Rawi Hage - Cockroach

No, you were not! I threw my slipper at the creature’s face. Soles will make you shiver, insect! Ha ha ha, no matter how big you get you will always crawl, insect, crawl! I screamed at the monster. I, at least, have no fear of stomping soles, of the sound of earth when it rattles under marching men’s boots. I, at least, have the courage to refuse, to confront.

And kill? the insect interrupted me. You are one of us. You are part cockroach. But the worst part of it is that you are also human. Look at you how you strive to be worshipped by women, like those jealous, vain gods. Now go and be human, but remember you are always welcome. You know how to find us. Just keep your eyes on what is going on down in the underground.

WHEN I TOLD the therapist about my encounter with the giant cockroach, she was quiet for a moment, and then asked me to tell her more.

It was a big cockroach. And we had a conversation, I repeated.

What did you talk about?

Me.

What about you?

He said that I am part cockroach, part human.

Genevieve was quiet again. She looked me in the eyes. Do you feel part cockroach?

I don’t know, but I do not feel fully human.

What does it mean to be human?

I’m not sure. Maybe being human is being trapped.

To be an insect is to be free, then?

In a sense. Maybe.

Tell me how.

You are more invisible.

To whom, to what?

To everything, to the light.

How long ago did this happen?

What?

The encounter with the cockroach.

Five days ago. On Saturday.

And since that time, what happened? Did it visit you again? Or did anything else appear to you?

No. Nothing happened. Or everything happened as usual. I went to work the next day, everything was normal.

Did you take something that day you saw the cockroach?

Like what?

Like drugs.

I kept my silence.

If you still do drugs, I can’t help you, Genevieve said. But I am glad you shared that with me. It could be a reaction to something you took. If this happens more often, and especially when you are not on drugs — because you will not take drugs again, right? — you will tell me, right? I won’t ask more questions now, but you are lucky that you got out of the hallucination. Some people never recover from episodes. Drugs are usually not the only cause of hallucinations, but in your case they make you more vulnerable. What are we going to do about it?

About what?

About taking drugs! Genevieve’s voice became higher and she looked more irritated, more disappointed. I am here to assess your situation, she said, and to monitor your progress. Yes, I am here to help you, but you know what? In the end I am an employee of the government. People are paying taxes for you to be here. Do you understand my responsibilities? I really want to help, but you have to meet me halfway.

Somehow, despite her anger, I was waiting for her to touch my arm as she sometimes had in the past. But with time she had become more cautious. She could tell that I wanted to bring her hand into my lap, to hold on to her fingers. I hate to admit it, but the big roach knows me well. I want to be worshipped and admired.

THE NEXT DAY at noon, a soft, light cascade of snow fell. I could see it through my window. It was the kind of wet snow that hits the glass and immediately turns to water. I opened the window, stuck my hand outside, touched the outer side of the glass, and waited until a falling flake hit my open palm. I pulled back my hand, closed the window, and licked the drop in my palm. I had always wanted to capture one of those flakes before it settled and took over the ground, the cars, and the city roofs. Little creatures that seem insignificant and small are murderous in their sheer vast numbers, their conformity, their repetitiveness, their steady army-like movements, their soundless invasions. They terrify me.

My grandmother told me about the famine days, when zillions of grasshoppers came and invaded the countryside and ate all the grain, all the fruit, all the vegetables. Her family survived only because they had a few chickens and they dug up roots. But the famine took the lives of half the population, and then the Turkish army came and confiscated the stores of grain and food. There was a boy, she remembered, who was her own age and who came every day and asked my grandmother’s mother for food. All he said was, Aunty, I am hungry. But her mother chased him away. And then my grandmother chased him away. And then one day he didn’t show up. My grandmother cried as she told this story. She watched those insects settle like clouds on fields and turn them bare and plain. I see people that way, I see snow that way, I see wind, cars, the words that fly from people’s teeth, the white dust that I channel through my nostrils, the flowing water that way. Everything is made of little particles that gather in groups and invade. All nature gathers and invades.

How can I explain all of this to Genevieve? How can I tell her that I do not want to be part of anything because I am afraid I will become an invader who would make little boys hunger, who would watch them die with an empty stomach. I am part roach now, and what if my instincts make the best of me and lead me to those armies of antennae, hunched backs, and devouring teeth that are preparing from the underground to surface and invade? Could it be that the cockroach saw me throwing my rope over the tree in the park, and rushed to cut that branch above me? Yes, that is what must have happened. I had thought that branch was sturdy. I must go and take a look. I must walk back to the mountain and see if there are traces of nibbling teeth on the tree. I must walk up and look again. I must see it now. I will stand in front of the tree and imagine how I would have looked, hanging by a thread, with only a thin link to existence. But how, how to exist and not to belong?

A little while later, I walked to the park on the mountain, passing through a graveyard of marble angels and words carved in stone. I passed the man-made lake, the few bare maple trees. It is funny, I thought. What I remembered most was these trees. That day, I must have examined them all closely. Now I found the particular tree. I also saw a few horse droppings underneath it, which reminded me of the mounted-police post nearby. I looked up, trying to see the branch, but it was hard to see from the ground. I thought of climbing the tree, but was afraid that if I was seen again and captured by those modern horse-riders, they might think I was contemplating another attempt at my life. I walked around the tree for a little while, pretending that I was looking for squirrels to feed — or at least that would be the official story if I were asked. Then I decided to walk back home because I was getting late for work, that place were humans and insects are equally fed.

I ENTERED THE RESTAURANT. Sehar was there, earlier than her usual time. These days she treated me like an employee, and she hardly ever went down to the basement anymore. If I followed her even accidentally, she looked at me with squinty eyes and said, What are you doing down here? Go up to your work. And she said this with defiance, with the abuse reserved for retards, for the sick-minded, the impolite, the hypocrites, the subversive.

After her meal she called out to me loudly, as one calls ancient servants, and asked me to bring her tea and sweets.

Somehow I found her treatment reassuring, because it meant her father would never suspect anything. His perception was that no princess would ever sleep with her inferior. But now that I had turned into a eunuch in her palace, a slave to bring her food and fill the pool with warm water for her bath, I knew that she might wait for the king to be away fighting dragons and slaying peasants, and then she might pretend that I was a gladiator, and touch my muscles, and have her orgasm before dropping me into a circle of lions.