Disaster Was My God Read Online Free PDF Page B

characterized, if not by faith, exactly, then by its very simplicity and decency. Good works. Even charity. Well, of a kind … if he could manage even
that
, hang it.
    And indeed, until only very recently in these parts was there any stain on his otherwise faultless reputation for actually
good
goods, for fair dealing and sure delivery within days or weeks, as opposed to months. A. Rimbaud, known as far as Cairo and Nairobi as a steady man. A handshake man. A man who honored his word, paid his debts, didn’t whine, and ran a tight ship—rare in this land of fugitive oddballs and crooks. But look. Even now as a woman, keening
Ayeeeeeeee
and suffering some kind of spasm, is gesturing horribly at him.
    The crutch groans. As he turns away, it spins like a peg on the rough wooden floor, his one crutch and his one good foot—the left. It’s his right leg that is now the problem, specifically the knee, now swollen to enormous size.
Merde … les varices!
Varicose veins! This continues to be his stubborn diagnosis, and even now, incredibly, he remains wedded to the idea against considerable medical and commonsense evidence to the contrary. Why, even as recently as a week ago, obstinately he had marched on the bad leg. Stamped on it. Rode with it until it was numb. Varicose veins: this remained his steely reply when people presumed to inquire or insisted on staring.
    And when at last, to relieve the swelling, he was forced to tear open the knee of his trousers—well, fine. Indeed, the knee was purple, but a commanding man, a deliberate man, he does not change his answer. Never, even as he dispatched his poor mother to scour Charleville, their town, and even Paris if necessary to find a special sock. A medical, elastic stocking he had seen in some months-old newspaper. Just the thing to compress the veins. Pressure. For him, this is always the answer: pressure.
    Alas, when said sock arrived ten weeks later in a mildewed package mauled beyond recognition, the sock did not work, hang it! In fact, just as his mother had predicted, the sock only worsened the condition. And then last week came the final blow—a crutch.
    It was the leg that had started this nonsense with the women. Arrogant
frangi
! This was not just bad fortune. To them, it was God’s retribution for his having chucked the girl out three months before. Because the girl could not give him a child, not even a girl child, let alone a male child, the
frangi
, the foreigner, he had thrown her out, but see then how Allah punished him! As anyone could tell you in Harar, the backed-up man poisons, the poisons from his bad seed, they had seeped down his leg. Allah, who sees all, Allah the Just had turned his leg to stone, his business had failed, the girl had triumphed, and every day now female justice waits outside his window, praise be to Him—
al-hamdu lil-lah!
    Oh, it’s bad, quite bad, and he knows it. But it’s not just the leg, it’shis whole life, even the state of his room. Papers strewn. Drawers hanging out. Bags half packed. It’s life with the stuffing pulled out—evicted. For yes, admittedly, he had done—
    Or rather, it had so happened—
    Fine then, he had let happen a rather stupid thing. A rash thing. An obstinate thing. And, perhaps most unforgivably for his European colleagues, a rash and
unnecessary
thing, ejecting the girl. “Good heavens, man,” as one English bloke had put it. “What
are
you thinking? Have you a positive wish to die?”
    The girl also had a family, and a large one, so throw in “impolitic,” too. And yet, having found the girl, this flower sprung in the mud of the bazaar—well, for once in his life, Rimbaud had done the brave and honest thing and followed his heart. And yes, it was regrettable, but certainly he had made copious amends to the girl and her family. Hecatombs of amends—God! People had no idea what he had paid to her people—for months—in his vain efforts to hush it all up. And all too