Rawi Hage - Cockroach

When Shohreh came back up the stairs, Sehar stood in her way. Shohreh smiled and tried to pass around her, but the owner’s daughter still stood in the way, mesmerized. She wanted to look at Shohreh up close. Shohreh smiled, excused herself, and walked by, swaying her upper body in quarter-notes. And then, as she crossed the floor, she stopped. She looked at the short man. Her hands dropped, her walk changed. She walked fast, back to the table. There she drank and looked agitated. She moved her head left and right, glancing again and again at the short man’s back. Then she stood up and walked back towards the bathroom, bumping into a few chairs as she hurtled down to the basement. Sehar followed her. I followed them both. I found Shohreh in the corridor, nauseous, leaning her arm against the wall, her head towards the floor, holding her stomach.

Are you okay, Madame? Sehar asked.

Shohreh released a feeble nod, then rushed to the bathroom. Her face suspended in front of her body, she spilled part of her vomit on the bathroom floor and splashed the rest of it into the toilet bowl. I rushed upstairs to get water while Sehar held her arm. Then Shohreh grabbed the edge of the door frame and leaned on it, unsure whether she wanted to go back upstairs or stay. She barely drank from the glass of water I offered her. I rushed back to the closet and got her some napkins.

I must go, she mumbled.

I helped Shohreh up the stairs. As she crossed the floor, she held the napkins to her mouth, covering her face. The owner saw me holding her arm and became even more distressed. Farhoud stood up, surprised, and the bodyguard too stood up from his stool, facing us and keeping an eye on us. Shohreh went over and talked to the owner in Farsi. He was quiet and kept glancing towards the short man, wondering if any of this was disrupting his important guest’s meal. Farhoud pulled out his wallet to pay, but the owner laid his hand on the wallet and refused to take the money. Instead he rushed them both out the door, eager to get rid of them.

I followed my friends outside. They were walking slowly, shuffling their feet on the sidewalk. Then they stopped and faced each other. I rushed towards them and saw Shohreh in tears. She and Farhoud were speaking in Farsi and I could not understand them. Then Shohreh’s demeanour suddenly changed and her face looked angry. She appeared to want to go back to the restaurant, but Farhoud grabbed her by the arm and held her back, gesturing with his hands, talking to her in a soft voice. Then Shohreh turned to me, and said, Do you know who the man is? Do you know? Do you know the man?

I was confused, and before I could answer, Farhoud pushed her back, talked to her, tried to calm her down, and dragged her towards the bus station. Then he looked my way and said, Go back. You will catch a cold without your jacket on. Go back. She is okay with me.

I went back. As soon as I entered the door of the restaurant, the owner rushed over to me and said in a low voice, Come.

I followed him to the kitchen.

He walked all the way to the back. Then he asked me, What happened to that girl?

I am not sure.

My food is all clean. If she said that she had food poisoning, it is not true. She ate the same food as everyone else. What did she say?

I cannot understand Farsi, sir, but she seemed upset. Maybe she had a fight with her friend.

The owner went to the door of the kitchen and called Reza. Reza gave a sign to the rest of the musicians and followed the owner. I saw him bowing his head and shaking it in denial, quietly gesturing with his hands.

The owner come back to me, irritated, and said: Take the mop and clean downstairs. Use soap.

I took the bucket and the mop, and filled the bucket with soap and water. I put everything down at the door to the bathroom, fetched a roll of paper towels from the closet, rolled it around my palm, tore it, and walked back towards my lover’s remains. I swept it all up, until the last bit, the last grain of rice, the last fluid, had disappeared into the bucket, and as I swept I wondered if any of my saliva from last night had been rejected today by her body. I dipped the mop into the bucket, squeezed it, and started to move my gondolier’s pole through all the sewers that run beneath the earth. Then I poured the bucket into the toilet bowl, and all that Shohreh had eaten was gone, feeding the city gutters honey and jasmine. I thought how the long, hollow tunnels must be happy, echoing with the joy of packs of rodents, insects, pet alligators, thirsty vampires, and blind bats. All shall feast on what her teeth ground, her eyes imagined, her fingers ordered, and her lips have touched.

AT THE END of the evening Reza waited for me at the door, standing there with his instrument box wrapped up in a thick quilt. Let’s talk, he said. What happened with Shohreh?

You were there, I answered.

I couldn’t see or hear anything. The owner asked me if Shohreh and Farhoud were my friends. I’ve got to stop bringing people I know to this place. First you — the owner thinks he did me a favour by hiring you. Now if I want to ask for a raise he will mention you, just to make me feel like he did me a great favour. And then, this tonight! Shohreh acting like a drama queen. What the fuck! I am making a living here. What’s with you people? You come here and get me in trouble. So, tell me what was wrong with the diva?

I don’t know, I said. I just don’t know. She kept on asking me if I knew that man.

What man?

I don’t know. Call and ask her.

Which way are you going? Reza asked me.

Home.

Come over to my place.

No, I am going back home, I said.

Reza turned and left me and walked towards the subway, and I watched his big body hugging his instrument case as if it were a permanent companion. I kept walking, and when I had gone a block, a taxi pulled up beside me. The window rolled down and I saw Majeed. He gestured to me to get in. I opened the door and sat in the passenger seat.

Did you see where that man who was in the restaurant went? Majeed asked me. Did you see what direction?

What man?

The man in the restaurant — a short, bald Iranian man.

The owner?

No.

The customer?

Yes.

He left a while ago, with his bodyguard. His limousine driver picked him up. So that’s what Shohreh was upset about? She asked me about the man as well. Did she send you here?

Majeed did not answer me.

What is going on? I persisted.

It’s not important. Where do you live?

Pinnacle Street.

I will drive you home.

In the car there was silence between Majeed and me. Only the radio dispatcher spoke, calling out car numbers, giving addresses, making the car sound like a spaceship travelling past houses of humans and nests of squirrels. Majeed looked pensive, perhaps a little stressed. After a while I tried to make a conversation with him, but it seemed as if he was in a rush to drop me off. He offered me a cigarette. I took one. He partially opened his window and drove with one hand on the wheel while he smoked with the other. I cracked my window and smoked too, puffing at the passing buildings, the passing signs, the passing lives, the wind, the cold, and the deep, dark sky.

You must meet a lot of different people in this job, I said at last.

He nodded, then smiled, and then he said, Yes, all kinds. In this job you meet all kinds. He was taken with his thought, swallowing the cigarette’s fumes, holding every inhalation, making sure every ounce of nicotine touched his heart, stained his lungs, rushed through two cycles of his blood, yellowed his teeth, and was finally released to face the trembling cold air that rushed through the open car windows, smashed against the windshield, ricocheted off dizzying wipers that swung back and forth like a man caught between many thoughts, streets, languages, lovers, backseat conversations, red lights, traffic, metal bars, a few women, and a storm.