Cockroach (20 page)

I worked hard that night. I even made sure the owner saw me plunging my
feet down the stairs and my hands down the toilet. Whether your daughter is here or not,
sir, nothing will change my loyal behaviour and dedication to this God-fearing
establishment of yours, I cunningly and implicitly said.

On my way home from the restaurant I turned south and with my cold fist
knocked at Shohreh's door. She opened the door and walked back inside without
saying a word. I took off my shoes, left them at the entrance to bleed snow, and walked
across the hardwood floor to the kitchen, following in my lover's footsteps.

Do you want tea? she said.

Yes, please, I replied.

Are you hungry?

No, I ate at the restaurant.

Shohreh was in her pyjamas and her hair was pulled back and tied with an
elastic band. Though her pyjama pants were loose-fitting, when she moved I could see the
round curves of her ass. She stood at the sink washing a mug. I approached her and
rested my hands on her buttocks. She didn't say a word,
and
though my hands were cold, she did not protest. I reached for her thighs with one arm
and my other arm curved around her waist. I kissed her exposed neck.

I could never predict what Shohreh would do or how she would react to my
advances, so when I touched her, my heart sped up. I could never get used to her
rejection, but still I always took my chances. This time the water rushed down the sink
and a red sponge foamed between her fingers. The mug was in the sink, filling with
water. I tried to turn her so that she faced me, but she resisted. She wanted me to hold
her like a stranger she couldn't see. Then she reached for the boiling kettle,
killed its whistle, cut off its steam. She placed a full teapot on the counter, turned
off the faucet, and sat down at the table.

You've been talking to Majeed, she said.

Who?

The taxi driver, Majeed.

Yes. He told you?

Shouldn't he?

Yes, if he wants to. But there's not much to say, really.

You know, you're one nosy and intrusive man.

I saw him by accident. It is not like I went looking for the guy.

Still, you could have walked by. But no, you were curious.

Yes, I could've walked on by, but I thought it was rude that you did
not introduce me to him that night at the club.

Do you want sugar with your tea?

No.

How is your work at the restaurant?

Good.

Finish your tea and let's go to bed. You probably need a shower
first. There is a towel in the closet. Do you have condoms?

Yes.

Show me.

In my jacket, over there.

Come to bed when you're done in the shower. Shohreh turned off the
kitchen light and walked down the hallway. I stayed sitting in the dark and it suited
me. I could hear Shohreh enter her bedroom. A small light flashed from her room, passed
through the bedroom doorway, and fell into the narrow hallway. I wrapped my fingers
around my mug of tea. Then I lifted it up and laid it against my cold cheek. After a
moment, I sipped the tea, but I did not finish the cup. I poured most of it in the sink
and watched it gladly disappear. I walked to the closet and pulled out a towel. The
bathroom floor was cold. I let the water run for a while until it got warm. I stripped
off all my clothing and laid it out on the floor. I used Shohreh's soap and
shampoo, and her water fell on my face, rushed down my neck, my chest, my legs, and went
under, taking with it all the restaurant leftovers, the kitchen smells, and the
cold.

WHEN I GOT TO BED
, Shohreh had her back turned to me.

Show me the condom, she said.

I gave it to her.

It is wrinkled. It is not good. She threw it on the floor.

But . . . I said.

Forget it. Just hold me.

I held her. She buried her face in my chest. Her hands were folded against
her body, not touching me.

What did Majeed tell you?

That he was a journalist.

He was a good poet, too.

Tell me, I said. I am curious.

I know you are. I will tell you, but keep on holding me.

I squeezed her closer.

Majeed was my uncle's best friend, Shohreh said. They started
together this underground magazine after the revolution in Iran.

What kind?

A socialist, leftist, intellectual magazine. The mullahs could not
pinpoint its source. Finally they found the printer. He was tortured until he told them
my uncle's name. They arrested my uncle. They tortured him, but he never gave them
the names of any of his friends. Majeed was always grateful to him. My uncle was killed
in the end. He was big and handsome, Shohreh said, and smiled. With straight black hair,
so black that it almost seemed blue sometimes. He used to come to visit us and my mother
would be so happy to see him. When her brother showed up, she would forget us, forget my
father, forget the world. I used to watch her looking at him and forgetting herself. She
never recovered from her brother's death. They were very close. She changed. A few
years later, I had to leave Iran. I came here and got in touch with Majeed. He helped
me. He took care of
me. He felt responsible and was protective.
Until something happened.

She fell silent.

Tell me. I won't settle for half the story, I said.

One curious soul you are, Shohreh sighed. Well, Majeed worked as a taxi
driver, thinking it would be temporary until he learned French and found a job as a
journalist or a teacher here. At first he kept writing poetry, and he tried to translate
it into French, but I guess he did not see the point after a while. Maybe there was no
interest in his work. He can recite Hafez. If you only understood Persian poetry and
listened to him reciting, you would find it sublime. Anyhow, I was alone when I arrived
here. I had no one here but him. He was the only one I could talk to. He cooked for me
every day. Shohreh laughed, and said, At first I called him uncle. Then one day I came
to visit him. He was on the sofa. He was smoking and drinking that night. He told me
that he had always felt guilty about my uncle being dead while he, Majeed, could breathe
in and exhale, and he held his cigarette up high. He did not cook and he did not eat
that day. I went to the kitchen. He followed me and held my hand. Well, a few weeks
after that, I found out that I was pregnant. Leaving a condom in a wallet in your back
pocket when you're a taxi driver for ten hours a day is not a good idea. I do not
understand men and their pockets. Maybe they should all carry purses. She laughed
again.

The baby?

No. Shohreh shook her head. I did not have it. I had an abortion.

And he . . . ?

He knew. I told him. He wanted me to keep the baby. I
had the abortion without telling him. I went alone. I walked to the clinic alone, and on
the way there I was wondering how my uncle would feel about it. I became a fatalist in
that moment. I thought that maybe everything is predetermined, that maybe I should keep
the baby. Maybe my uncle had died to save the seed of that man. But still I walked to
the clinic. I entered the building. Alone. Every other woman had someone with her. I was
alone. Now you know. Satisfied, my curious soul?

Shohreh pulled up the covers and turned off the light. I kept my arms
around her.

IN THE MORNING
, Shohreh woke me up and offered me coffee. She
took a shower. When she left the bathroom with two towels around her body, I followed
her wet steps. I stood at the door of her bedroom and watched her drying her hair.
Naked, she leaned towards the mirror, her torso arched forward, her ass shining in the
soft light that came in from a side window and gave it a three-dimensional, sculpted
form. I took a step towards her.

With an eyeliner pencil poised on the lid of her eye, she mumbled: Stay
there. I can't. Besides, I am already late. I have no time for that now.

We walked together to the metro, neither of us saying a word. I went with
her into the station. She used her pass on the turnstile and entered the tunnel. I
watched her going down the escalator, descending towards the underground. I waited,
hesitant to go out into the cold again. It was one of
those days
that have no mercy on your toes, that are oblivious to the suffering of your ears, that
are mean and determined to take a chunk of your nose. It was a day to remind you that
you can shiver all you want, sniff all you want, the universe is still oblivious. And if
you ask why the inhumane temperature, the universe will answer you with tight lips and a
cold tone and tell you to go back where you came from if you do not like it here.

Eventually I walked back towards home. Walking made me warm, but my face
and toes were still freezing. I have to buy some shoes, I thought. The first thing to do
when I get paid is to buy shoes. I arrived at the Artista Café and entered it
without looking through the glass first like I usually do. Inside I saw Reza sitting
alone at a table. He looked like shit. The professor and his entourage were not there. I
sat down at Reza's table. It took some time for either of us to say anything.
Finally Reza lifted his coffee to his mouth, slurped, held the cup in the air, and with
his usual mocking face he said: Are you going to order anything or will you tell the
waitress to bring you water again?

Fuck off, I said.

Be careful. Now they carry bottled water. If you ask for a freebie you
might end up paying for the opened bottle.

I reached for Reza's cigarette box. He snapped it shut and put it in
his pocket.

You look like shit, I said. I see white on the tip of your nostrils.

Reza stood up and ran to the bathroom. He came back a moment later and
said, Very funny.

Rough night last night?

Yup.

Didn't sleep? But I bet you had a good shit this morning.

Yup. The white stuff is good for your system.

Did you sleep on the couch or on a crowded bed?

On a crowded couch. I'm not too fond of orgies.

Bad experience with that?

Yes, your mother snores, Reza retorted.

Any leftovers from last night?

Yes, and you are not getting any.

I can hook you up with some real upper-crusters. I mean, not the petty
dancers and restaurant musicians of your kitsch entourage. Real people. High end, high
high end, first fucking class, I said, and joined my fingers together and turned my hand
upwards and gestured like a Roman.

What, have you been promoted from kitchen sweeper/busboy in an Iranian
restaurant to some kind of event promoter for high society?

Do you want to be hooked up or not?

Sure, show me how.

Where is your instrument? I asked.

At home.

Go and get it and meet me at Bernard and Park in an hour. Can you do
that?

This better be good.

You won't regret it, I said.

I went back home. On the way upstairs I passed my neighbour's child
screaming his lungs out. His mother was trying to comfort him, speaking to him in Urdu.
Then she lost patience,
started to scream, and jerked the child
back inside the apartment. His cries were muffled, but still I could hear him sobbing
through the door, and the stairs cascaded with tears all the way down to the street, and
the snow melted with the kid's sadness.

I sat on my bed, pulled out a book, and started to read, but I
couldn't concentrate. I read the same paragraph three times. What are the insects
in my kitchen up to at this hour? I wondered. I walked to the kitchen, but no one was
there. It was time to meet Reza so I went back out to the street and started to walk up
towards Park and Bernard.

Reza was waiting inside the drugstore at the corner, waving at me. You are
late. Don't you know I can't expose my instrument to this kind of cold? Do
you know how old this instrument is? How far are we going?

Two, three blocks west.

He pulled out a scarf and wrapped it around the box he was carrying.

We walked together down the street, then entered a building, and I buzzed
Sylvie twice, like I used to do when I delivered her groceries. She buzzed us in without
asking who it was. When she saw me, she held the door half open, hesitating, slightly
swinging it back and forth. Clearly she could not decide whether to shut it in my face
or hear what I had to say.

It is important that we talk, I told her.

She glanced at Reza as if she was thinking about whether to embarrass me
in front of a stranger. Then she said: Nothing is important between us anymore.

Her fake Parisian accent made this sound as if she were in a movie trailer
for a French film.

I want to introduce you to my friend Reza here, I
said, playing my part of the existentialist protagonist in a film noir, although I was
missing a cigarette and some plumes of smoke.

I did not think you had any friends left, Sylvie said.

Reza, open your box, I said. Open it now, I snapped. To Sylvie I said, You
have to hear Reza playing his Iranian instrument.

I knew Sylvie wouldn't be able to resist anything foreign. The key
word was
Iranian
, and so I stressed it when I said it aloud.

Sylvie paused, holding the door steady.

Reza opened his box and laid it on the stairs, pulled out his santour and
put it on top of the box, pulled out two little spoons, and started to hit the strings
and play.

Sylvie was instantly intrigued, and when she leaned her face against the
edge of the door, I knew I had her.

Okay,
ça suffit
, she said. The neighbours will come out now.
They are going to think we are crazy, she laughed. She loved being labelled crazy.
La bourgeoise
thinks that she is wild and crazy! She is convinced that she
and
la gang
, as she calls her friends, are
dingue
.

Reza and I took off our shoes and entered Sylvie's apartment. Reza
walked towards the piano. He recognized the Steinway. He walked around it, passed his
palm across its shiny black surface. He and Sylvie chatted about it and then he laid his
box on the coffee table. Sylvie was intrigued. On her way to the kitchen, she glanced at
me, and said:
Il est charmant, ton copain
. I smiled and followed her to the
kitchen, where I remembered the cheeseboard's position, the wine
bottle on its belly, the fridge standing upright, the French baguette sticking out
from the woven villager's basket. All this brought back the memories of food and
good living that I had once experienced.