Rawi Hage - Cockroach

Their last album?

Yes, the whole album. Cool cover and lyrics.

Bring it here next time, she said. I want to see it.

Why don’t you come to my place and we can listen to it?

And Sehar put her hands on her waist and said: Wow, the busboy is inviting me to his palace! How exciting. She said this with irony, her body swaying under blue-black shiny hair. And what would we do there? Anything exciting? Like, washing dishes maybe? How fun.

I thought we could listen to the CD and watch what happens.

I think you’ve watched enough.

Not enough, never enough, I said, and smiled and looked her straight in the eyes, half begging, half suggesting, and fully waiting for a nod from under the stairs despite the risk of expulsion from paradise and the cuts of kitchen knives.

She was silent as she looked straight back at me. Her lashes were long, and her eyes reflected a small rectangular patch from the neon light behind me. It crossed her brown pupil like a streetlight in a store window, or an alien’s eyes shining behind a mask. She squinted and said: Where do you live on this earth?

At Pinnacle Street, I said.

That’s near my school.

Come after school, then.

Well, maybe. Leave me the address later.

Tuesday?

Sehar did not answer. She ran up the stairs. I opened the freight door, dragged the boxes by the rope up the stairs and through the back alley, and put the whole bundle next to the large metal garbage bin.

ON MONDAY I WENT to the music store on St-Catherine Street. I asked an employee for the latest CD by Boys in Black. I opened the case, slipped the cover booklet into my bag, and on my way out threw the CD in its case into the bag of a woman who was leaving the store. I followed her outside, and continued to trail her all through downtown. She shopped, walking from one window to the next. When she sat in a restaurant, I sat next to her. I ordered coffee, acting as suave and polite as I could, speaking French and rolling my R’s. The woman even looked my way and gave me a smile. I smiled back at her. I took off my jacket, and while my hand was still inside my sleeve I slipped that hand into her bag and pulled out the CD case. I actually held it in my hand, making sure she could see what I had pulled out of my pocket, then I got out the CD booklet and read it. After a few minutes I pretended to go to the bathroom and instead walked out of the restaurant.

On Tuesday I got up late and went into my kitchen. Roaches ducked for their lives. I walked back to the bathroom, peed, and returned to the kitchen with a newspaper in my hand. I attacked the invaders on the head with news and headlines. I spotted a particular one with light-coloured stripes, like an albino roach. It was fairly big and faster than the rest of the herd. It slid, almost gliding above the surface, more than it walked. It was skilful in its manoeuvres, confident. At one point it faced me and stood there, waving its antennae towards me like a TV receptor on a roof on a windy day. When I lifted the newspaper to pound it, it disappeared. I looked into the sink and saw its last white stripe ducking down the drain. I immediately opened the faucet and watched the water run down, imagining it chasing the albino in a gigantic flashing wave, rushing towards the glittering striped creature through the howling abyss. Then I cleaned the dishes and buried the cadavers. I fixed my bed, tucking in my sheet like the flag in a ceremony for dead soldiers. I opened the window to freshen the air and revive the atmosphere. I cleaned the toilet bowl and the sink. I closed the window, took a shower, dressed, and opened the window again. I positioned the Boys in Black CD on the floor below the window, turning the faces on the cover towards the light. The slight shininess of the plastic reflected the light, and I was afraid that the glare would efface the singers’ faces. So I played with the angles until I evaded the sun and those smiling boys with the pierced ears and noses became visible again. Then I waited.

Just after 3 p.m., my doorbell rang. I went out into the hallway and saw a school backpack mounting the stairs.

I am here, I said.

I got lost, Sehar said. This building is confusing.

She entered my apartment. I waited for her to pick up the CD, but she was more interested in the walls and in assessing my few sticks of furniture. She looked at the bed and the desk, and then she glanced out the window. A view, she said sarcastically.

Well, here are the boys, I said, and handed her the CD.

Cool, she said. Can we play it?

My CD player is in the shop, I said. I think I’ll get another one soon.

She laughed and threw the CD on the bed.

So, what are we doing here?

Tea, I said.

Tea, she repeated and barely smiled.

I told her to sit, and she looked out the window while I gathered tea from a kitchen drawer. I was out of sugar. I excused myself, took the stairs, and knocked at the door of the Pakistani family downstairs. The wife opened, half veiling herself with the door, peeking out at me like a Bollywood heroine from behind a palace window.

Sugar, please? I asked.

She nodded, closed the door, and wordlessly opened it a moment later, a small bowl of sugar in her hand.

I danced up the stairs. In my kitchen, the water was boiling. Good timing, I thought. Timing is important. I offered Sehar tea.

I do not have much time, she said, and wrapped her fingers around the mug.

Well, then. Have you ever had sex? I asked her.

No. But I’ve kissed boys.

Did they touch you?

A little.

I do not want to touch you. I just want to watch you touching yourself.

I am not sure if I can do that. . with you here, looking at me. .

I won’t look at you, I said. We can both face the wall and pretend that neither of us knows what the other is doing.

Sehar stood up, went into my bedroom, and got under the bedcover. I closed the curtains. A feeble light laminated the white wall. I sat on the chair near the bed. We both faced the wall, although first I saw her hand slowly disappear under the bedcover. There was silence. I turned my head and saw that her eyes were closed. Her knees lifted the sheet like a tent. I imagined her fingers steadily rotating and her mind projecting on the wall images of boys and young hairless singers.

I can’t do it, she said after a minute. She looked at me. Are you crying? Oh my God, your eyes. . This is weird! I can’t do it. I have to go.

She pulled up her panties, got out of bed, fixed her skirt, opened the door, and ran down the stairs.

AFTER SEHAR LEFT, I took back the sugar bowl to the Pakistani family downstairs. The woman opened the door. This time none of the children stuck their heads into the doorway. When I asked the woman where her husband was, she said, Factory. A baby started to cry from inside. She slowly, apologetically, closed the door. I ran back upstairs. I opened the curtains in my bedroom and for some reason I felt an overwhelming urge to pull out the professor’s letters. They all had the same type of envelope, yellow with an aged feel. The paper inside was rough and thin, the handwriting impeccable, large and clear. Each letter started with the words Mon cher — no name, just Mon cher . In the first one there was a lengthy description of the writer’s long walk on the beach, details of the sky, the blue water. She (I determined that the letter writer was a woman when she accused the breeze of lifting her skirt and carrying her away) described an older couple who were walking hand in hand, and how seeing that made her feel happy; le sable qui se lève avec le vent reminded her of something, her childhood, her grandmother, a stroll among the flowers. Everything seemed to be about the past, the writer’s own past. The letter dripped with Proustian memories: Le visage mélancolique, les textures, l’innocence, les pas, le vieux monsieur avec un chapeau . The subject was her feelings or some romantic escapade. The professor was never mentioned, or addressed for that matter; the letter was a monologue about the writer’s own emotions, her transcendent state of being, with the professor a receptacle for her temps perdu . Poor professor, I thought, how deprived and left out he must have felt, excluded by all these préoccupations avec la nature, le vent, les hirondelles . What a lousy lay she must have been, imagining him to be someone else when he was on top, and something else again when he was on the bottom.