Rawi Hage - Cockroach

On my way out, I saw the daughter sitting at a table with a big smile. I winked at her. As I walked towards her like a Cyclops, she giggled with joy and fear. I twisted the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped outside into a world that looked flat, square, and one-dimensional.

I TOLD GENEVIEVE about my new job. She was happy, even touching my hand. Then she drew back fast, knowing full well that I was willing to take her hand and lead her to a spacious bed where we could always have the session in horizontal.

Why the austerity? I wanted to ask. Why this formality? Maybe all I ever needed to be cured was to be held by warm arms, above silky sheets, and fed by food in a full fridge, and gazed at from pillows, and feel my hair caressed. Maybe all these formalities, these thick clothes, this claustrophobic office, these ever-closed thighs and pulled-back hair are making me reluctant to open my innermost thoughts. I am thinking: Doctor, Genevieve, my luscious healer, my confessor, I confess to you that we should touch. Words have no effect on my skin, will never straighten my hair, won’t make my fingers reach out, wet, to explore triangles of pubic hair and soft red cracks, hollows of sensitive secret spots. Words, my love, keep tongues busy with dry air and clacking noise, words are what keep us away from the sources of liquid and life. There must be some branch in therapy where silence is encouraged and touch is the answer.

Tell me more about the job, Genevieve said. Tell me how it happened.

I went inside and waited, I replied. I talked to the daughter of the owner because the owner was not there.

How old is the daughter? Genevieve asked.

Maybe sixteen. I’m not sure.

And what did you talk about?

Skateboarding.

Was she nice?

She giggled.

You made her laugh?

Yes.

Let me look at my notes, Genevieve said, dismissing my attempt at joy and laughter. Okay, so last time when you burst out of the office — do you remember that? You were telling me about your sister and her husband, Tony.

Yes, I was telling you that.

Do you want to go on with that?

I’m not sure where I left off.

Tony had a gun.

Yes, almost everyone did. I mean, many people did.

That is interesting. And how do you feel about guns?

A gun could be useful.

For what?

To get things, accomplish things, defend things.

It will be by means of force — you realize that?

It’s not wrong if there are no other options, I said.

You are not a pacifist, I assume?

Pacifism is a luxury, I said.

Can you elaborate?

No, I can’t. Well, yes. I mean, you have to be well off to be a pacifist. Rich or secure like you. You can be a pacifist because you have a job and a nice house, a big TV screen, a fridge full of ham and cheese, and a boyfriend who goes with you to nice resorts in sunny places.

How would you know? How do you know I have a boyfriend?

I am just assuming. Just because.

Because of what? Her voice was firm and abrupt, she moved a touch forward, her eyes blinked twice from behind her glasses.

Because you grew up here and you have a job and a house, and you know people.

Not everyone who grew up here has a job or a house. There are many poor people who grew up here. But enough about your assumptions. You were saying about your sister and her husband?

Well, one day my sister came back home to my parents’ place, covering her baby in a pink quilt, and her eyes had black rings around them. The bastard had beat her up. My sister cried all the time. She was humiliated. My mother, with her “I knew it” attitude, you should have never married that loser, and my father, with his “women deserve it” attitude, took her and the baby in.

I went looking for the brute. I knocked on the door of his house. He was sitting in a room with two other gangsters, smoking and laughing. When he saw me, he knew I would kill him with my bare hands, with my pierced eyebrows, if I could. His gun was laid out on the table. Everyone became quiet. I stared at the gun, thinking: If I had wings, I could fly over, pick it up, and shoot the three of them from above. Or maybe if I was an insect I could crawl under their doors at night and slay them all in their filthy bedsheets.

What are you looking at, kid? Tony finally shouted. Go back home and bring your sister here. Tell her to come before I have to go drag her back by the hair. He said this not even looking me in the face. Move, he said.

I stood there exhaling my hate, my fists closed, my eyes projecting bullets, flying cigarettes, body holes. And then a kind of elation came over me, I remember.

You still here? Tony said.

And it was as if I was transformed. Maybe I even flew a little. And when I spoke, my voice vibrated loudly.

Tony stood up, grabbed the gun from the table, and walked towards me. One of his men stepped behind me. Tony put the gun in my face and said, You look like a killer. He laughed. The killer is dead, he said. I heard a gunshot. I jerked, thinking, This asshole just shot me! But I did not feel it, not yet. Then Tony and his friends all started to laugh. I can still hear them laugh. Tony’s friend had walked behind me and pulled the trigger in the air.

Scared hen. Is that what you want? Tony waved his gun in my face. Is that what you want, kid? He stuck the gun in my stomach. The two other men were amused by it all. They smiled, sat down, and tipped their chairs onto back legs. Tony raised his palm and tapped it gently against my bare neck. He closed his palm on the back of my neck and said again, Go get your sister, pronto, before I drag her here. When I pushed his hand away, bent my body, and liberated my neck from his grip, he boxed me on my shoulder with the back of his gun. He cornered me in his hallway. I could hear the neighbours and their TV — the loud news, the shouts of the woman calling her kids, the clanging of dishes, the smell of warm food. And suddenly I could hear my own mother calling me to her room, telling me to get ice to lay on her black eye. You tell the neighbours that I fell off the stairs, if they ask, you hear? I felt as if I could slip from under Tony’s hand and disappear under the neighbour’s door. I was sure that I could, if only he would stop chasing me from one corner to another, poking me with the barrel of his gun. His close bad breath, his thick, droopy moustache encircled me, made me crawl against the walls. And, as if I fluttered somehow, I became lighter and more agile. I even slipped under his feet and jumped over his boots. I was so agile and slippery that I almost made him stumble on the stairs. He got mad and said to me: You want to be tough, hen? He slapped me on the head.

I climbed the walls, flew over the ramp, landed on the floor below, and escaped. At that moment, I decided to kill him.

And did you kill him? asked Genevieve.

I was silent.

You do not have to answer that, she said. Even if you do, everything is confidential here.

Is our time up? I asked.

No. Do you have to go?

I did not answer her.

Did you tell your sister what had happened?

What for?

Genevieve was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, Was your mother nice to your sister?

My mother become preoccupied with the baby. My sister cried all the time and lay down on my bed. She slept a great deal and did not want to leave the house.

Depression.

What?

Sleeping and fatigue is a form of depression, explained Genevieve. But we can talk about that later. Go on.

I went straight to Abou-Roro and told him that I needed a gun.

Who is Abou-Roro?

My mentor. A thief in the neighbourhood.

Genevieve nodded. She looked intrigued but held her composure. Her pen made its way inside her lips, and I could see her breathe in a steady, regular motion, in time to her heartbeat. The doctor, like sultans, is fond of stories, I thought.