Cockroach by Rawi Hage

to her coffee cup.
    I can live in filth and hunger, I assured her. My mother lives far away,
     and if we ever get married, no one has to clean because I can tolerate filth,
     cockroaches, and mountains of dishes that would tower above our heads like monumental
     statues, like trophies, testifying that we value lovemaking and a hedonistic existence,
     and that all else can wait! And even if you were my sister, I wouldn’t mind
     hearing your most intimate fantasies.
    Shohreh laughed and called me crazy. You are so dirty, she said softly,
     and suddenly her long, black hair fell away from her face, her thick, arched eyebrows
     smiled at me and pierced my chest, her laugh escaped her and slapped me in the face,
     kicked me in the gut, mopped the floor with my hairy chest, dipped me in sweat and
     squeezed my heart with unbearable happiness. I will sleep with you, said Shohreh, but
     you have to tell Reza all about it. Reza and his like need to understand, once and for
     all, that I am not their virgin on hold, not their smothering mother, not their obedient
     sister. I am not a testament to their male, nationalistic honour.
    I will! I will! I shouted, and I mimed Reza’s reaction upon hearing
     all about it. I stood up and did his baffled eyebrows, his itching armpits, and his
     squeaky voice like a mouse in a trap. Shohreh laughed again.
    I took her home, showed her my tiny place, and we both
     removed our shoes and hunted cockroaches down the sink, swimming and sliding in mildew,
     and slapping them with the heels of our shoes, and I told her how, when Jesus comes and
     kills all us sinners and beams up the faithful towards his immaculate kingdom, only
     those insects will survive. They shall inherit the earth, I said. The two ladies with
     the hats assured me of it. This made Shohreh enraged by the unfairness of it all. It
     reminded her of how her country had also been left to the cockroaches, and this inspired
     her to pound and kill more of those eternal minuscule beasts as if they were the cause
     of her lost life, her imprisonment, her executed uncle, her tortured friends, her own
     exile. These are the filth of the land, she shouted as she pounded away. They should be
     eradicated!
    Then we rolled in dirt and made love in dirt until dirt became our emblem,
     our flag to pledge allegiance to, and we got drunk and composed new anthems with groans
     and the heavy exhaling and inhaling of breath. Yes, baby, yes, slap away! escaped our
     throats, and between every scream Shohreh reminded me to take notes and tell Reza how
     she welcomed me in her mouth, how she closed her eyes and glutted herself on me with the
     appetite of a clergyman, how naked we were as we danced. My underwear! I almost forgot!
     she shouted. Make sure you describe it to that musician: its colours, the sturdy thong
     that stretches like one of his strings and vibrates with sublime acoustics that resonate
     inside my chamber. Tell him how I undressed you, and how I sucked on your nipples like
     grapes, and how warm, gummy drips creptdown my thighs like lava.
     Here, lie down so I can take hold of you and print it all in your psyche so you will
     remember it for the rest of your life. Let’s rush and do it before those crawling
     creatures surface again and forbid me from showing my hair, from holding my
     lover’s arm in public, from singing on the roof a lullaby to my sleeping nephew,
     from dipping my naked youth in clear rivers, from savouring with my lips my
     grand-mother’s Shiraz. Do not forget anything, tell him all about it. Maybe I
     should leave you with a scar. Hand me that knife so I can cut your arm, so I can suck
     some of your burgundy blood and mix it with wine, so I can stomp on the heart of that
     melody to the rhythm of villagers stomping in forgotten pools of grapes and tears.
    A WEEK LATER , I found Reza at last. He was walking down the
     street, sniffing left and right for a filling tune or an inspiring meal. I