Cockroach (31 page)

Then I remembered. I searched for the bag that my lover had left me, and soon I found it. The gun was inside a white plastic bag, wrapped in many folds. I looked down towards the end of the alley and saw Majeed's taxi across the street, its signal light blinking like fear.

I hopped down and took the gun and went inside. I found some rope, cut it with a knife, and went straight to the bathroom. I tied the gun behind the toilet seat, wrapped it against the pipe, and left the knife on top of the tank.

I went back up to the kitchen. The owner was looking for me, and now he asked me to clean the kitchen floor with water and soap. I filled the bucket and got the mop and started to swing it like a slave in a dry field. I hummed and sang an old song that I had half forgotten. The smell of cooking onion rose from the stove. The cook was happily sprinkling spices, wiping his bloodstained fingers against his apron, chopping things on the counter, pouring water, covering the rice, and humming like a shepherd in a distant land. Through the opening that looked over the dining room, I kept my eye on the entrance.

Then I heard Shohreh's knock on the glass.

The bodyguard stood up and walked towards the door.

Shohreh asked for Sehar.

When Sehar saw Shohreh, she ran to the door, took Shohreh's hand, and pulled her to her table. The bodyguard went back and sat at the bar in his usual seat. He looked bored.
He moved his head occasionally, mostly to look at his boss. The owner talked to his daughter in Farsi, and the daughter answered back in English. She is my teacher, Sehar said to her father about Shohreh.

Shohreh had kept her sunglasses on. She was preoccupied and not attentive to the girl's talk. She kept glancing over at the table where the bald man ate. The man was oblivious to my lover's scent, to her long, covered thighs, her large, dark eyes. In the dungeon he had taken her from behind, on a metal desk that was cold in the winter and burned her skin in the summer. After he finished eating, he took a white napkin and wiped his dirty fingers, his wet mouth. He caught his breath, satisfied with the taste of the lamb.

I lifted my mop like a flag on a battlefield, and I heard the drums of Indians coming from the north. I bowed my head to the fire on the stove and circled around it. I said yes to the owner, and poured more water from my bucket onto the floor.

Shohreh released herself from Sehar's grip and went downstairs. I did not hear her fluid cascading against porcelain. I did not hear her laugh, cry, sing, shake her hips. But I did hear the cutting of ropes, the swinging of arms, and I heard the gallop of Persian horses ascending the wooden stairs. I heard the clang of pots and swords, the long knives, the cries of slaughtered sheep. I heard nature's stillness just before it sends its wind sweeping through the land.

Shohreh pointed the gun at the bodyguard and told him to stand still and to lift his hands in the air. It took a few seconds for the owner and the bald man to notice the gun, and in those moments Shohreh walked towards the table, calling the man
by his name: Shaheed, she shouted. Shaheed! And she proceeded to talk to him in Farsi. She took off her sunglasses and laid them on the table and her eyes shone. Her hands stretched out and she pointed the gun at the man.

The owner mumbled and swung his head left and right, like a goat with its feet tied. Shaheed did not move. He did not look scared, or surprised. He was composed, calm, with an air of indifference. Arrogance showed on his face. He talked back to Shohreh and quickly glanced at his bodyguard.

Shohreh told the owner to move away from Shaheed, and the owner quickly hurtled towards the kitchen door, flying across carpets and tables. His daughter looked on, amused and unafraid, but her father grabbed her arm on the way out and she followed him. The cook dropped his big knife on the counter and peered through the kitchen opening.

Shohreh asked Shaheed to stand up. He hesitated, then stood up slowly. He picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth again, and then talked calmly to Shohreh. He extended his arm and took a little step towards her, asking her for the gun.

Shohreh moved back a few steps towards the kitchen door, shouted at him, and pressed the trigger on the gun. She missed. The bullet hit the wall and ricocheted onto the bar, breaking glasses. Everyone ducked except me and the bodyguard. Shohreh shook her head and screamed at the man. Shohreh! she shouted her own name, Shohreh Sherazy! She ordered the man to turn around and bend his upper body over the table, which he did.

I saw the bodyguard move towards the kitchen and slowly position himself closer to Shohreh. While Shaheed calmly
talked to my lover, the bodyguard moved slowly into position behind her.

As I watched the bodyguard, I thought how he reminded me of a large man who once pushed me for no reason. I was in a bar drinking, and the man next to me wanted to talk about sports. When I told him that I did not give a damn about sports or chasing an invisible puck, he fell quiet. And then, for no apparent reason, he shoved me down from my stool. I fell on the floor and my drink spilled over me. The man looked back at the
TV
and continued watching his game. I left the bar and paced across the street. I hated the cold, and the wetness of the alcohol on my clothing made me feel even colder. When the man walked out of the bar and went down the street to his car, I picked up a large stone and flew at him with all four wings and hit him on the head. The man was so strong that it seemed as if he barely felt it. He turned and looked at me, smiling. I thought he was about to crush me, to step on me and twist his shoe sideways so that my cartilage would crack and pus would squeeze out of my entrails, but suddenly he collapsed. I took the stone again and threw it at the windshield of the man's car. I thought: Now when the bastard goes on a long drive down the highway, he will have a taste of what the insect thrown at him by the wind can do.

My lover's shots took too long and her aim missed, and her tears flooded onto the floor. Through the opening in the kitchen wall, I saw her kneeling with her arms extended, and I heard her voice changing. And I saw the man stand up straight and fix his tie. I saw him extend his hand again, and just when her gun took too long to fire, I watched as the bodyguard
swiftly grabbed her hand and swung my lover across wooden tables and empty chairs. He swung her with ease, almost lifting her by the hands, and she dangled from his arms like a skinned animal on a loose rope. He swung her and she looked small and helpless, and her hair covered her face.

Shaheed came forward and touched her. He held her hands down by her thighs.

I watched all of this happen as if it were taking place somewhere far away. Everything was soundless. Everything was unreal, distant and slow. I walked back to the chef's counter and picked up the cook's knife.

The bodyguard had his back to me. I stuck the knife in his liver. He fell across two tables and crushed the candles with his body, and flying plates landed and shattered silently on the floor. The gun fell from his hand. I picked it up and aimed it at Shaheed. I shot him twice. I shot him right in the chest and he fell beneath his tablecloth.

I dropped the gun and walked back to the kitchen. I looked at the water that gathered and rushed towards the drain.

Then I crawled and swam above the water, and when I saw a leaf carried along by the stream of soap and water as if it were a gondola in Venice, I climbed onto it and shook like a dancing gypsy, and I steered it with my glittering wings towards the underground.

Special thanks to Lynn Henry, the Canada Council for the Arts, and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Rawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of
the Lebanese civil war during the 1970s. He immigrated to Canada in 1992. He is a
writer, a visual artist, and a curator. Hage's first book,
De Niro's
Game
, was a finalist for numerous prestigious national and international
awards, including the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary
Award, won the
IMPAC
Dublin Literary Award, and has been translated into
several languages and published around the world. Rawi Hage lives in Montreal.

House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish
Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has
branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press
immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret
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