Disaster Was My God

by Bruce Duffy

  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.

  The Stolen Heart

  My sad heart slobbers at the poop,

  My heart covered with tobacco spit:

  They spew streams of soup at it,

  My sad heart drools at the poop:

  Under the jeering of the soldiers

  Who break out laughing

  My sad heart drools at the poop,

  My sad heart covered with tobacco spit!

  Ithyphallic and soldierish,

  Their jeerings have depraved it!

  On the rudder you see frescoes

  Ithyphallic and soldierish,

  O abracadabratic waves,

  Take my heart, let it be washed!

  Ithyphallic and soldierish,

  Their jeerings have depraved it.

  When they have used up their quid,

  How will I act, O stolen heart?

  There will be Bacchic hiccups,

  When they have used up their quid:

  I will have stomach retchings,

  If my heart is degraded:

  When they have used up their quid

  How will I act, O stolen heart?

  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 l
ion 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?

  Still, 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.”

  “Fergus!” cries Mrs. MacDonald, lest he inquire again. “You heard him. Up. Let us now make our choices and go.”

  Fool, thinks Rimbaud, still smarting over MacDonald’s idiocy.

  Failed fool thinking that in a land of unwritten rules—inflexible rules—being nice would carry him through.

  Putrid fool with his primitive, ballyhooing idea of Jesus, chasing his burning bush.

  But beneath it all, Rimbaud is disgusted with himself. That back in Harar, what with Djami and Tigist and the beggars—that in a low moment, stupidly, he had taken on the MacDonalds and their children. That now, when all he had was his reputation, that his reputation might be destroyed—him and everyone in his party if the skinny men get the upper hand. Proof forever of the Rimbaud luck.

  So it had been two years ago with one of his colleagues—Leonetti, an Italian. Wiped out, him and all his party, including his wife. Thirty-two in all, and not forty kilometers from where they now stand. Even spookier, Rimbaud, all prepared to go, had to stay back at the last minute—problems with the king. Then five days later came the terrible news. With a heavily armed search party, Rimbaud left the next day.

  Coming on the scene, he thought what a mercy shipwrecks were, how clean, their horrors swallowed by the sea. Not so here. Days later, here they were, stinking, once-living men in almost archaeological attitudes, the only life spared being those of the camels and horses. Things that actually had value.

  Taking out his brass telescope, he saw them to the east, not a quarter of a kilometer away, the skinny men, the defiant, lion-haired men. Through this narrow, wavering aperture, he could see them—white teeth. Mocking them. Laughing and cavorting, under the proscenium of red rock, they were like ancient actors in the bloody final act of some Greek tragedy.

  And yet by the third day, whatever his failings, MacDonald is not the goat. By then, amid the heat and the tension and the slow progress, Rimbaud feels the party’s frustrations directed at just one man—him. Angry at him for slipping. Angry at the burden he represents. Angry at the potential disaster if he dies. And angry most of all—after all their agonies—at the pittance they will receive should he survive.

  But of all the aggrieved, none are angrier than the sixteen porters now laboring to carry him, four teams of four, angry at the leg and the dead weight of him, forever sliding and complaining. Mutinous bastards. Too bad he can speak their language. Hence his state of suspense, as he thinks, They’re going to kill me? When are they going to kill me?

  Well, why not? Here there is no force in law, no hope of quarter or rescue, and yet for the first days, for almost no reason he can discern, the leader mystique holds, but barely. Then on day three, a big rain falls. It’s a long, dark plume. It’s an inverted mountain in the sky, a floating waterfall rent with white flashes and lightning cracks, torrential in its energy. Driving rain. Hot, then cold rain, it sizzles in the mud, coming down so hard that one almost has to spit to see. No shelter, not even a tree, and in the deluge the porters drop him hard—purposely so in the rain-boiling mud, a spewing gargling sewer where he remains for five hours, freezing and virtually unprotected under a goatskin—a rag, an insult. And so, when the sky clears, as the beasts are collected, Rimbaud sends the MacDonalds on ahead—well ahead with three gunmen. Tells them to stay there, too. Then at gunpoint, by the throat several of them, the mutineers are brought up.

  “Drop me in the mud!” he says, in a low, slow, emphatic growl. “Do you think you can do that and get away with it? Do you? Do you want to see what I am now prepared to do? Dabir!” he calls, to the leader of the killer clan, “bring it out! The kit. Show these bastards what we have for mutineers.”

  And so Dabir, with the cleaverlike dagger strapped to his side, Dabir withdraws from his saddlebags the coiled-up bullwhip of braided leather, the notched stakes, and the rawhide straps to bind the wrists and ankles—straps, swears Rimbaud, with which he will stretch them like raw goatskins, with lashes arbitrary in number and entirely at his whim.

  “At even a whiff of insolence,” he thunders. “Even so slight as the wings of a fly.” He has not lost his frightening flare for drama.

  “But who then will carry you?” So asks Abdullahi, their leader—a smart mouth.

  “You will carry me, Abdullahi—even bloody. Gaze into my eyes. Do you doubt me? Perhaps …” He trails off. “But,” he says, pointing to his mercenaries, “do not doubt them. Especially when I pay them. Double, if you try me again. Double to peel you like a banana—you and you and you, if you even so much as displease me.”

  Anger, it is like a locomotive, roaring and unstoppable—pain’s antidote. But however horrible, however unsound, Rim
baud’s hideous little show is effective as, with new obedience, the now sobered porters carry him off, slowly bouncing like a carcass. But then like a lost god—gazing up at the swallowing sky—Rimbaud stares down at himself, stares as through a microscope at his ruthlessness, horrified at what he was utterly prepared to do.

  Still, addled or not, Rimbaud knows one thing: that if he lets up for a second, one night in a blaze of knives and muzzle flashes he and the MacDonalds will wind up like Leonetti and his wife. Twisted wrecks in the cinder road.

  “But, Monsieur Rimbaud,” protests MacDonald on the fourth day. Which, even among bad days, is a very bad day indeed, much of it spent clambering over prehistoric boulders. “But, Monsieur,” he says, all teeth and squint, “under the circumstance, sir, we’ve made very good progress, have we not? I mean the poor children, sir, well, as you can see, Monsieur—”

  “Sir or Monsieur,” spits back Rimbaud. “Pick one!”

  Rimbaud then calls down to the bearers.

  “No! Do not set me down. This will not take long—”

  “—But, sir—”

  “—Out with it.”

  “Monsieur—”

  “Did you not hear me? Sir or Monsieur.”

  “But, sir—Monsieur,” stumbles MacDonald, flustered. “What with the rocks, they’ve had their little legs run off—the children. Suffer the little children, sir.”

  “Oh, good God,” groans Rimbaud, “suffer you, MacDonald.”

  “Well, I expect so,” he replies, attempting, for the children’s sake, to turn this public beating into a moment of levity. “But, Monsieur, please. Were you one, once? A child? I mean, can you not see their faces?” Rimbaud gives a chop of the arm.

  “Down,” he barks as if to an elephant. “Set me down.” Then, fastening on MacDonald, he thunders, “what, then, do you propose? That we go plod along until we run out of water? Or stay right here in a spot we can’t defend? Is that your idea, you kind, decent man?”