Rawi Hage - Cockroach

When Reza was done playing, he came and sat with me. We were both silent. He leaned on me and said, they are closing in another half-hour. When I get paid, we leave. We watched the employees folding the tablecloths, sweeping up glass, turning the chairs upside down on the tables, sucking the carpets with electric hoses, and mopping the kitchen floor. All the crumbs, all the loose bits of food that had jumped during the evening from the cook’s knives and tilted plates — all that had flown and landed on the ground, all that had sizzled and escaped the rims of giant pans, all that had been transported by gravity and chased by giant brooms and battered by wet sweeping, all that had been expelled into the hollow of drains in thin, calm waves of grease and water — now fell into underwaged fists and made me sob.

The owner came out from behind the bar and silently took my glass from me, opened the cash register, called over the musicians, and paid them one by one.

When that was done, I approached the owner with humility, my back hunched, my hand below my chin and close to my chest. I said: Excuse me, sir. May I ask you something?

He barely nodded, not looking at me.

Sir, I am looking for a job.

The owner automatically lifted his head at this, and looked me in the eyes. Do you have any experience? he asked, and then bent his head back towards his money.

Yes, I do. I can work as a waiter, I said.

I have waiters, he replied. Do you speak Farsi? Some of my customers want to be served in Farsi here.

No, but I can work as a busboy. I am very good at it. I have the experience. Ask my friend Reza here. I worked in a fancy French restaurant here in Montreal, Le Cafard, on Sherbrooke Street.

Reza was annoyed at me for saying that. I could see his raised eyebrows. He stood up, turned his back, and walked towards the door with his instrument case, zipping through the erect upside-down legs of the chairs on the tables.

Come back on Tuesday, said the owner. We can talk.

Thank you, I said, and retreated by walking backwards, my face to his highness, my turban bowing repeatedly, until I reached the royal gates, and opened them from behind my back with an awkward twist of the wrist of my left hand, in the process fumbling against the glass with its Visa card stickers that reminded me of the world outside and the cruelty of the cold.

Outside, Reza was silent and brooding and nervously smoking, and smoke shot out of him like straight arrows, splitting their exit between his nostrils and his tight lips. Finally he couldn’t hold in his words any longer. As soon as the last of the smoke had left his chest he ground his voice at me: How could you do that? First you come in just like that, to this respectable place, dressed like a bum. And just look at your shoes. And then, and then — he stuttered with anger — and then you ask the man for a job and you tell him to check with me as a reference. Well, if he had asked me, I would have told him what a deranged, psychotic, spaced-out case of a petty, unsuccessful thief you are.

Give me back my money! I shouted at him. You are the only thief here. How many meals did you get from those Canadian women with your sad stories?

Reza took off his gloves, biting them with his teeth, and dug his fingers into his tight pants and pulled a few dollars from his pocket. He counted his money and gave me a twenty-dollar bill.

Forty, I said, and I was ready to kill for it. You owe me forty. And I was about to pull out my curved dagger, poison his drink, make sure he was dead, and then escape towards the sun on a rug woven by flying camels.

Ah, right. Forty. Relax, here is your money, said Reza. Now I am meeting Shohreh in the Crescent Bar. Are you coming? And by the way, I shouldn’t pay you after what you did to that innocent girl.

Who? Who? I said.

You know who. Shohreh! he shouted. You took advantage of her.

Hypocrite! I shouted back. You always wanted her for yourself. Well, too late, musician of doom. She is mine now.

Mine, Reza laughed. No one would keep you, deranged man.

Carpet musician, I retorted.

Fridge thief. Are you coming or not? he asked and walked away.

Yes, I am coming, I said. Because I am sure she wants to see me tonight.

WE ENTERED THE BAR and I saw Shohreh sitting at a table with a man, an older man with a moustache and grey hair. Reza looked around for his drug dealer. When he found him, he bought some “baby powder,” as he put it, and then he came back my way. Do you want a line? Just to show you what a nice guy I am.

I will consider it interest on my money, I said.

Ungrateful bitch, Reza said, and wobbled his way to the bathroom. I followed him. He pulled out his credit card, sprinkled the powder on top of the counter’s white ceramic, and cut it into vertical lines. He pulled out a brand new five-dollar bill, rolled it up tight, and gave it to me. I stuck the money in my nose, and like a rhino I charged and snorted a line before the elephant beside me could change his mind. As I moved to the tip of the second line, Reza leaned his big body over my shoulder, pushed me against the wall, and dove like a kamikaze towards the shiny white counter. He vacuumed up the rest of the white stuff, opened the door, pinched his nostrils, and swayed his way out of the bathroom onto the dance floor.

I walked towards Shohreh’s table, very awake, with a numb upper lip that felt as solid and stretched out as an elephant’s trunk. As I passed the bar, I picked up a few peanuts and clapped my hands, and continued through the crowd to my love. Before I reached her table, however, Shohreh got up and met me. She took my hand and we started to dance. I danced with confidence, my forehead lifted high towards the sparkling mirror ball that beamed over us with its happy light.

Who is the guy? I asked Shohreh.

A friend.

He looks more like an uncle.

No, he’s just a friend.

Well, he just sits there, brooding through the loud boom-booms, smoking like he is about to recite poetry.

Well, actually, he could be a poet.

Ah! So he is a poet.

Do you want to dance or ask questions?

I am dancing.

Good.

While I danced, I looked at the man. Our eyes met. He turned his head, crushed out his cigarette, stood up, and walked towards us. He laid his hand on Shohreh’s shoulder and said something in Persian to her. She answered with a brief nod, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he left.

Reza danced alone. He was happy and energetic, and like a bear his large body secured a void around it. When I squeezed Shohreh towards me and slipped both hands onto her torso, she pushed me away and danced alone. And then slowly she drifted away, and disappeared into the middle of the crowd.

I walked to the bar and bought myself a drink. A hand rested on my shoulder and someone laid a kiss on my cheek.

Farhoud, you man-killer, you should buy me a drink first, I said to him.

He laughed and asked: Is Shohreh here?

Yes — over there. I pointed at the dance floor. Farhoud danced towards Shohreh, and when she saw him she jumped up and down with joy, and moved into his arms.

Though I was filled with energy and the music became even more intense and energizing, I did not dance. Instead I went and sat at Shohreh’s table on the same chair the poet had occupied. I smoked and watched the women dancing. Many were young and good-looking. I searched the dance floor until my eyes alighted on a woman dancing barefoot, her shoes swinging in her hand. She laughed and danced in a circle of girlfriends. I watched her and smoked. When she left the dance floor, I stood up, followed her to the bathroom, and waited at the door. When she came out, I faced her with a smile, blocking her way as she tried to squeeze her shoes between my ankle and the wall. She looked at the floor. She pushed her right shoulder against mine. In my high state, with my elephant’s head and my ever-growing numb lips, I dipped my arm, swung it like a dangling lasso, and seized her wrists. She stopped pushing and lifted her head. Her face rose from beneath her hair, delicate, cautious, and still.