Rawi Hage - Cockroach

Ah, je comprends, je comprends , she replied, I understand ça doit être tellement délicat .

Spirituel , I shouted from the kitchen, like a salesman closing the deal.

Ah, oui, spirituel. Mais, bien sûr, spirituel. Comment j’ai pas pensé à ça? Then Sylvie sat at the piano. As always, her long, silky robe dangled behind her, falling from the chair and touching the stage like an opera curtain. She played some of her own music for us, and her dramatic facial expressions made me sick. I remembered why I had felt I had to leave her and her lucrative la gang . But Reza stood beside the piano with a baby smile on his face, checking out the rich surroundings just like I had once upon a time. As her notes filled the space I went back to the kitchen, opened the fridge, pulled out goat cheese, ham, pâté, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, mustard, and mayonnaise, and made myself a duplex of a sandwich. Sylvie’s cat rubbed its whiskers against my feet. I hate pets. I have nightmares about them chasing me, leading me down sewers, into deep gutters, sticking me with their claws and flashing their fangs behind me. Creatures like this only have respect for what is above them.

When I was on my last bite, Sylvie stood in the kitchen doorway. I see you found your way to the food as usual, she said. Eat what you want, but do not steal anything today, please. Your friend looks decent. Do not embarrass him.

Maybe I should be going, I said, still chewing.

Reza didn’t want to leave; he gave me a “wait a little” wink. But Sylvie said she had an engagement and that settled it. On the way down the stairs Reza gave me the thumbs-up. We passed the entrance to the building but continued down the stairs, all the way to the laundry room. Reza poured the contents of a minuscule plastic bag onto the laundry counter and cut the powder with his bank card, and we both sucked it up like two loose vacuum cleaners. When we were warm, dry, and fluffy, we went back upstairs and walked the streets without feeling fear or the cold. A kind of grandiose assurance came over me and I felt confident and energetic.

Here is the deal, I said.

What deal? The deal is done. The deal is up your nose, man.

The deal has just started. You will make good with her friends. They don’t trust me anymore, but you they will trust. You are in. You have skills, you can perform, you do art. You naturally belong with the corrupt rulers, my friend. It must be because you come from a long line of Persian rulers. Six thousand years of civilization is finally paying off.

So, how did you belong? You have nothing to offer, no culture, no shit whatsoever. He laughed.

Do not be so sure about the latter, O grand heir of Xerxes. But okay. Listen. Let’s cut the shit. They are loaded. I bluffed my way. You know, I was l’aventurier . I gave them a sense of the real.

Real? You! Reza laughed.

The fuckable, exotic, dangerous foreigner, I said. Play it right and they will toss you from one party to another. I want a cut.

What cut?

I will get you the shit from Big Derrick. You just tell them it is the real stuff. Those guys will snort anything. And we will split the difference. You won’t forget your friend who is walking beside you. I know you won’t.

How do you know that?

Because. Just like I put you in, I can pull you back out.

Pretty confident, aren’t you? Let’s see what happens first.

Things will happen, I said. They will.

We separated and I walked back home. As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I felt the landings getting longer. And when I passed by the windows on the landings, I went faster and faster. The wells of light looked like water that could drench my hair, gush over my shoulder, fall like mop-water out of buckets thrown from balconies by housewives in sunny places, with permanent cigarettes on their lips and aimless twitching eyes. Now I ran up the stairs, looking for my keys, but could not find them. Cursing Reza, I accused him of stealing my keys. Frantic, I took off my jacket and searched it. Then I took off my shoes, my pants, and dug my hands through many pockets. I found the keys at last and somehow managed to open my door. I went inside the apartment and quickly reached for the curtains on the windows and closed them. I had inexplicable energy. I wanted everything to cease moving, but at the same time I knew that nothing was really moving. I went to the kitchen and frantically banged my shoes on the counter, whether the creatures were there or not. I hit my shoes against the sink, the dishes, the fridge. Then I climbed onto the counter and hit the walls, chasing creatures and slapping them flat. I could see myself doing this as if I were someone else’s double and could predict every future move. Everything happened within time lapses. And just when I was about to kill a few more creatures, I heard a voice whispering to me: Manipulative, good-for-nothing murderer.

Before it could continue, I scrambled to the floor, lifted my slippers in the air, and said, Stop your insults or I might just slap your face.

Anger, hmmm. I never thought you would act on it again, the voice said.

And when I looked behind me, I saw the gigantic striped albino cockroach standing on two of its feet, leaning against the kitchen door. It had grown to my size — even bigger, if you were to measure its antennae that touched the ceiling. It had a long thin face, curved like a hunched back, and as it spoke two of its small hands continuously rubbed against each other. Let’s see you pounding with your slippers now, it said. Not feeling too big anymore, heh?

I was suddenly convinced that the Last Day the two Jehovah’s Witness ladies had told me about had come to pass, and that all the good people had been zipped up to heaven. Only the likes of me had been left to face the creatures, the future rulers of the earth. Judgment Day seems so informal, even personal, I thought. I had always thought there would be collective punishment, an endless line of exhausted people pulling on ropes under the whips of half-naked, leather-bound foremen and slave-drivers. But this seems more personal. A representative of the future ruling race is actually here to escort me.

So, the world finally came to an end, I said to the striped beast.

But mon cher . The slimy creature at my door leaned its head sideways. The world ended for you a long time ago. You never participated in it. Look at you, always escaping, slipping, and feeling trapped in everything you do.

It is not escape, I said. I refuse to be a subordinate. It is my voluntary decision.

Yes, yes, the creature said impatiently. Because in your deep arrogance you believe that you belong to something better and higher. You are what I call a vulture, living on the periphery of the kill. Waiting for the kill, but never having the courage to do it yourself.

And what is a cockroach like you to judge? I replied, waving my shoe in his face. Hiding and nibbling on bits and pieces, on crumbs, I shot back at him. I’m not intimidated by your size or your horrific looks.

Yes, we are ugly, but we always know where we are going. We have a project.

An evil, oppressive one, if I may add! I shouted.

A change. A project to change this world, the creature corrected me, and waved his whiskers.

And to subordinate and kill all those who do not conform to your project.

Kill? Did I hear you say kill? Dear child, let’s not be judgmental here. Let’s not open wounds and recite the past. I have known you since your childhood. I even bit you once. Ah, I am sure you remember that day back home. Imagine: a barefoot child, gliding on those dirty tiles, in a hurry to go outside and play. Without socks, and in a childish hurry, you slipped your little toes inside your little shoes and something soft and tender fretting in there bit you. That was me. When you hid in your mother’s closet I was also there, and when you stole candy from the store I was there, and when you collected bullets, and when you followed Abou-Roro down to the place of the massacre and watched him pull golden teeth from cadavers, I was there.