THE COCKROACH

BY DINO BUZZATI

TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN BY REBECCA HEATH

Returning home late, in the hall I squashed a cockroach that was fleeing between my legs (it remained there, black against the floor tile) and then I entered the bedroom. She was sleeping. I lay down next to her, turned off the light and through the open window I saw the sky and a piece of wall. It was hot, I couldn't sleep, events from the past returned to haunt me, doubts as well, a generic distrust of the following day. She gave a small moan. "What's the matter?" I asked. She opened a large unseeing eye and murmured, "I'm afraid." "Afraid of what?" I asked. "I'm afraid of dying." "Afraid of dying? And why?" She said, "I dreamed ..." She snuggled a bit closer. "But what did you dream?" "I dreamed I was in the country, I was sitting on a riverbank and I heard some distant shouting ... and I was going to die." "On a riverbank?" "Yes," she said, "I heard the frogs ... they were going crac, crac." "And what time was it?" "It was evening and I heard the shouting." "Well, go to sleep, it's almost two o'clock." "Two o'clock?" But she'd already gone back to sleep. I turned out the light and heard someone making noise down in the courtyard. Then a dog's howl started up, long and piercing; it sounded like the dog was moaning. The sound rose then passed in front of the window before getting lost in the hot night. Then a shutter opened (or closed?). Far off, very far off, but perhaps I was wrong, a baby started to cry. Again the dog began to howl, the sound even more drawn out than before. I couldn't get to sleep. Some men's voices came from another window. They were subdued as if muttered in slumber. Cip, cip, zitevitt, I heard from the balcony below, accompanied by a beating of wings. "Florio!" Someone called suddenly; it must have been two or three houses beyond. "Florio!" it sounded like a woman, an anxious woman who had lost her son. But why was the canary downstairs awake? What was the matter with him? With a mournful creaking, almost as if it was being pushed by someone who didn't want to be heard, a door opened in another part of the house. So many people awake at this hour, I thought. Strange at this time of the night. "I'm afraid, I'm afraid," she moaned, reaching for me with her arm. "Oh, Maria," I asked her, "what's the matter?" She answered in a soft voice: "I'm afraid of dying." "You're still dreaming?" She gave a slight nod. "Still the same shouting?" She nodded. "And you were going to die"? 2

Yes, yes, she nodded, trying to look at me, her eyelids stuck together with sleep. Something's wrong, I thought: she's dreaming, the dog's howling, the canary woke up, people are awake and talking, she's dreaming about death; it's as if everyone was feeling something, a presence. Sleep wasn't coming to me and the stars were passing by. From the courtyard I distinctly heard the sound of a match being struck. Why was someone smoking at three in the morning? Then, feeling thirsty, I got up and left the bedroom to get some water. Once the dim hallway light was on , I caught a glimpse of a black spot on the floor tile and I stopped, startled. I looked: the black spot was moving. Or rather, only a small part of it was moving (she dreams of dying, the dog howls, the canary wakes up, people have gotten out of bed, a mother calls her son, the doors creak, someone starts to smoke, and perhaps, the cry of a baby). On the floor I saw the squashed insect move a leg. It was the right one in the middle. All the rest was still, a spot of ink dropped by death. But the little leg flexed feebly as if trying to climb something, the river of darkness perhaps. Was it still hoping? For two and a half hours during the night - I shivered - the filthy insect was lying stuck to the floor tile by its own gluey viscera, for two and a half hours it had continued to die, and it still wasn't finished. Marvelously it kept on dying, transmitting its message with the remaining leg . But who could grasp its meaning at three in the morning in the dark hallway of an unknown boarding house? Two and a half hours I thought, up and down continuously, the last part of its life entrusted to the surviving leg to beg for justice. The cry of a baby - I once read - is enough to poison the world. In his heart God almighty doesn't want certain things to happen, but there's nothing he can do because he's the one who has decided them. But then a shadow lies upon us. I crushed the insect with my slipper and, wiping my foot on the floor, reduced him to a long gray strip. Then finally the dog stopped howling, Maria quieted in her sleep and almost seemed to smile, the voices died away, the mother was silent, the canary ceased beating its wings, night began once more to pass over the tired house; death had shifted its restlessness to some other part of the world.