But my aunt did not stick to the original plan. Whether it was because she was too proud or too ashamed in front of the neighbors, the exterminator never came to the house. Instead, in the following weeks we saw a rotation of all kinds of traps and poisons meant to mitigate the plague. The most impressive was a type of glue that a few cockroaches got stuck in and left behind a shell, or sometimes just a leg. Unfortunately, the trap didn’t kill them. Nor did it sterilize them. Even mutilated those insects continued reproducing rapidly, populating the cupboards and the shelves where the spices were kept. My aunt was the strategist and Isabel the executer. For the latter, the affair with the cockroaches was a personal matter, the long-awaited opportunity for her to prove her loyalty to the family. The sympathy Isabel inspired in me made of me an accomplice in her war. Every night I helped her sprinkle the corners of the house with an odorless white product that supposedly drove away the insects. However, the only result from this new substance was the death of a mouse whose existence meant nothing to us. My aunt Claudine on the other hand preferred aerosol. When neither her sons nor her husband were home she’d appear in the hallways with a face-mask and a can, her formidable bearing reminiscent of a soldier carrying heavy firearms. I could hear the sound of the aerosol from my room and it made me shiver. Isabel and my aunt spoke of nothing else. It was like the insects’ presence consumed them. In contrast, my cousins never brought it up. More than once I wondered if Claudine remained firm in her resolve to keep them out of it or if they themselves preferred to fake dementia. I suspect they knew about it, but fearful of their mother’s nerves or maybe just indifferent, they decided to play dumb and not say anything about it. Until my aunt brought it out into the open in order to step up preventative measures.

“It’s important,” Claudine said to all us, “to be extra careful with food. Dirty plates must not be left in the living room or TV room. I don’t want to see a single crumb on the floor.”