Under Attack!

Fears must be overcome in this amusing short story by Stefania Hartley.

The warm weather had a few drawbacks – and Melina knew that better than most . . .

MELINA was leafing through her favourite magazine when her gaze fell on an article and stayed there.

The enlarged photo of a cockroach stared at her, sending shivers up and down her spine.

She hated cockroaches more than anything in the world.

They rode up the sewage system and, bringing germs with them, entered people’s home and multiplied without permission.

Melina hated their long feelers, always twitching and rotating, and she was positively frightened by their speed.

She was convinced that she couldn’t outrun one.

The fact that they could also fly and possibly get tangled in her hair was the stuff of her nightmares.

Finally, she couldn’t bear the crunching noise they made when you squashed them with a slipper – not that she had ever done it: she wasn’t brave enough to get that close.

How to prevent a cockroach infestation, the title of the article said. Melina read on voraciously.

Cockroaches are difficult to eliminate once they have started reproducing. If you see their babies, it’s already too late.

A chill rode up Melina’s spine.

Cockroaches hate light and come out only in the darkness. You might have an infestation without realising it.

To find out, surprise them by suddenly turning on the light in a dark room.

Melina scuttled to the bathroom, lowered the plastic roller blind until even the little holes in the slats were closed, and closed the door.

She would return later for her ambush.

Cockroaches come out in summer so it’s a good idea to cockroach-proof your home at this time of year and, in any case, always before the warm weather.

Where was this magazine printed? Rome. Oh, no! Palermo, where she lived, was warmer than Rome!

And the hot weather had been here for some time! Could it be too late?

Tape the overflow holes of sinks and basins so that the vermin won’t be able to come out. Plug every sink’s plughole when not in use.

Melina rushed to plug every hole and vent in the flat, including the kitchen extractor.

If you have cockroaches, you can try this remedy: mix powdered matches’ heads, flour and water and spread this cream on lettuce leaves, which cockroaches love. The phosphorus in the match heads will kill them . . .

Melina rushed to get matches, flour and water and worked meticulously on her potion, then lay the lettuce leaves in the dark corners of every room.

But the article went on:

But if you have children or pets in your home, substitute this cream with a safer version made with chalk, sugar and water.

Oh, no, they had a dog! Any moment now, her husband would be back from taking him for a walk.

She must retrieve all the lettuce leaves!

In her panic she couldn’t even remember where she had put them down.

“I’m ho-ome!” Tanino called from the door, as Bello padded in after him.

“Stay where you are!” his wife shouted from somewhere deep inside the flat.

Her voice sounded muffled, which made

Tanino desperately curious to find out what she was up to, so he did the opposite of staying where he was.

“What are you doing with your head under the bed?”

“Ah!” She jolted in surprise and banged her head. “I told you to stay away!”

Melina slowly emerged with her hair messed up and a reddened face.

In her right hand was a lettuce leaf covered in . . . was that ricotta?

“Are you on a diet?” he asked unwisely.

“Are you suggesting that I should be?” Her eyes were now speckled with fire.

“No, no. I just . . . don’t understand what’s going on.”

Indecision marbled her face. She straightened her back, hauled herself up to sitting on her bed, and massaged her knees.

“It’s time for lunch,” she said.

Whatever she had been up to, she had decided not to tell him.

Had she lost something under the bed and was embarrassed to admit it?

But what was the connection with lettuce and ricotta?

Tanino went to wash his hands in the bathroom.

Masking tape was stretched across the overflow hole.

Aha. Melina’s yearly fight against the roaches had begun.

****

The problem of how to deal with

cockroaches in the home had always been a point of contention between them.

Tanino didn’t appreciate cockroaches any more than his wife did, but he approached the issue with the fatalism that Sicilians were so famous for.

In his view, most problems had no solution and trying to find one was a waste of time and energies. His attitude was “live and let live”.

The day the roaches stopped him enjoying his life, he would call the pest control people.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the roaches that got in the way of his enjoyment of life, but his wife.

“You’ve left the sink unplugged! Remember the three Bs: Bath, Basin, Bidet,” she nagged every time he forgot to plug the sink after washing his hands.

With all the overflows taped, he was more concerned about forgetting to unplug the sink and flooding the bathroom.

One night he was using the loo with the light off so as not to wake her, and was startled by her suddenly flicking the light on him, wielding a rolled magazine in her hands like a baton as if she was surprising a burglar.

“We don’t have any cockroaches, Melina,” he tried to reassure her.

“They’re just waiting under the plugs for the moment we let the guard down.”

Her obsession eventually rubbed on to him and, one night, he dreamed that he woke up to find himself transformed into a cockroach.

He got very worried about such a wacky dream, until he remembered that he had read that same story in a book by some famous novelist – Kafka? – when he was a schoolboy.

****

“Help, Tanino!” his wife shrieked from the bathroom.

Tanino shot out of his armchair, sending his crosswords and pen flying.

Had she slipped in the bath? Got electrocuted?

When he reached the bathroom door, he was prepared for the worst but not for what he found.

Melina had climbed inside the bidet’s bowl and was staring petrified at three little cockroaches on the tiled floor.

“Kill them!” she urged. She was like a distressed damsel up in the tower of a sieged castle, surrounded by armoured attackers.

Was Tanino meant to be her brave servant knight?

But he was unarmed and, even more importantly, he didn’t feel at all brave.

Cockroaches revolted him and he couldn’t stand the sound they made when you squashed them.

He would happily close the door and avoid using the bathroom until they had left.

But Melina demanded action.

Tanino went to the kitchen and reached into the cabinet under the sink for his trusted weapon: the insecticide spray.

The canister would be his sword, while Melina’s apron would be his shield.

“Quick, Tanino, quick!” she shrieked from the bathroom.

She was still perched on the bidet.

“Darling, get down or you’re going to break the ceramic or, worse, fall off,” he urged her.

“I can’t, they’re blocking my way,” she whimpered.

Tanino shook his head and then the canister of insecticide.

“Wait! You’re not going to use that, are you? I’m too close, and I have asthma.”

Of course. He went back to the kitchen and swapped the insecticide with the broom – which, objectively, made a much better sword – then returned to rescue his damsel.

“Shoo, shoo,” he said, pushing the little cockroaches towards a corner of the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Pushing them out of your way so you can get down from there.”

“You mustn’t just push them, you must kill them!” she roared. “They’ll slip through the broom’s bristles!

“Use your slipper, for heaven’s sake!”

That was exactly what he didn’t want to do.

To squash them with his slipper, he would have to get closer to them than he was comfortable with, and he’d hear them crunch.

How could he admit that to anyone – even his wife of 50 years – when men weren’t supposed to be afraid of creepy crawlies?

“It’s too cruel, Melina. They’re only babies.”

“But disgusting ones.” “Not in their mother’s eyes. Every cockroach is beautiful to his mum, the Neapolitan saying goes.”

Melina’s face mellowed. Then, as conflicting feelings churned inside her, it crumpled into an expression of utter desolation. Tanino couldn’t bear seeing her in that state. He dropped his broom-sword and, overcoming his disgust for the insects, stepped into the bathroom.

The cockroaches scuttled away from his feet and hid behind the toilet.

“The coast is clear,” he said, stretching his hand out to her.

She took it and climbed down from her tower.

“Where have they gone?” she asked.

“I’ll deal with them once I’ve taken you away to safety,” he said gallantly.

He accompanied her to the kitchen, sat her down and poured her a glass of water.

When she had regained colour, he asked, “Will you be OK on your own if I leave you and deal with the creatures?”

She took his hand and whispered.

“I admire you for being so goodhearted even to disgusting creatures.

“You don’t have to kill them if you don’t want to. You can just send them back to wherever it is they came from.”

The look of admiration in her eyes was enough to melt Tanino’s heart.

There was no way he could use the insecticide spray now that Melina thought so highly of him.

He marched back to the bathroom fervently hoping that the little beasties would be gone.

But they were still there. He took a deep breath, knelt to the floor and trapped each cockroach under an overturned glass.

Then Tanino placed the glass over the basin’s plughole and, as soon as they had disappeared down it, he plugged it with lightning speed.

One thing was certain – he would never forget to plug a sink again.

****

Melina thrust her magazine into her nextdoor neighbour’s hand.

“Take it. It tells you how to keep cockroaches out of your home.”

“Thank you, Melina. But don’t you need it?” Giovanna asked.

“No. I have Tanino. He’s the ‘cockroach whisperer’.” “Lucky you!”

Later that day, the doorbell rang. It was Giovanna.

“Melina, guess what? I’ve just found an entire family of cockroaches in my bathroom.

“Oh, how I wish I had plugged the holes! Can I borrow Tanino to get rid of them, please?”

“Of course,” Melina answered, full of pride.

Clearly not all husbands were as brave and capable as hers.

“Tanino, your help is required next door,” she announced, bursting into the sitting room where he was relaxing with his crosswords.

“What for?” he asked, scrunching his forehead in puzzlement.

“Giovanna has found a whole family of cockroaches in her bathroom.

“I told her that you are wonderful with cockroaches – I knew you would be happy to help.”

It was probably a trick of the light, but Tanino’s face suddenly looked very pale.

The End.