Rawi Hage - Cockroach

Shohreh pulled up the covers and turned off the light. I kept my arms around her.

IN THE MORNING, Shohreh woke me up and offered me coffee. She took a shower. When she left the bathroom with two towels around her body, I followed her wet steps. I stood at the door of her bedroom and watched her drying her hair. Naked, she leaned towards the mirror, her torso arched forward, her ass shining in the soft light that came in from a side window and gave it a three-dimensional, sculpted form. I took a step towards her.

With an eyeliner pencil poised on the lid of her eye, she mumbled: Stay there. I can’t. Besides, I am already late. I have no time for that now.

We walked together to the metro, neither of us saying a word. I went with her into the station. She used her pass on the turnstile and entered the tunnel. I watched her going down the escalator, descending towards the underground. I waited, hesitant to go out into the cold again. It was one of those days that have no mercy on your toes, that are oblivious to the suffering of your ears, that are mean and determined to take a chunk of your nose. It was a day to remind you that you can shiver all you want, sniff all you want, the universe is still oblivious. And if you ask why the inhumane temperature, the universe will answer you with tight lips and a cold tone and tell you to go back where you came from if you do not like it here.

Eventually I walked back towards home. Walking made me warm, but my face and toes were still freezing. I have to buy some shoes, I thought. The first thing to do when I get paid is to buy shoes. I arrived at the Artista Café and entered it without looking through the glass first like I usually do. Inside I saw Reza sitting alone at a table. He looked like shit. The professor and his entourage were not there. I sat down at Reza’s table. It took some time for either of us to say anything. Finally Reza lifted his coffee to his mouth, slurped, held the cup in the air, and with his usual mocking face he said: Are you going to order anything or will you tell the waitress to bring you water again?

Fuck off, I said.

Be careful. Now they carry bottled water. If you ask for a freebie you might end up paying for the opened bottle.

I reached for Reza’s cigarette box. He snapped it shut and put it in his pocket.

You look like shit, I said. I see white on the tip of your nostrils.

Reza stood up and ran to the bathroom. He came back a moment later and said, Very funny.

Rough night last night?

Yup.

Didn’t sleep? But I bet you had a good shit this morning.

Yup. The white stuff is good for your system.

Did you sleep on the couch or on a crowded bed?

On a crowded couch. I’m not too fond of orgies.

Bad experience with that?

Yes, your mother snores, Reza retorted.

Any leftovers from last night?

Yes, and you are not getting any.

I can hook you up with some real upper-crusters. I mean, not the petty dancers and restaurant musicians of your kitsch entourage. Real people. High end, high high end, first fucking class, I said, and joined my fingers together and turned my hand upwards and gestured like a Roman.

What, have you been promoted from kitchen sweeper/busboy in an Iranian restaurant to some kind of event promoter for high society?

Do you want to be hooked up or not?

Sure, show me how.

Where is your instrument? I asked.

At home.

Go and get it and meet me at Bernard and Park in an hour. Can you do that?

This better be good.

You won’t regret it, I said.

I went back home. On the way upstairs I passed my neighbour’s child screaming his lungs out. His mother was trying to comfort him, speaking to him in Urdu. Then she lost patience, started to scream, and jerked the child back inside the apartment. His cries were muffled, but still I could hear him sobbing through the door, and the stairs cascaded with tears all the way down to the street, and the snow melted with the kid’s sadness.

I sat on my bed, pulled out a book, and started to read, but I couldn’t concentrate. I read the same paragraph three times. What are the insects in my kitchen up to at this hour? I wondered. I walked to the kitchen, but no one was there. It was time to meet Reza so I went back out to the street and started to walk up towards Park and Bernard.

Reza was waiting inside the drugstore at the corner, waving at me. You are late. Don’t you know I can’t expose my instrument to this kind of cold? Do you know how old this instrument is? How far are we going?

Two, three blocks west.

He pulled out a scarf and wrapped it around the box he was carrying.

We walked together down the street, then entered a building, and I buzzed Sylvie twice, like I used to do when I delivered her groceries. She buzzed us in without asking who it was. When she saw me, she held the door half open, hesitating, slightly swinging it back and forth. Clearly she could not decide whether to shut it in my face or hear what I had to say.

It is important that we talk, I told her.

She glanced at Reza as if she was thinking about whether to embarrass me in front of a stranger. Then she said: Nothing is important between us anymore.

Her fake Parisian accent made this sound as if she were in a movie trailer for a French film.

I want to introduce you to my friend Reza here, I said, playing my part of the existentialist protagonist in a film noir, although I was missing a cigarette and some plumes of smoke.

I did not think you had any friends left, Sylvie said.

Reza, open your box, I said. Open it now, I snapped. To Sylvie I said, You have to hear Reza playing his Iranian instrument.

I knew Sylvie wouldn’t be able to resist anything foreign. The key word was Iranian , and so I stressed it when I said it aloud.

Sylvie paused, holding the door steady.

Reza opened his box and laid it on the stairs, pulled out his santour and put it on top of the box, pulled out two little spoons, and started to hit the strings and play.

Sylvie was instantly intrigued, and when she leaned her face against the edge of the door, I knew I had her.

Okay, ça suffit , she said. The neighbours will come out now. They are going to think we are crazy, she laughed. She loved being labelled crazy. La bourgeoise thinks that she is wild and crazy! She is convinced that she and la gang , as she calls her friends, are dingue .

Reza and I took off our shoes and entered Sylvie’s apartment. Reza walked towards the piano. He recognized the Steinway. He walked around it, passed his palm across its shiny black surface. He and Sylvie chatted about it and then he laid his box on the coffee table. Sylvie was intrigued. On her way to the kitchen, she glanced at me, and said: Il est charmant, ton copain . I smiled and followed her to the kitchen, where I remembered the cheeseboard’s position, the wine bottle on its belly, the fridge standing upright, the French baguette sticking out from the woven villager’s basket. All this brought back the memories of food and good living that I had once experienced.

Sylvie talked to Reza in her broken English with a heavy French accent, apologizing for her poor pronunciation. Reza smiled, assuring her that her English was perfect. He even laid his palm on her arm to reassure her. Their bodies moved closer and Sylvie asked him to play again, and he did. She told him that she loved his music, and that she would introduce him to a composer she had worked with on her own recording. She was very impressed when he told her that the instrument he played was a few hundred years old, that it was handed down from master to student. And that the seventy-two strings stood for the grandson of the Muslim prophet who was killed in battle with his entourage of seventy-two. Reza gave Sylvie the history of the instrument, and she was so intrigued that she asked him if she could touch it. He politely told her that he would rather not allow it, apologizing repeatedly.