God's Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the shredded ozone. Is it the Swiss-cheese ozone or the will of God that makes me ill? Maybe He knows I’m still angry at Him? Cohn thought he had better watch his thoughts. He who knoweth the voice of the bird way up there isn’t above knowing what C. Cohn thinks. I’d better stay out of his ESP and/or Knowing Eye. But sick as I am I won’t knock on His perilous door, even if I knew where it is. Let Him look me up if He’s in the mood for instant benediction.
    Cohn doctored himself as best he could, with aspirin and
sips of stale water. To coat his stomach he chewed grains of raw rice, though it did no apparent good. He vomited anything he imbibed; fouled himself disgracefully; felt abandoned, outcast, bleak. Nobody was present to cluck in sympathy at poor Cohn’s fate. He could not stand very much more of the same. ““Live quickly,”” the Lord had said. ““A few deep breaths and go your way.”” Calvin Cohn, as though in agreement, slipped out of consciousness of the world it was.
    During a long night of delirium, with morbid intervals of awareness and no desire to go on, cursing the woman who had given him birth and anybody who had assisted in the enterprise, Cohn woke in the drafty front cave to the sensuous presence (Mama forgive me) of a hand lifting his aching head. It then seemed to the sick man that a delicious elixir of coconut was flowing down his parched throat.
    In the glowing dark he was teased by a thought that he was being assisted and fed by a heavy-breathing, grunting, black god, holding half a fragrant coconut to his wasted lips as Cohn gulped; or was he still delirious and the experience illusion, dreamthought ?
    “Buz?” he murmured and got no response. Cohn reached forth to touch the god, if god it was, or beast; a hand withdrew and his head struck the ground. The pain, flashing a dozen lightnings, confused him.
    In the morning two ripe red bananas lay by his side, and with them four soft oranges. Cohn reached for one, cupping it in his gaunt hands, deeply breathing its orange fragrance as the warm fumes rose in his head. He bit the skin and
sucked the fruit dry. Going by this statement of his senses, Cohn lived on. He had one constant dream: he was alone in the world if not elsewhere.
    His nausea returned but not the creature (or whoever) that had fed him. Cohn, still seriously ill, heaved up the fruity contents of his stomach and sank into a coma. How long it endured he didn’t know. Or whether he had had a visitor or visitors. When he came out of it, he could not separate experience from what might have been. Anyway, here was Cohn lying on the warm ground in bright sun, in open view of the cloudless island sky. Whoever-he-was had dragged or carried him in his soiled overcoat out of the cave into the grass before his hut, where the acacias grew at the edge of the woods and field that led to the sea.
    For days it seemed to Cohn he lay there barely able to stir, staring at the sky, hoping to recover health and existence. Whoever-his-protector continued to provide fruit of several sorts, plus acacia leaves for decoration—and as of yesterday, washed rootstocks of cassava. Cohn, having nothing else to occupy him, forced himself to chew the bitter, starchy root, sensing it nourished him. He had lost a great deal of weight and was afraid to look at any part of himself. But he felt a hot breeze wander over him, indicating he had substance; and when Cohn touched his head to see if it was still there, he could feel a growing fluff of hair. Fortunately it rarely rained as he lay outside; at times drizzled.
    Each day fruit and washed root appeared. If he awoke early to see who was feeding him, invariably there was no delivery. He fell asleep and when he awakened later his portion was present, together with a broken piece of sugar cane. Cohn
daily thanked his benefactor but hadn’t the pleasure of making his or her acquaintance.
    One morning, after devouring a breakfast of five pieces of