Disaster Was My God (23 page)

It was God’s gift—a beam of green, unalloyed joy. Such joy that, two days later, even half starved and mosquito bitten, the kid woke again into that wondrous state when God moved in him like a river and shook the trees. It was a feeling of overflowing, a command to attend and
shut up
. All followed by a sunny day that made him feel like a dizzy, giddy child, not so much running as falling forward.

War? In this touched state, even with war still on, there was no fear. Like the air in the air and the wind that moved the trees, nothing touched him but everything went through him—even the artillery shells going
whu-ump
miles away. As for the nearer ones, they tore like sheets and exploded with a palpable pressure on the eye—that close,
and it was wonderful
, roaring over the next hill like the distant crash of the sea.

And France, with a crumbling and humiliated army, France was merely counting the days to defeat. But why should this concern him, a poet? The poet was a soldier. Poetry was war and war was poetry, and that morning, through shattered forests, free from his mother and God-cloaked in invincibility, he found the war so irresistible and now so close that he couldn’t even mind the shells shuddering down, which shook his knees,
whu-ump, whu-ump
. And in the air—smoke. Smoke snared in the branches, and not just the burnt-match smell of gunpowder. Here
was pungent cook smoke carrying the good greasy stench of sausages, sizzling army sausages—hot chow! Well, why not, thought the boy, maybe some softhearted cook would take pity on him, a poor, starving kid … a
war orphan
. Hey, that might work. And seeing soldiers, French soldiers, his brothers in arms, why, the uncatechized masses now ready to revolt and be free, well, naturally the boy walked right over.

When, suddenly, he is surrounded by boots, muddy boots on a muddy road. And above those boots,
in a way he knew ages before
, he saw hard, angry faces. Unshaven faces. Faces that, with a show of teeth, suddenly all have the same idea.

“We’re going to make it hard on you, kid.”

And one soldier pushed him forward, while another pushed him back, while the third, like a vile frog, squirted a long, brown tongue of tobacco spit. Amazing, in his shock, the kid watched it snag his sleeve as, with a yelp, the first wolf dragged him down.

By the neck. Smashed his face down in the mud
—kill me
? Bucked him up and spat twice in his hand—
but how
? For it all seemed incredible—
I’m not German
. Soldiers wearing blue, not brown—
soldiers from my own country
. Soldiers hauling down his ripped trousers
—me, a French citizen!
And look, here in his pocket, he had two more poems, beauties—sacred words. Words given to him,
whispered to him
, by God.

When, abracadabra, in a spray of gibberish,
it was not him
.

It was not him whom they were splitting like a chicken,
ittth itth itth
, first one, then two, then three, then a sloppy fourth. For suddenly, shattering and showering down, it was instead
a poem—a picture in the sky
. A million twittering dreams. A hammock of balls slapping his chin—wondering how a man’s face could be so red with legs so white? Blood was red? Choked to death?
Why?
There was no pain.
The children all sang
. There was no suffering.
The sky is white
. Outcry—but why?
Pay attention. God is teaching you something
.

Squashed on the ground, he could hear his breath going
ithh iitthh ittthh
. And look, right there beside him,
in this little land
, crawling between the shuffling boots, was this
poor little guy
, this
black beetle
bumbling along,
come on, fella
—missed by a boot
—try, try
—missed
again—then
goo
, dead, and God watched that, too.
And the children singing and jumping rope over the rainbow? Over the cold snowflakes trailing down? And, closing their eyes, the children held out their tongues and waited—

When, with a suck of wind, out it came, God’s own member, as slick as spit and as fractured as the stars. With this as recompense.

24
Land Captain

“Careful,” cries Rimbaud—but they are not careful. “Slow”—but the native porters do not slow down, not when they themselves are in a semitrance of pounding, slipping, bone-crushing agony. The MacDonalds and their two children? God knows—behind, evaporated, vanished in the dust—as down he swoops, down the brick red wash in his banging hell toboggan.

Pain. Pain is the beat and pain is the way. Now he is all pain, borne by black feet caked with white dust, feet hammering down vast, slithering, dried-up riverbeds that, in an instant, without warning, could become a raging, muddy, man-devouring torrent. And all from a mere smudge in the sky a few miles away.

The contingency and
fact
of such realities—the moral burden of being responsible for this party, the children especially, in his precarious state—all this makes Rimbaud increasingly angry. Furiously angry, and angry above all at the scarily agreeable Mr. MacDonald, whose religious scruples, apparently, do not permit him to carry a gun—notions that, when they come to Rimbaud’s attention, send him into a near paroxysm of fury at the man’s fecklessness. But, for the first two days, Rimbaud mostly manages to quash these feelings, and then for just one reason: namely, his strange esteem for Mrs. MacDonald. If, indeed,
esteem
is quite the word.

It shocks even him, feral creature, that he should now be so desperate for the woman’s approval. At a look, a word, a touch, with virtually any contact whatsoever from her, he can feel a wave of dizziness and hunger sweep up his neck and scalp, and merely because she has brought him a cup of tea
—tea
. It is not sexual, exactly, and yet how it thrills him as quietly but forcefully she invades his person, even as she subtly undermines his command.

“Drink it,” she said, leaning down and handing him the warm metal cup that first night, as the sky darkened and cooled—cooled quite
precipitously—even as the day’s torrential heat welled up, almost buoyantly, from the ground. “I shall require you to eat something, too, Mr. Rimbaud,” she continued as, over him, he felt the pressure of her bosom and handsome, plump shoulders. “And,” she added briskly, as he sat there dazed, like a boy being read to, “once we better know each other—tomorrow, perhaps—I trust you will permit me to examine that leg.”

At this he nearly spat out his tea.

“Tomorrow,”
she repeated, her smile peeping out beneath her very dusty straw hat, tied, or twirled rather, Abyssinian style, with a once-white scarf. Playfully she added, “When we
know
each other better.” Then, smiling down upon him, with a plump maternal hand, she felt his forehead, which—quite beyond his inflated temperature—flushed somewhere between dream and desperation.

In turn, this queasy, now problematic need for her warmth and sympathy and approval, this further stokes Rimbaud’s almost irrational anger at Mr. MacDonald, anger and incomprehension that so fine and sensible a woman could marry, much less remain with, such a man, much less accompany him on such an ill-advised journey. Then again, Rimbaud does not ask himself what her role might have been in this debacle. Clearly she wears the trousers.

Hour after hour, as he thumps along, these thoughts absorb him, even as they defeat him, for in his mind the MacDonalds are like a puzzle that will not fit together, precisely because they
are
together. But the children, too, tug at him, give him strange looks—weird-man-cripple looks—particularly the boy, whatshisname. Right—Ralph. Splendid boy. That someday son who, in Rimbaud’s mind, would be a self-willed, self-possessed little fellow sailing a toy boat, just as he and Frédéric had as boys on the river Meuse. Swift dreams, bright sun, green depths. Look down on the bottom, trout shadows, silver shadows among the swift, brilliant stones. Split-second dreams. Yes, indeed, a sturdy boy. A worthy boy, that whatshisname—Ralph. Never sulky. Never cries or bawls or asks to be carried, like his sister, now unfortunately old enough to know she is being tortured on a trek that seemingly will never end. But
my God, thinks the adult Rimbaud the outlier, like a lion lying in the grass, to have such a bumbler for a father.
He
would not be such a father.
Never
.

Too late to marry?

But with a mechanical leg?
But surely with science the legs are better now
.

And what about that fiancée his mother has for him?
Possibly
.

But what would become of Tigist?
A spinster? Send for her? Marry her?

You need a girl with good parents, his mother had told him.
But good breasts?

And how would he
do
it, a cripple?
She would do it for me? Over me? In a chair?

Yet, in contrast to these swirling ruminations as the bearers bag him along like a trophy carcass, well, good grief, thinks Rimbaud, how indefatigable and cheerful, how strangely powerful, MacDonald is, carrying his children across a muddy brown stream or combing the girl’s snarled hair. Astonishing, the whispering, half-singing care he will expend, just attending to their poor blistered feet. Just that. Feet.

But how on earth can she stay with him?

Because he is a steady man? A goodly man?

A better man than I?

S
till, beyond the merely irrational, beyond drift and daydream, once Rimbaud snaps into it as the caravan leader, he does have some quite legitimate problems with how MacDonald conducts himself, and these problems begin early—in fact, within the first two hours. It starts when Rimbaud happens to look back only to see their tiny, ancient driver, on the descent, no less, whipping the tiny donkey tied to the ridiculous tumbrel with the door-sized wheels. Poor beast. Squalling and stumbling on loose stones, the little donkey is ready to go over the mountain even as the old fool beats him.

That’s it. Rimbaud’s arm goes up, precipitating a slow-motion
collapse as, like a broken accordion, as men and animals compress, then come to a standstill, with every eye—beast or man—on
him
. And here is his precise predicament as the caravan leader.

In a world in which, for the
frangi
, everything counts and is counted, the very fact that he would
stop
, stop now in an already extraordinary situation—and, worse, after a late start—this counts as a strike against him. Nevertheless, Rimbaud risks it. He calls for his litter to be set down. Then, as subtly as he can, calls over MacDonald. Who, with no idea what is the matter, much less that
he
is the matter, blithely springs over. It’s terrible. Time is hemorrhaging. Yet here Rimbaud is—a man lying on a
gurney
, for Christ’s sake—calling their man unfit.

“I’m sorry,” says Rimbaud, trying to tamp down his rage, “but in three days either your man will be dead or a complete liability—him and his donkey. Now send him back, quickly. We are behind as it is.”

“But, sir,” responds Mr. MacDonald in his lackadaisical way. Worse, he then squats down like a peer, adding, “Kassa is very sturdy and experienced. And he depends on us.”

“Mr. MacDonald,” says Rimbaud with a cold stare, “please understand me. This matter is now settled. And,” he sighs, “when he goes, half your things must go as well.”

“But, sir,” protests MacDonald, now mopping his face with a dirty handkerchief, “the man needs my employ. And Mr. Rimbaud, as for our equipage, sir, well, it includes many sacred articles, religious articles—”

“Sir,”
says Rimbaud ruthlessly, now like a stranger to all the world, “
get
in the lifeboat and do not tell the captain where or how to row. Or start swimming, sir.”