He answered sleepily. "Hello. Ruth?... Huh?...Start again…You lost your keys?...In a cab?...What was his name?...How about earlier in the day?...Did you look…How did you get in?...Was the super still up?...Oh boy, you're going to hear about that at Christmas."
I climbed the night table so I could hear Ruth's voice. "I keep walking around, looking for a sign that someone's been here. I'll die if he went through my things."
She was speaking with more animation and at a higher pitch than I had ever heard her. But was she upset enough?
"I'm sorry for carrying on like this, Ira. I'm just real nervous. Do you want to go back to sleep?"
I thought it would be better for everyone if he did. I looked for something on the night table to push over onto his head.
"Don't be silly," said Ira. "What are you going to do now?"
"I want to stay here but I know I wouldn't sleep."
"Don't you have any Valium?"
"I don't want to be sedated. What would happen if someone came in, a psychopath or a rapist—I don't know, Ira, I’m upset."
Ira reached for his glasses and looked at the clock. He said, "Don't you have anyone you could stay with, just for tonight? You can get the lock changed in the morning."
"No, not really. I couldn't call anyone now, it's so late. I'm sorry I called you so late, Ira. If I wasn't so scared I wouldn't have. Every noise makes me jump."
Bismarck walked onto the night table.
Ira rose on one elbow. "Tell me your address. I'll be right there."
Ruth hesitated, then said, "That's really sweet of you, but I can't stay here any longer. I've got to get out."
"But where to?"
"I don't know.. .just out..."
In a moment she had her invitation. Bismarck dropped his head. He knew better than to gloat; he was going to suffer with the rest of us.
Ruth must have been talking from a phone extension by the door, coat and bag at her feet, because she was over in astonishing time. Ira had barely finished brushing his teeth again when the buzzer sounded. She dropped her bag miserably. If it wasn't a ring of keys I heard, she had brought along her scrap iron collection. She buried her head tearfully in to his chest, locking her arms around him. Her massive bosom pushed into his stomach. Perfume rose to his nostrils.
Three weeks later she moved in. "I hope you're satisfied," Julia Child said to Bismarck.
The Terror
TWO WEEKS AFTER Ruth had moved in, Bismarck and I spent an afternoon scouting the bookcase. Though there had been no radical change in our food supply, we were planning for the day we might have to harvest the rest of the library paste. We were shocked to find that there had been severe overgrazing by our swelling population. In fact the entire library had been devalued—many of Ira's old volumes had been replaced by Ruth's newer ones, bound with inedible, space-age adhesive.
"Let's do this some other time," I said.
As we descended from the shelf, Reud squeezed out of the spine of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, tergites and sternites cracking against the book's brittle headband. "Thanatos!" he exclaimed. The day Ruth had moved in, he returned to the bookcase, desperate for more understanding. Though I resented my biblical burden, his was a more terrible knowledge to carry around.
Bismarck and I exchanged annoyed glances; we were not in the mood for his intricate pardons of human behavior.
Reud jumped to the shelf and intercepted us. "The death wish. It's true! And it gave me such heartburn when I was young."
"It's a death wish to stand on this shelf in the light," I said.
Reud's eyes were aflame. "That human, the female. Have you watched her? Resourceful, intelligent, a superb manipulator. And have you seen those huge glands? Hubba hubba! If I were a few years younger..."
"You're only six months old," Bismarck interrupted.
Reud continued. "What does she know about her chosen mate? That his last choice had the instincts of a black widow spider. That in times of crisis he weakens and becomes easy prey for disease. If she mixes genes with him, she will doom her fine lineage. Why is she doing it? Freud saw the death wish in the individual. I think it runs throughout the species."
Bismarck nodded. "I've always thought so. Psychiatrists, neonatologists, transplant surgeons, social workers, Democrats—these humans are esteemed for maximizing the reproductive success of those who minimize the chance of survival of the species."
"So it must be the ineptitude of these professionals that guards the species," I said.
"Yes, that's it," said Reud, descending over the spine of Malinowski to a lower shelf. "Thanatos has to be inept, yes, or it couldn't be at all..."
This conversation stuck in my mind long after I returned to the kitchen. I carefully watched Ruth come in. When she took off her suit jacket, the straight skirt clearly showed that her hips were wide, perfect for bearing egg sacs, and her legs were thick and sturdy. Her fat, spread all over her body, even in her knees and her neck, guaranteed survival through short famines and cold spells. And yet she was considered an unattractive woman.
The cabinet doors yowled as she started to make dinner. "Ira, this kitchen is shot. The cabinets don't really close anymore. The countertop is cracked. Why don't you get it redone?"
"The landlord would raise the rent by a lot more than the job would be worth," said Ira.
"Then we should do it. I always wanted to plan a kitchen."
"I don't know," he said.
"With these doors you'll get bugs."
"I know how to keep them under control."
Hundreds of citizens gorging in the cabinet hooted.
Later in the week, Ira tore off a corner of the wallpaper, making a frightening, brittle noise. "This is as old as I can remember. And you can't even make out the pattern in the flooring. Can you see the little horsies?"
Ruth said, "What are you doing?"
"The stuff is linoleum. They don't even make linoleum any more. I got some of these appliances from my mother on her thirtieth anniversary, when she got new ones. Even then they were old."
He paused. I didn't like his smile. Then he said, "It's all arranged. The whole thing's being remodeled. Welcome home."
She clapped. "Really?" They kissed.
Later on in the cabinet Bismarck said, "Doom. I never thought she'd strike so hard so fast."
"The end of an era," said Kotex wistfully.
Clausewitz barked, "What is this talk? We will anticipate the enemy's next move, establish new lines, maintain pressure."
Snot said, "We took these cabinets, and we'll take the new ones."
"Ruth made him do it," I said. "We have to get rid of her."
"No, no," said Reud. "It's the Gypsy. Her droppings are all over the kitchen, and Ruth is cleansing the apartment of her. It's ritual murder. After this she'll stop."
Bismarck said, "Once she does this, who cares if she stops?"
Where was the food going to come from? There just wasn't enough outside the cabinets to support a colony of this size.
Sufur strutted in under the cabinet door. "You, man, you rapping' came clear down the other end of the room. What you trying' to do, get gassed?"
"Did you hear the news?" Rosa said.
"Yeah, ain't that too fine?" He looked around the cabinet. "What's wrong with you? They gonna be tearing' up the wall. We gonna be getting' back to the wall cavity, and then we slide in the cabinets any time, easy, from behind. Never walk the floor again. Great big space, warm all year round. Paradise! You ought get out there and kiss that bitch's big butt."
The cabinet was silent. No one had thought of that. We, history's optimists, assumed change would be for the worse. Was this clever psychology by Ira, or were we already losing our nerve?
After he and Ruth went to sleep, a hundred citizens scouted the apartment's woodwork, and in the dining room discovered the baseboard that became our home. We began moving food from the cabinets to the baseboard. Neither Bismarck nor I felt the ignominy of acting like an ant.
When, two nights later, Ira left his plans on the counter, we learned about the cabinets, the flooring, and the appliance models that would be serving up food for our future generations. Sufur was right; the drawings were certainly promising.
We transported food every night until Ira and Ruth moved the remaining stocks from the cabinets into boxes in the pantry. Ira laid a breastwork of boric acid around the boxes—a strange gesture for a man who knew his bugs were under control.
The next evening, Ruth stood on a chair and put her head into the cabinet. "What are all these little dots?" she said, spotting generations of our feces. With a sponge she wiped them out, along with the remaining food and the mementoes we hadn't had time to move.
She took one final look, then reached to the back. "What's this?" she said, yanking out some rolled-up bills.
"The money? Just a little safe-keeping. I like to have cash around, in case of emergency," said Ira.
"Safe-keeping? There are hundreds of dollars here. They should be earning interest. Don't you believe in cash machines?"
"My grandmother used to tell me an old Jewish saying: 'Keep a third of your wealth in cash, in case you have to run away in a hurry, a third in gold, in case the goyim won't take your cash, and a third in real estate, in case the goyim won't sell you land.'"
Ruth laughed. "So you've got your lease, a few gold fillings, and some dirty money stuck in your cabinets. That's very traditional, Ira."
He took the bills from her. "It can't hurt. You never know."
When the buzzer sounded at eight o'clock the next morning, the entire colony was lined up in the hall molding to greet our savior. In shuffled a stooped, middle-aged Asian man.
Ira brought him into the kitchen and showed him the plans. "The new refrigerator will open the other way," said Ira.
The Asian narrowed his eyes.
"The refrigerator will open the other way," Ira said, slower and louder. Like all humans, he refused to accept that his world was not the only world.
The Asian compressed his face, and deep weathered lines formed.
Ira returned to the plan, pointing to each symbol and then to the corresponding object in the room. Now the Asian smiled and nodded.
After Ira and Ruth left, the Asian spent hours poring over the plan. He walked to the threshold and looked back into the room. He held the spot, eerily, for thirty minutes. Suddenly he leapt across the room with an agility I had never seen in a human. When he reached the window he froze again and studied the plan. Then, to our amazement, he left without touching the kitchen. We were left uneasy.
That night I made a point of sharing biscuit crumbs with Rosa. As we ate, one of her antennae crossed mine, and the perfume she delivered electrified me. I had grown quickly. Before, she had frustrated and paralyzed me, but today I suddenly knew all the answers.
I dropped a crumb; I wanted only her. I turned to take her right there, beside the dining room table. But then I remembered the moment of this night, and in a rare instance of Blattella sentimentality, I throttled my biology and led her into the kitchen and up the wall to the cabinet above the sink. Here is where I had fantasized I would first exchange chemicals with her, among the colanders, spare pot holders and candlesticks, now packed away in the pantry. We slipped under the door, which was cracked promiscuously open. I savored the faint moistness, the smell of decay of the oak surface and of the food once kept here. There was even something sensuous about walking over the gently warped wood. Piles of boric acid, long since hardened and benign, still lined the perimeter like park benches. The fragrance of the cabinet blended magically with Rosa's chemistry, and the urgency of my initiation, and of our one last chance in this doomed romantic setting, drove us to rut extravagantly, like young humans, until the early morning.
Ajax, Ivory, Hefty, Windex, Spic 'n' Span, and the Raid orphans were among those who returned for a last night in the cabinet below the sink. Bismarck and Barbarossa went too, having grown up in a box of steel wool. Melancholy filled the molding when we met in the morning.
At eight o'clock the Asian reappeared, carrying a satchel. After Ira and Ruth left, the Asian meticulously inspected the cabinet edges along the walls. I wondered how he could perpetrate the expected violation with ancient hand tools. He undid screws and bolts, poked at the plaster, and then, poised like a martial arts master, sprang at the cabinets, pulling them out quickly, almost silently. The plaster crumbled in one place; the rest of the wall was intact.
We looked at Sufur.
"No sweat," he said. "When he be puttin' them back up, the plaster all gonna go."
That night we took a closer look, and found that the walls were in better shape—that is, more flawed—than we thought. Many little chunks of plaster had fallen out, leaving holes large enough for us but so small that the Asian wouldn't bother with them.
The following day the Asian did not appear. Three loud white men with mustaches and large bellies stripped and replaced the old floor. The new refrigerator arrived in the afternoon. It opened the other way.
The holes in the plaster beckoned. "Colonize the cavity now, while we still have a chance," said Clausewitz. "Never depend on the grace of enemy."
"Now?" I said. "But what if we get trapped in there?"
"Be cool, no hurry," said Sufur.
"He couldn't seal all those holes," said Rosa. "Not if he's working for profit."
Poe had decided. "At length I would be avenged," he said, picking up a body-length of spaghettini. "This is a point definitely settled." He disappeared through a hole in the wall. I could not answer my fears, and for all his iron, neither could Clausewitz. In fact, the rest of the colony stayed outside to wait and see.
My misgivings about the Asian were soon borne out. With a little bowl of putty and a spatula, he spent a week filling the innumerable cracks and irregularities that had been our hope. As the light changed during the day, he used shadows to expose minuscule imperfections.
"My, he is thorough," said Ruth.
"He's an old-world artisan," said Ira, proudly.
"Can you introduce him to the concept of 'finish this year'?"
But the old-world workmanship was an inadequate explanation for this man's efforts. By finishing surfaces that would not show, he did nothing but threaten to wall our colony from the Promised Land and leave us in a vinyl desert. Man has been a destroyer since Genesis, but unlike his predecessors, the Asian destroyed without passion or self-righteousness.
Columbo said, "In the western world, he's happy to find someone shorter than he is to beat on."
"I'm not sure he is after us," Rosa said. "He might want to stretch out his employment, to bleed Ira, a capitalist oppressor."
Two days later the Asian held up his little arms to indicate a sheet of plasterboard. He pointed to the one sizable hole in the wall and made a face of dismay. Ira shook his head and said, "No, the cabinet will cover it." The Asian repeated his gestures. "No. We'll leave it Too much money. Too…much...money," Ira repeated slowly. Surely that was universally intelligible.
Later that week the wallpaper was hung, an impervious plastic of pinkish pastel. It did not cover the hole, which would end up behind the cabinets. Still, I felt foolish for having taken for granted the black-eyed susans, designer camouflage, that dotted the old paper. The new stuff might as well have been covered with cross-hairs.
The cabinets arrived. "Factory-built for easy installation," said Ira. "Get this done quickly." He pointed to his watch. The Asian looked at his own watch.
The Asian spent three days carving the edges of the cabinets to conform to the gentle irregularities of the wall. Dissatisfied with the holes already drilled through the back, he drilled two of his own.
Ira lost patience. He stood over the cabinets, still piled on the floor, and said, "No plasterboard, no shaving. You put up now. Remember deal; you do job quick, I help with Immigration." The last word jerked the Asian's eyes wide open.
Bismarck said, "There's the answer. The longer h
e dawdles, the longer he stays."
"You don't think this Jewish defender of the oppressed would let this tired, poor, huddled man be deported, do you?" I said.
"No, but he wouldn't be above letting him fear it to get the kitchen done," said Bismarck.
The cabinets went up the next day, and that night the colony blanketed them. The man was a fine artisan. Everything was level, all joints snug. The doors' thick flanges fit tightly into the frames. Ira had bought well. As I walked the perimeter of the door above the sink I discovered the most fantastic thing—I could not get in. A roach could not get into a cabinet.
Rosa and I had been planning an initiation for these cabinets. Now fear made me indifferent to her. There was one large hole in the wall. If I couldn't get to it through the cabinet, I'd go over the top and get to it behind the cabinet. But the craftsmanship was too good; the cabinet fitted the wall perfectly. I began scratching desperately at the wallpaper.
Rosa tried to restrain me.
My mind was racing. "I'll tell you what's going to happen. This wood is not dry. It's going to shrink. And then there's going to be a gap so big that we're going to walk through it, side by side, and right into that wall."
"Sounds good," said Rosa soothingly.
Bismarck appeared. "When the cans and bottles go in, the cabinets are going to pull away at the top."
That night I kept thinking: why should the cabinets pull away? The old ones didn't The wood probably was dry, and even if it wasn't, it shrank slowly. What could we do until then?
The Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg
"DONT PUT THAT THERE."
"Why not?"
"Vegetable soup goes to the right of tomato soup. It's alphabetical."
“I see.”
"Don't put that there."
"Cream of mushroom comes before lentil in my dictionary."
"But it's mushroom, cream of. It wouldn't make sense to have all the cream soups together."
"Yes, of course. I should have thought of that."
The night following our discovery of the Asian's treachery, Ira and Ruth flaunted their wealth of food as they moved it from the boxes into the impregnable cabinets.
The Roaches Have No King Page 3