Rawi Hage - Cockroach

I went up the stairs, carrying a box. I made sure the owner saw me, and then I quietly slipped back down to the basement. I knocked at the bathroom door. There was no answer. I knocked again. Is anyone there? I asked. Still there was no answer.

So I waited. And when the owner’s daughter came out, I stood where I would be visible, at the edge of the stairs. As she passed, ignoring me, I whispered: Everybody does it.

She stopped, turned abruptly, looked at me, and said, Does what?

You know. Gets a little happy idea once in a while. There is nothing to be ashamed of, or hide. It is nature.

Nature?

Yes, one should never be ashamed of it. Everyone tells us it is bad, but it is all good.

It is good? she whispered back at me. She started to climb the stairs, and on the third step she turned and leaned her upper body towards me. Then, suddenly, she came back downstairs and stood right in front of me and said, If I tell my dad that you are watching me, he will kill you.

Do it, I said. But before you tell him, I want to get my last wish from you.

Our eyes locked.

I want to see, I said. Just see. Then you can tell him anything you want. I am willing to kill and willing to die.

Not here, she said, and she ran back up the stairs.

AT THE END OF THE NIGHT, I pulled out the vacuum, unleashed its cord, and let the machine loose to chase and devour all the crumbs and rice that had fallen over the red carpet. I changed the tablecloths and filled the lanterns on the tables with candles. Then I went to the kitchen and mopped the floor. The tiles in the kitchen were real tiles, thick and square, not the plastic kind found in North American houses. These tiles were the old kind found in marble palaces and grand dancing halls. In the middle of the kitchen, under the cook’s counter, there was a drain. I pushed the water towards the drain and it disappeared, eradicating whatever was below the surface. Slices of rejected vegetables, grains of rice, eggshells, and peas swam and rolled on the waves like little boats. I chased the water, surrounded it, at times attacking it from the back, at times confronting it head-on, driving it like a herd of buffalo off a cliff. The drain swallowed everything, nothing was filtered, recycled, tossed away. All was good, all was natural, all was accepted by the underworld.

When I was done, I waited for the owner to finish counting his money. He buried his head behind the bar and licked his thumb as he folded the bills, jingled and tossed the change. Then he said, Come with me. He led me to the door. Do you know how to start a car?

Yes.

Here, this is the key for the car door and this is the engine key. Stay in it, warm it up, and I will be right there. He locked the store door behind me.

I cleared snow from the roof and the front and back wind-shields and sat inside the car, again rubbing my hands like a happy thief, drawing my neck into my shoulders like a turtle, sniffing like a junkie, shivering like a ghost.

Soft Persian music began to play. I slipped my hand into the glove compartment, quickly searching there. Nothing. I felt in the gap between the two front seats and pulled out a CD case. It showed a group of young men called Boys in Black. I memorized the name and put the CD back.

The owner knocked at the window and I opened the door for him and got out of the car. Without a word, he slipped inside and quickly shoved a plastic bag under the seat.

Amateur, I thought. The money is under the seat.

I waited while the owner pulled away from the curb. His bald head barely rose above his hands at the top of the wheel. He drove away. I stood there, waiting for his taillight to disappear. Then I was alone, and nothing moved around me, and it seemed as if no one else existed. With the cold comes a silence. I zipped up my jacket, put my hands in my pockets, lifted up my collar, and walked. My feet had a different rhythm than usual for them, and I was not sure if this was because the snow was different, the ice less squeaky, or if it was I who was not in harmony. My body passed through different shades of light. When I crossed under the hunched streetlight, I could see my breath leaving my body. In between the streetlights, in the darker places, it seemed as though my breath had ceased. Eventually I started walking to another rhythm. The street-lights must have been well-spaced, at equal intervals, because my breath appeared and disappeared in a regular way, through darkness and light. I forgot about the rhythm of my shoes, and something less noisy, something mute and visual, gave me another kind of rhythm. I tried to pace myself, even while speed-walking, even though I found it hard to stick to a regular rhythm because everything depended upon the obstacles on the ground. Higher snowbanks required more effort and slowed me down, but sometimes I passed in front of well-maintained houses where all the snow on the sidewalk was shovelled and cleaned up, and then I moved faster. Still, I felt that the cleaned-up paths were disruptive, hindering me from creating a perfect harmonious rhythm from my breath and the falling city lights.

I did not know how cold it was. I’m never sure of the temperature, and I never look at the weather forecast. I’m not sure why people in this place always start their conversations with remarks about the weather. Small talk frightens me. I have nothing to say. I do not see the point of communicating just for the sake of saying something. Yes, it is cold. I’ll admit it if you want me to, but at least today I was well-fed. Tonight the cook made me a plate before he left. Without calling me over or telling me anything, he shoved a plate in front of me, and then the owner came over and pointed at it and looked at me. I sat at the small table next to the kitchen and ate, really trying not to show how much I was enjoying the food. I know what kind of merchant the owner is. Everything is negotiated. If my boss sensed my dependence on his meals, he might cut money from my pay or ask for more work and give me more orders, and who knows where it would all stop — maybe with cleaning his car, or heating his car, or shovelling his snow, driving his in-laws, cutting the lawn under his suburban plastic chairs, scrubbing his barbecue. Some of these immigrants are still eager to re-enact those lost days of houses with pillars, servants, and thick cigars. Filth! They are the worst — the Third World elite are the filth of the planet and I do not feel any affinity with their jingling-jewellery wives, their arrogance, their large TV screens. Filth! They consider themselves royalty when all they are is the residue of colonial power. They walk like they are aristocrats, owners from the land of spice and honey, yet they are nothing but the descendants of porters, colonial servants, gardeners, and sell-out soldiers for invading empires.

Under the streetlight my breath was fuming like a chimney. I would have liked a cigarette, but what was the point of smoking in the cold? One couldn’t even smell the smoke, and a few seconds after being lit the cigarette would turn into a frozen roll of thin paper and damp tobacco. And who dared to pull fingers from a pocket to strike a match in the cold wind? Anyway, at this hour of the night it was better to not draw too much attention to yourself. I did not need to set my face ablaze. What I really needed was to bury my face in a woman’s thighs, sweep my forehead across her soft black fur, warm my lips with her first flow. Maybe Shohreh would accept my cold nose. Maybe she would feel generous enough to embrace me in her thighs tonight and block my ears with her soft, tender flesh, and erase the sound of the crunching snow under my shoes. I dug deeper in my pocket, but I did not have any change for a phone call. I even ventured to take my fingers out of my coat pocket and dig into my pants pocket. Nothing! I came to a crossroad. If I went south, I could knock at her door, although at this late hour she wouldn’t like it. If I went north, I could walk on St-Laurent Street and pass the bars, and, who knows, maybe I would get some closing arms to embrace me. Instead I chose neither of those directions and ended up in the old port. I did this for no reason, really, except that I was hesitant, hesitant to go home and hesitant to knock at warmth’s door. Besides, I doubted if Shohreh would be home. She liked to go out on the weekends. She didn’t like her job, and her escape was to wait for the end of the week to dance and dance.