Rawi Hage - Cockroach

Later that day, I took the bowl back to my neighbour downstairs. The man was gone, but his wife opened the door. She giggled and avoided looking me in the eyes. I gave the bowl to her and thanked her, bowing, looking at her all the time, and she giggled and shoved her son behind the door. I hope you like?

Yes, yes, I said, it went down smooth as soup.

ON FRIDAY I WALKED to work, and as usual I stopped at the Artista Café to sniff around and see which of the landed refugees had left a yellow trace at the edge of a seat, on the leg of a table, or at the counter, but none of those welfare dogs was there. Maybe when they smell my scent, they disappear. I’m not sure why I still show up where I’m unwelcome, but it has become a habit of mine to choose unwelcoming places. I find it charming, the refugees’ confusions and complaints. Their overt pride in spite of their destitution amuses me. I find it endearing. Lost mutts! They don’t know what colour they are. They can’t decide what breed they belong to. They sit in their own mess, feeling repulsed by their urine. They sprinkle traces of their lives here and there for no reason except to have the illusion of marking territory and holding on to vanishing places. Miserable dogs! All they can do is howl about the past, and their howls are lost between taxi fumes and their own shrinking cigarettes. Which reminds me: I must pay the professor a visit sometime this week.

I continued walking down St-Laurent. I passed the taxi stand at the corner of Prince-Arthur and St-Laurent, right next to a green bank. There I recognized the man who had been sitting at Shohreh’s table the night I visited the nightclub. He was smoking in the cold with a few other taxi drivers while their cars idled, little streams of exhaust fuming from their tailpipes. The man did not recognize me, but then again, I had my scarf around my mouth like a thief. I went straight towards the men and asked for the time. One of them slowly pulled his wrist out of his sleeve and said it was two-thirty. I still had a little time before I had to show up at work, so I crossed the street to watch Shohreh’s man. After finishing a cigarette, each driver went back to his car. The man’s car was third in the taxi line. I knocked at his window and he slowly opened it. I uncovered my face and said: I know you.

The man did not say a word. He looked hard in my eyes, shook his head, and said, I do not know you. Iranian?

No, I am a friend of Shohreh’s.

Which Shohreh? he asked. I know a couple.

Shohreh Sherazy.

He nodded.

I saw you at the nightclub last week, I said.

Yes, I was there. Still, I do not remember you.

It was a little dark, a little loud.

Yes, very noisy, he laughed.

Are you a relative of Shohreh’s? I asked, blowing breath onto my fingers like a cold God creating the world, rubbing my hands like a happy thief, sticking my neck into my shoulders like a turtle, sniffing like a junkie, shivering like a ghost, inquiring like a Spanish inquisitor dreaming of a flamenco dancer to warm my heart.

Come inside the car if you are cold, the man said.

I hopped into the front seat and introduced myself.

The man nodded his head but did not tell me his name.

Well, I said, I just wanted to meet you, because we did not have the chance to be introduced that night.

He smiled, and said, So, you are a friend of Shohreh’s. What kind of friend?

A close friend.

He smiled, and said, Yes, Shohreh has many friends.

You’ve known her for a long time, I said.

Yes, she was this big. He lowered his hand towards the floor of the car.

In Iran?

Yes. I was a friend of her family. I knew her uncle. We were jailed together.

Mullahs?

No, no, before that. The Shah. The mullahs jailed us afterwards. He laughed. We were tortured by both of them. I survived and. . He paused.

Her uncle?

Her uncle. He shook his head. Disappeared. What do you do? he asked me.

I am working at a restaurant now. You know how it is, I said.

Oh yes. I was a journalist myself. Now I am a taxi driver. He laughed again.

You can still be a journalist.

No, I do not bother anymore. Now I am a taxi driver. That is what I am. Listen, let me tell you the story of the great Persian poet Farid al-Attar. He was captured by the Mongols. One day someone came and offered to his captors a thousand pieces of silver for Attar. Attar protested and told the Mongol not to sell him for that price since the price was not right. The Mongol was convinced and did not sell him. Later another buyer came along and offered to purchase Attar for a sack of straw. Attar counselled the Mongol to sell him because that is what he was truly worth. The Mongol cut off Attar’s head. What do you do at the restaurant?

Busboy. Which reminds me, I am going to be late, I said. What is your name? I asked.

Majeed.

I gave him my hand to shake. Then I continued my walk to work. The ground was frozen bumps of ice. Slippery glass. Thick and transparent. My fucking shoes, however, were totally flat on the bottom. No grip left on the soles, and in any case the soles were smooth to begin with, which made them even more slippery. Walking over the bumps of glassy ice, I extended my arms like an airplane passing above a circus juggler walking a rope in ballerina shoes while below him elephants worked for peanuts and monkeys clapped.

I passed a woman bundled up all the way to her eyes. Only her eyes were showing. I grabbed her hand. She stopped. I said: I recognize you, shifty green eyes!

The woman looked at me. She was cold and shivering and fog fumed from her throat.

We met a while ago, under unfortunate circumstances, I said to her.

The woman pulled her scarf down and when I saw her lips, I knew for sure that she was the woman at the institution. How unusual to see her so willingly bundled up. She had always been so eager to take off her clothes. She had been chased by nurses through corridors and had always ended up in my room, sitting on my bed, buck-naked, her eyes shifting with an empty glaze.

She looked hard at me now, but did not recognize me.

I was in that place with you, I said.

Yes, she said, and I saw that she knew what I was talking about.

You sat on my bed. You would always run away and end up on my bed, I said, and my hand squeezed hers.

She looked in my eyes, not saying anything for a moment, and then she smiled and said, Maybe it was because you had these mischievous beautiful eyes.

Maybe it was because I was the quietest, I said.

Or the sweetest. Where are you going? she asked.

Work. You?

Work.

You are better? I asked.

Yes, with six pills a day and consultations three times a month. She laughed. I have to go. Come by sometime. I work in the clothing store at the corner of St-Laurent and Duluth. Come by and see me sometime, and she held my arm and kissed me on the cheek.

I WORKED THROUGH THE evening as usual, and the morning of the next day I passed by the Artista Café again and peered through its large front window. The professor was there, reading the newspaper. Bouncing with happiness and anticipation, I walked past the café and rushed towards his house. I was so excited that I ran through red lights, was cursed by taxi drivers, and rode the batches of slippery snow like a carefree surfer on a beach.

The professor lived in an even smaller place than mine. Basement houses are easy to break into — a stroll, really. Easy prey. The entrance to the professor’s semi-basement apartment was dark and smelly. Inside, his bulky old fridge hummed like a time machine. I did not even need to open it. I know his kind. Even a cow would have stopped and covered her tits if she knew that her most valuable secretions would be forgotten here to stink and grow into a different species. But outside the fridge, everything was perfectly in place. Even the newspapers that the professor usually steals from the café were stacked in chronological order. It was a simple place, with a teapot on the stove of the professor’s pseudo-kitchen, a small closet, his two pairs of summer shoes neatly placed side by side, looking like two missing persons beamed up into a spaceship.