Rawi Hage: Cockroach

Inside Lucy we sat and waited for flesh to appear on the screen. We were like angels. And then, when the older men became afraid that too much time had passed or was being wasted on the projection of old memories, wars, and aging stars, they shouted and banged on the bottoms of the old chairs: Attcheh (a porn cut) Abou-Khallil! Attcheh, Abou-Khallil! And succumbing to the pressure of the drumming palms, a bosom would swell on the screen, the back of a head would veil a voluptuous thigh, and some of the men would stand up, cheer, and whistle until the swelling in their pants burst their zippers open, and their shoulders tilted forward like the silhouettes of fishermen against crooked horizons scooping fish by the light of a sinking sun, and they blasted their handkerchiefs with the bangs of expelled bullets, wounding their pride, and finally folding up images of past lovers and their own unsatisfied wives.

A joint will warm my bones, I thought, or at least numb my brain just enough so that I won’t feel my misery and the cold. I slipped inside my closet and reached for the secret hole beside the top shelf. I arrange my cupboards precisely: the towels and sheets on the bottom shelf, the untouchables like opium and dreams on the top. I pulled out a plastic film canister and the thin white papers that went with it. Only a small amount of hash was left — a small ball, enough for one thin roll to lift me up like a rope and swing me down into a calm descent. I cut it and tried to roll it, but my fingers were cold and, as usual, shaky. Besides, I had no tobacco to mix with the stuff. Cigarettes are bad for one’s health, I consoled myself.

I lay in bed and let the smoke enter me undiluted. I let it grow me wings and many legs. Soon I stood barefoot, looking for my six pairs of slippers. I looked in the mirror, and I searched again for my slippers. In the mirror I saw my face, my long jaw, my whiskers slicing through the smoke around me. I saw many naked feet moving. I rushed to close the window and draw the curtains. Then I went back to bed, buried my face in the sheets, and pulled the pillow and covers over my head. I closed my eyes and thought about my dilemma.

My welfare cheque was ten days away. I was out of dope. My kitchen had only rice and leftovers and crawling insects that would outlive me on Doomsday. I was lucky to have that bag of basmati rice and those few vegetarian leftovers from Mary the Buddhist’s party.

Where there is music there is food, I say! A few nights ago around seven, after the sun had left to play, I heard shoeless feet pressing against my ceiling from the floor above me, little toes crawling under the brouhaha of guests and the faint start of a jam session that sounded both menacing and promising. The drums were calling me.

I cracked my door open and I saw feet ascending to my neighbour’s place. Mary? I thought. Yes, that was her name. I remembered once meeting her down in the basement. She complained about the absence of recycling bins. Or was it compost? In any case, she wanted to fill the earth with dust from the refuse of vegetables, and she had a strange kind of theory about reincarnation. One look at her guests and I knew what kind of party it would be — one look at the braids, the drums, the agonized Rasta lumps of hair on bleached heads, the pierced ears and noses that would make any bull owner very proud, and I knew. What to wear, was the question. A bedsheet wrapped around my waist and nothing else? Or my pyjamas? Yes, yes! Everyone in the southern hemisphere fetches the newspaper at daybreak in pyjamas fluttering above flat slippers and vaporous feet, everyone drinks coffee on dusty sidewalks, their wrinkled morning faces staring out from between the fenders of bedridden cars. But I decided not to overdo it. The exotic has to be modified here — not too authentic, not too spicy or too smelly, just enough of it to remind others of a fantasy elsewhere. In the end, I kept my jeans on and took off my shoes and left my socks in my room to air a bit more, and I climbed barefoot through the walls.

Mary was welcoming. A peaceful smile wafted my way. I wasn’t sure if it was the effect of the ever-burning incense in the room or maybe the effect of the hallucinatory fumes that I myself had been pumping through the years, into her walls.

I had helped myself to food at her party while everyone else sat on the floor with folded legs, eating. I could hear their chewing, like an incantation, as they floated on Indian pillows, the humming inside their throats synced to the sound of Mary’s old fridge and the cycles of the world.

I despised how those pale-faced vegans held their little spoons, humbling themselves. Who do they think they are fooling, those bleached Brahmins? We all know that their low-sitting is just another passage in their short lives. In the end, they will get bigger spoons and dig up the earth for their fathers’ and mothers’ inheritances. But it is I! I, and the likes of me, who will be eating nature’s refuse under dying trees. I! I, and the likes of me, who will wait for the wind to shake the branches and drop us fruit. Filth, make-believers, comedians on a Greek stage! Those Buddhists will eventually float down, take off their colourful, exotic costumes, and wear their fathers’ three-piece suits. But I will still recognize them through their strands of greying hair. I will envy them when they are perched like monarchs on chairs, shamelessly having their black shoes shined, high above crouched men with black nails feathering and swinging horsehair brushes across their corporate ankles. At the tap of the shoeshiners, the Brahmins will fold their newspapers, stand up and fix their ties, scoop out their pockets for change, and toss a few coins in the air to the workingmen below. And they will step onto ascending elevators, give firm handshakes, receive pats on their backs, smooth their hair in the tinted glass of high-rises. Their radiant shoes will shine like mirrors and their light steps will echo in company corridors to murmurs of, “See you at the barbecue, and give my regards to your lovely spouse.” No, none of these imposters was chanting to escape incarnation; they all wanted to come back to the same packed kitchens, to the same large houses, the same high beds, the same covers to hide under again and again.

I was out of toilet paper, but who cared? I always washed after defecating. Though I must admit, during the water shortages in wartime in that place where I come from, there were periods when I did not wash for a long time. You could hardly brush your teeth. Oh, how I once gave priority to that which was most visible — I would wash my face, and deprive everything else, with the little water I had. Every drop of water that ran through the drain inspired me to follow it, gather it, and use it again. As a kid, I was fascinated by drains. I’m not sure if it was the smell, or the noises and echoes that were unexpectedly released after the water was gobbled, or if it was simply the possibility of escape to a place where the refuse of stained faces, infamous hands, dirty feet, and deep purple gums gathered in a large pool for slum kids to swim, splash, and play in.

I got up and went to the window and opened the curtains. The burning coal on top of my joint shone, lustrous and silvery, against the backdrop of Mount Royal. There was a large metal cross right on the top of the mountain. I held out the joint vertically, stretched my hand against the window, and aligned the burning fire on the tip of it to the middle of the cross. I watched its plume ascend like burning hair. The smoke reminded me that it was time to escape this permanent whiteness, the eternal humming of the fluorescent light in the hallway, the ticking of the kitchen clock, and my constant breath — yes, my own breath that fogged the glass and blurred the outside world with a coat of sighs and sadness as the vapour from my tears moistened the window. My own breath was obstructing my view of the world!