WHEN HE HAD FINISHED PREPARING HIS LAUNDRY, HE WENT TO the kitchen to get rid of Annette’s cigarette butts. Opening the door of the compartment under the sink, he found the cockroach, Trotsky, lying dead on its back beside the overfull can. What had killed it? There were no signs of violence. And there was no question of a cockroach dying of hunger in this kitchen. Thinking about it, Fima concluded that the difference between a cockroach and a butterfly was only a matter of variation on a theme, certainly not enough of a difference to justify the fact that butterflies symbolized to us freedom, beauty, purity, whereas the cockroach was perceived as the embodiment of everything disgusting. So what was the cause of death? Fima recalled that in the morning, when he brandished his shoe over Trotsky’s head and changed his mind, the creature had made no effort to escape its fate. Perhaps it was already sick then, and he did nothing to help.

Bending down, Fima gently picked up the cockroach in a piece of newspaper folded into a funnel. Instead of disposing of it in the trash, he dug it a grave in the flowerpot that stood on the windowsill with nothing growing in it. After the funeral he attacked the pile of dishes in the sink. He washed the plates and mugs. When he reached the frying pan, which was thick with congealed fat, he got tired of scouring it and decided that the pan would have to wait patiently with the rest of the dirty things until the next day. He could not make tea, because the electric kettle had boiled itself dry while he was peering into the abyss of evolution and searching for a common denominator. He went to piss, but his patience ran out and he pulled the lever in the middle to encourage his stuttering bladder. He lost the race again, but instead of waiting for the cistern to refill, he retreated, turning the light off behind him. Must try to play for time, he said to himself. And he added, If you know what I mean.