is with objects and false acquisitions that he thinks he can assert his ideas and gain respect. Filth. Charlatan. Just like his new briefcase, he is an empty container made of skin-deep materials.

  AT HOME I LEAFED through the files from the briefcase. One of the files had papers with a mix of Persian and English, and charts and tables, and what looked like a list of products for sale. I could pronounce the Persian words in the papers but I did not understand their meaning. So I read a few pages aloud, listening to my own voice uttering Persian without having a clue what it meant. I chanted the words like some kind of scripture. Ah ha! I thought. This is what it must be like for the faithful who repeat holy scripture in foreign languages without understanding a word.

  Later I went downstairs and walked over to the taxi stand. I asked for Majeed, but no one had seen him. I was about to leave when a cab driver called me back and pointed to the end of the line. I saw Majeed lining up his car.

  I walked over to him, opened the taxi door, got in, and slammed the door shut. I handed him the file and asked him, Can you read this? He flipped through the file, smiled, and nodded quietly. He read with attention and silence. Then he looked at me and said, Where did you get this?

  Someone’s home, I said.

  You stole this?

  No, I found it, I said.

  Can I keep it? I will read it carefully later and bring it back to you.

  Yes, do that. I just want to know what they are selling in these papers. See? Look at this chart here. Allow me, please. You see? Here, starting from this page.

  Do you want to go somewhere? Majeed asked me. I can drive you.

  No, I live nearby.

  Thank you for this, he said. I will look at these papers.

  WHEN I TOLD SHOREH about the file she asked me why I had not told her about it immediately, and why I had given the file to Majeed and not to her.

  I told her how the lists looked like products for sale. I said: I thought maybe I could bring the taxi driver into the deal for whatever was being sold. Maybe we could do business together somehow. You know, find out where the merchandise is being stored, and acquire it using his car . . . I didn’t think that you would be interested in such things, I said to Shohreh.

  To change the subject, I told her about my conversation with Sehar, and how the restaurant owner’s daughter wanted to meet her. Shohreh said: Arrange it! Arrange it right away. And next time, you must tell me when the bald man arrives. Does he come in on a regular schedule?

  No. And I will tell you when I find out what the files say. His name is Shaheed, by the way.

  Shaheed, she nodded. Shaheed, and shaheed (martyred) he is. He tortured me and humiliated me and I never knew his name. Shaheed, she said, and laughed and stopped and hesitated and thought and laughed again, and shook her head.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, Shohreh took Sehar shopping. I arranged the encounter between the two. Shohreh met Sehar after school. After shopping, she took Sehar home and put up her hair, painted her eyelashes, and powdered her cheeks, and they both tried on dresses and changed their hairstyles.

  Sehar came to her father’s restaurant walking like a diva and talking like a diva. When she asked me to bring her food and tea, she did so with sophistication, politeness, and theatricality. She even used the word “fabulous.”

  Later she called me over while her father was in the kitchen. She handed me a few dollars and asked me to go across the street and buy her cigarettes. When I told her that I couldn’t leave the restaurant without her father’s permission, she stood up and walked over to her father and told him to order me to go and buy her chewing gum. The man nodded my way and I took off and got her a pack. We met in the basement, where she was waiting for me. She leaned against the wall like a young high-end prostitute and opened the new handbag she had been carrying since her encounter with Shohreh. I dropped the pack inside. She closed her bag, said, Thank you, darling, and slowly danced her hips up the stairs.

  NOROUZ IS COMING, Shohreh said to me that night. You know, when we Iranians celebrate the coming of spring. I am thinking of throwing a party. In Iran we stay up all night, eat, and celebrate. So, next week let’s invite people to my home. Here, you roll it.

  I am not good at rolling, I said. My fingers shake.

  Give it to me. I will do it. Invite Reza and his band. Let him play some traditional tunes.

  Yes, okay, I will, I said.

  I saw Reza at the end of my shift at the restaurant the next day. I told him about Shohreh’s party. He was reluctant and noncommittal, as usual. He said that he had not been getting along with Shohreh lately. He felt that she was snubbing him.

  It might be a good idea to invite Sylvie and her friends to watch you perform in an informal setting, I suggested.

  Reza was intrigued by this idea.

  It is always good to be around those people and keep up the contact, I reminded him. Besides, it will be good to show your traditions around those rich folk. Shohreh and Farhoud will dance, and you will play. It will be perfect. You should entertain and extract, my friend. You should put some culture to it if you want to live and shit.

  Reza promised to call Sylvie.

  THE NEXT DAY, I paid my rent with my money from the restaurant and even bought some groceries, bread and cheese. While I ate, I realized how loud the fridge was. I could unplug it, I thought. It is almost empty anyway. But the cheese would go bad. So I decided to eat all the cheese without any bread and then unplug the fridge.

  I lay on my bed and looked at the ceiling. I contemplated and strategized. The idea of conspiring with Shohreh intrigued me. I would help her. And I decided that I loved her. I would give her whatever she wanted. Lately I had an even bigger desire than before to be with her.

  I napped, then woke up and took the stairs down to the street. I was tempted to just walk somewhere, anywhere, but I hesitated. I felt indecisive and frozen. I am not hungry, I thought, I am not sleepy, I am neither sad nor curious. I just want the time to pass before I see Shohreh again and my plan springs into action. I just need to decide what to do with myself. Luckily, it was cold,
and before too long I had no choice but to move on. I contemplated going to the Artista Café, but I felt disgusted with that crowd — especially the professor, who had tolerated that woman of his from the letters. How petty, how spineless of him to tolerate her neglect, her narcissism, her stupid letters. She had obviously used him for her own escapism.

  I could smoke, I thought. I could climb up to some roof and watch the neighbourhood from above. But the last time I had tried this, it took two minutes for the police to come and ask me why I was on the roof. Some lady had complained that I was looking into her bedchamber and called them. It was summer and all I had wanted was to hang out on the roof like millions of people on countless planets do in this universe. Billions of farmers, forgers, waitresses, and housewives stand on roofs and look around and smoke, hang laundry, and contemplate. When I told the policemen that I had always done this, all my life, he replied: Well, here people do not look at each other from their roofs.

  I will only look at the stars then, I said.

  He forbade me from looking at the stars, and threatened me with jail. Where all you would be looking at is walls and men in the shower, he said, and his partner laughed.

  So I walked up and down my street, and finally I went to the café. I saw the professor and a few of his friends. When they saw me come over, all puffed up and angry, they stood up and surrounded the professor. One of them even attempted to push me.

  I told the man not to touch me. He was bigger than I was, but still I knew that I could take him. The professor tried to calm everyone down. But I wouldn’t back off. I asked the professor for some money that he supposedly owed me. The waiter came over and told us that he would call the police. Take it outside, he said.