Story of a Good Rat

Someone knocked at my Door a day after the big confrontation by the pool. It was a soft knock but not hesitant. I knew there was a woman behind the door but I still looked through the eye hole. It was her, standing there with her thoughtful even worried eyes which have almost lost their sparks. She was known as a rat, rat Rezzan, in the neighbourhood but I did not believe that. So I opened the door with a big sincere smile.

She was so thin as if she had just escaped from a famine. It hurt me to look at her, I was overwhelmed by the river of my own compassion. There was an untold tragedy standing by me, all my cells could sense that. She smiled in her red shorts and white t-shirt. Her arms were thin and had scars of hard work…hard work that had lasted too long. Her legs were thin, too.

“Please sit,” I said and showed her the creamy white sofa in the living room and asked: “What would you like to drink?”

She smiled and looked into my eyes that were searching warmth and understanding in mine. She wanted to know how welcomed she was and I smiled wider to let her know that she was very very welcome like she was never before.

“Thank you very much, I really don’t want to drink anything. I have come to talk,” said she as she Walked towards the creamy white sofa. She sat and crossed her legs, she was not more than forty five kilogram. I sat next to her.

“I was having a breakfast but I could not,” said she and she looked concerned.

“Why?” I asked.

“I thought I had to tell you not to worry if two Women from last night knock on your door in this morning,” she replied.

“Why do they want to do that? I told them all I knew about him…it is their job to think how he could harm them,” I said.

“No, no…it is not like that…this is  now matter of life and death…none of us slept after you had left last night…everybody was so devastated…they all feel unsafe now.Did you think that was the end?”

“Yes, was it not?”

“No, it was the beginning…that man is going to have to leave this place…people will not stop until they discover the whole truth,” said she.

“I told the truth,” I replied.

“No…they know you know more,” said she.

“No, I don’t…I told them what I knew,” I said.

“They want to know more!” said she as she opened her eyes wide and stood up.

“Well, I don’t know more,” said I and stood up, catching a little bit of her panic.

“They think you know…tell them what you know…there is no way back…everything changed when you talked last night,” said she and walked towards the door in a secretive manner.

“I see,” said I and walked her to the door.

“I must go, don’t be surprised when they come…and they are not bad people…they all have your back…they don’t want anyone bad to live in this neighbourhood…he has to go to hell, that man- heartless paedophile,” whispered she, holding the door handle, her eyes hardly contained her inner turmoil and her little body.

“Okay, thank you,” said I in the same secretive manner. Well I was already surprised, asking myself whether she did not want to let those women to taste sweetness of surprising even shocking me by their visit but she wanted to do it instead or whether she came here just because she could not help being a rat. I was confused but I knew she was not a bad rat, she, too, was a soldier of goodness on earth.

“I am going now, take care…yeah?” said she and walked out softly. She climbed down the purple stairs quietly, looked back and smiled once again before she disappeared. I waved at her, wondering what kind of hell’s door I had opened last night.

I closed the door, wondering what I was going to hear from the other two women who had attacked me the night before. I could hear bells of my stomach, my head was like an ant nest where billions of ants lived with no rest and it was hard for me to keep my eyes open. My phone rang. I walked towards the table and looked. It was my ex next door whom I never talked to due to an unbridgeable gap between us. I had blocked her number straight after we met for the first time but it seemed like what I knew had made her restless, too…just like the ants in my head. I employed one of the ants in my head to talk to her before picking my phone. It was a collective issue after all…and it was not her, she did not dare talk.

Two women came following that phone call and went with no event despite the great disappointment of their discovery. They looked more shocked than they did the night before. And they did not blame me for telling the truth but they were still not sure what to do about him, woman hater paedophile whom they used to respect and sought comfort like their granddad. What they were going to do was going to determine my location and reputation, too. It was a risk that I took but I was never going to regret it. The bigger risk was to become a close friend with such a man in order to discover the truth. The biggest risk was to allow him to think and believe that one day he was going to be in my bed despite his psychopathic traits and old age. Men are mad like that. They really believe that they can do anything they want in life, the world is their playground. Hence hardly a few of them truly grow up. Everyone was learning a lot from what happened and was going to learn more what was going to happen.

Rezzan came back again next morning.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?” said she. I told you she was a good rat. She was wearing a green t-shirt. Her short, thick, curly hair had some grey in the front.

“No, not really,” I replied, thinking about the real reason of her regular morning visits.

“You should have seen how men reacted…they all met again last night…they will kick this paedophile bastard out of this place by law…you will see they will do that. This is not a joke…this is our honour…he has to go,” said she as she walked towards the creamy white sofa before I offered. I was a little surprised to see how deeply they believed what I said without knowing me so well. I hardly communicated with them but I always wished them well.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed quietly. Only psychopaths could exclaim loudly in this place. The walls were too thin to give anyone sense of a proper privacy. We had so many issues that violated our privacy and reported it to young rich landlord who listened to us insensibly and probably laughed out loud after hanging up the phone.

“Yes, I think they were already suspicious of him somehow but they just could not put their finger on it,” said she in her own secretive way when I sat next to her on creamy white sofa.

“Of course they were…how couldn’t they be? This man was always drunk…the only reason why people kept quiet was because of his age,his money…and-and he was so good at lying…and he bullied the weak ones when they did not believe him…and I think people needed someone to care for them, someone older with wisdom and compassion…he pretended to have and offered them to women to make his way to their beds,”

“Once, he shouted at me like a little child and said: ‘You are a tenant here, you don’t even own an inch of a land, know your place and keep quiet!’” she explained, her lips trembled and she was in tears. I wanted to see that old paedophile hanged or drowned in the middle of the pool where he had secret orgasms by watching little girls and women in their bikinis, took their pictures, as her tears rolled down on her bony cheeks covered with dry and wrinkled thin skin. She was a forty-nine years old divorcee with no kid of her own. And he knew that…but that was before I exposed him. All his fantasies to have a young lover like me while harassing every other woman and little girls as an old, respectable superintendent of two blocks of apartment, all his power over people, all the joy he used to get from abusing the house keeping staff died in one night. I felt proud of myself for the first time after that night.

“So nobody stood by you back then?” I asked.

“No, they uttered no word…I know why they did that…they did that because I am a woman who does not depend on a man…and a woman with no man worth nothing in their heads,” said she.

“It must be so dark in their heads,” I said.

“It is dark everywhere in this land…the Sun comes and goes but it is still dark here,” said Rezzan in tears. I knew she was a good rat in search of love…

Tagged: bastard, evil, good, good rat, man, paedophile, rat, truth, woman