Disaster Was My God

by Bruce Duffy

  The advantage was huge, and not merely in the cause of his habitual lying and cheating. Storming or sunny, accusing or rationalizing, this selfishly generous temperament equipped Verlaine with the extraordinary ability to absolve himself of everything, just as it gave him scandalous license to blame everyone and everything. Especially when the Green Fairy’s flickering tongue was exploring the recesses of his ear.

  What’s more, as a man with the physical charms of a goat, Verlaine had learned—purely as a matter of survival—to be droll and charming. Surprising. Attentive. Even endearing in a maddening way. Another huge advantage over the usual éminence grise walled behind his newspaper. That is, if Monsieur was even home and not instead poking his mistress.

  As yet another indication of his home training, at an early age Verlaine had learned how to cope with the deeper vales of the female psyche, preoccupied with the very topics that men bury or flee: grief, children, sickness, and all the rest—but loss principally. In the face of which, Verlaine had also learned, in the herding and management of women, what seemed to him the greatest lesson of all—to distract.

  As indeed he now did so brilliantly with Mathilde, in her hormonally charged, weepy grossesse. Observe.

  Role reversal, for example. That is, when—quite magically—he, Verlaine, became the one even more wronged and hurt—the “girl,” that is.

  Or when he was the naughty boy, the boy caught, while she, Mathilde, played the stern mother.

  Or when he would merely be tiresome and irritating—distract.

  Or violent, as he was that night not long after their wedding, when, because Mathilde didn’t want to “do” a certain something, he grabbed her by the neck and threw her down—but so fast that all she could remember was the swashbuckling afterward of him holding her like a child, arms sprawled, overcome. And not so much because he had throttled her but because, in a way difficult to explain to anyone not inside their marriage, he had saved her. Saved her.

  “Antics.” “Spasms.” “Fits.” Or that catchall excuse, “artistic.” Mathilde Mauté used the very words for her husband that his own mother did. Still, inside their marriage, this was not, as yet, horrifying. No, no, it was explainable. Because she understood. As love understood. As no one else would or could.

  Moreover, as a Mauté—which was to say, as a person of taste and breeding—she had la culture, la formation necessary to understand a psyche so tightly wound. So delicate. Like a watch, actually.

  Such were things that one might think when one was seventeen and a presumptive aristocrat ready to sanctify one’s marriage with the birth of one’s first child. Indeed, the child who, she was quite convinced, would solve everything. Stop the drinking and bad behavior. Seat him at his writing desk. Return the lovely man whom she had married.

  Such was the hope of Mathilde Mauté Verlaine when Rimbaud traipsed into her life. Moreover, she would not be denied, for she was not without power or aspirations. Blessed with a weak man and a queen like her mother, she would reign supreme over their marriage. Despite all. Through all. By the sheer force of love she would become that shining thing, a wifely success.

  Verlaine, meantime, had managed the incredible in those few minutes—those very few minutes—at his pregnant wife’s bedside. For the fact was, through sheer force of histrionics, he had, in his pathos, utterly reversed the flow of the discussion about his habitual chaos. At issue were not his misdeeds and rampant irresponsibility—jamais! It was, rather, his oppression at the hands of her parents; it was, he said, like the Israelites living under the whip of Pharaoh!

  Les Mauté! It was, he charged, their arrogance, their pretensions and low judgments. It was their failure to understand the pressures and doubts—the crucible—of his artistry. It was their inability to grasp—alas, even while fallow—the admittedly strange dance of his artistic “process.” It was their cruel refusal to “believe” in him, to grasp his terrible sufferings and trials as an artist. Still more grievously, it was their ingratitude for, and utter blindness to, and apparent unwillingness to grovel before, the wavelike undertow of his approaching greatness.

  “But, love, my love,” whispered Mathilde, afraid her bat-eared mother might hear, “it’s their house. And Paul,” she added, now playing the good mother, “Paul, this is all you agreed to, willingly, as the cost of your freedom.”

  She brightened.

  “But, Paul, my sweet … perhaps with Monsieur Rimbaud you will return to writing. But not,” she said, lightly pinching his downcast chin, “not by being irresponsible, as you were last night.”

  “I know”—he misted up—“I know,” he said, nodding. “I cannot allow your mother to upset me as she does. I cannot.” He stood up. A new man. A different man. Then frowned as if it were a chore, entertaining this impossibly young monsieur from the sticks.

  “Well, I suppose I’ll take him out a bit—Monsieur Rimbaud.”

  “But, Paul,” she said as he kissed her, “Paul. Remember, Paul. He is still a boy.”

  He was, in fact, magnificent. And Mathilde’s words had a very salutary effect, for they were not out all night. No, indeed, they were back well before 3:00 a.m.

  It was then, hearing a small crash, that Madame’s two white bichons frisés, as fluffy as two dandelions on their embroidered satin coverlet, pricked up their mandarin ears. Yapping and snarling, the two floor mops launched themselves down the stairs.

  Oaths were heard—the shouts of Verlaine, one foot in the air, brandishing his sword cane, ready to crush one or both.

  “Out, you two tarantulas!”

  Then drunk, but not as drunk—why, almost gravitationally—the kid backed into a pedestal atop which stood a rare Chinese urn. Smashed like a great egg. The kid had struck again.

  Gaslights fluttered up. Operatically, Madame gasped, her treasured urn now a fresco on the marble floor.

  “My urn!”

  “Vicious rats!” cried Verlaine, fending dogs. “They bit our guest!”

  “I’m all right!” said the kid, bravely hobbling in feigned injury.

  “But my urn is not all right!”

  How welcome it was, Mme. Mauté’s opprobrium. Why, in a matter of hours, the kid felt utterly at home, once more the subject of an older woman’s wrath.

  34 Mercy Spurned

  Another day in the desert. Two days. Three, at the maximum. If only his head would not seize up. If only his heart would not give out. If only, with his last ounce of will and courage, he did not collapse and lose his party, proving forever the jinx of the Rimbaud luck.

  But the personal embarrassments of his condition! The daily inconveniences. The bleak terrors. Another night of wild shots—of galloping horses and twisted, sucking-stomached waiting. As the MacDonalds sleep, there he sits ready for his last stand, sprawled back against a camel saddle, almost trying to hear through his eyes, thumb rubbing the hammer rasps of his double gun.

  And by day, unavoidably, the incidents. The daily little horrors seemingly attracted to him as to a magnet. And so it happened on the tenth day, in a driving downpour, looking for a suitable and defendable camp spot, they came upon a woman sunk to her calves in the rain-sizzling mud, flailing a big stick. Was she mad? To Rimbaud it looked at first as if she were striking the mud, or a snake perhaps. When out of the muck a head rose up, oblong with bladelike ears. It was a donkey sunk to its flanks in a pool of thick black mud, its long neck lashing as it thrashed and kicked, doomed.

  In that mud hole, as well Rimbaud knew, was the woman’s life savings—everything she owned. Up, get up. The mud was as thick and black as Persian tobacco, unrelenting. The stick came down. The hooves flailed, the mud jellied. When this did not work, with two hands the woman grabbed the beast’s rope halter and yanked hard, again and again. The exhausted animal jerked. Spasmodically, the animal clawed and struggled, then gave out, its hooves quivering. Forget it. Death had the poor beast by the windpipe, but in her desperation, the woman couldn’t see it. Hit him, help him. It was as if she wer
e resuscitating hope.

  “Help me,” she cried, lifting her mud-drenched shawl. To show her predicament, she struck the animal again, then peered under her hand, through the splattering rain—so desperate she was now begging the frangi, “You’re men! Help me! Pull my beast out!”

  Pass on, thought Rimbaud. Don’t start some native row or invite dangers when there are dangers enough. Soldier on. That was the rule.

  Not this time, though. There were children behind him, English children. The English so humane. Rooting for the fox, lovers of dogs, born to confront the brute. Inwardly, Rimbaud laid it on them, the MacDonalds, his new resolve to be good, or at least something. But then something still deeper jolted him as he watched the little beast kicking and panting, muddy water spewing out its nose.

  “Bring me up!” Rimbaud ordered the men carrying him.

  It was extraordinary. The woman looked up at the frangi looming above her on his sopping dais. Speaking her language, too. It was as if God Himself had come down.

  “Enough!” he cried. “Stand back. Your beast is almost dead.”

  “I know my animal.” The woman was defiant. “Just pull him out and you’ll see. He’ll be fine.”

  “Closer!” Rimbaud gestured to his bearers, weaving blindly in the downpour. It was crazy. Even he knew it was crazy. They were on the edge of a village.

  “Woman,” he barked, “do you hear me? Now stand back! Stand aside.”

  “Why? Pull him out! You have men.”

  Ignore it, Rimbaud. The donkey would be dead soon enough. Even his men were puzzled.

  “Shaheed, do as I tell you. Grab her. Pull that woman away.”

  That tripped it, for strange men to touch her, any woman. This was now a deal. Twisting and screaming in his grip, the woman fell to her knees in the muck. When through the rain, here were other women. Five, then ten, yelling at the party.

  “It is her beast!”

  “What do you do here, frangi?”

  Then it was a bigger deal, as armed men appeared—spears, shields, swords. But once he was committed, the danger was almost abstract in Rimbaud’s mind. He raised the fat double gun. Yellow fire blurted through the rain. Nine fat hailstones—done.

  Merde. People screaming and jabbering. Rain ran down his face as he lowered the double gun. He felt his hands trembling. Merde, merde. For here were more people, a crowd. Fool. Furiously, he broke the gun. Rammed in, awkwardly, another fat shell. Now, every gun was raised and cocked. As for the aggrieved woman, she was Electra, Iphigenia beseeching the crowd—a fury on this stage of flashes and thunder and bulleting rain.

  “The frangi killed my animal. Now I have nothing.”

  Spears shook—warriors. Don’t back up, thought Rimbaud. Make it big. And so he shook the gun in their faces. No pain now. His fear and rage were exhilarating, propulsive. Overpowering, in fact.

  “Hakim,” he said, now exalted, to the killer closest, “step forward. Show these bastards what they’re going to get.”

  The woman was unimpressed. She had the crowd behind her.

  “Kill my beast! You pay! Frangi, you will pay me!”

  “Here!” Trembling with rage, Rimbaud produced a fistful of coins. Thalers. Double the worth of the little brute. More than fair.

  “This is not enough,” she cried. “He shoots my animal, my only animal. Now I cannot feed my children.”

  “Nonsense!” He waved his arm. “Go home, woman! Go before people get hurt!”

  “No!” cried an old man, clearly the headman, stepping to the fore. “Frangi, you will pay her more. The village also.”

  Extorters. Bloodsuckers. Here was every open palm, every bribe and mendacity he’d ever tolerated in this shithole. In contempt, he shoved more coins at her, then glared down at the old man.

  “There—that’s it.” Hell was in his hand. Death shook in the headman’s face. “And I’m not paying your village, old man. Now, out! All of you. Out of my goddamn way.”

  Cursing, he loosed a blast. Yellow flame, screams. Now every gun was leveled and the crowd was chanting, one touch from a massacre. Reload. He broke the smoking breech. His arms were twitching, electric. Never had he felt more alive.

  “Go!” he cried to the column. “Bloody let’s go. Come on.”

  And his gamble worked. The village did not attack, not against repeating guns—they were not crazy. Chanting, the women flung mud. The men shook spears, and in the intoxication of that moment, perversely, this thrilled him. Now they saw what he was made of, by God. But his exhilaration was short lived. Clutching her soaked shawl around her face, Mrs. MacDonald shouted up at him:

  “Menace, eh? Wasn’t that your accusation of my husband the other night, you bloody maniac? That he was a menace?”

  “And what would you have done?” he said with a glance at the very silent Mr. MacDonald. “Watched it? What?”

  Mrs. MacDonald did not deign to reply. He’d snapped, bloody snapped. A near massacre, and for what? Two crooked hooves poking out of the mud and the woman screaming at them, screaming in the driving rain.

  35 Left to God

  And another man lost.

  That same night, rising up out of the blear, blowing darkness, three avengers took him down, older, hardened warriors, their best. Two with spears mortally gored his horse while the third, wielding his dagger like an axe, half hacked his leg off. Never kill a man outright if possible. And so, even as he screamed, the two with spears held him fast, like a pig, one spear through his thigh and the other just inside his collar bone. Using the spear like a pry bar, the man who had him through the collarbone sharply drew the trunk back, then put one foot on his windpipe, choking off his hoarse scream. Opposite him, the second man held the leg, while the third, kneeling, blade in hand, swiftly went to work. Yanked down the wounded man’s breeches, then seized his privates like the neck of a chicken—up that he might see, forever, his balls and the face of the warrior in whose hut they would hang. But before he could harvest his prize, horses were heard, then shots, including the shot that killed the knife man outright. The two remaining spearmen were as lucky as they were skilled. Dodging bullets, slippery as fish, they dove into the black pools of night—gone.

  Fearing a trap, the rescuers knew better than to give chase. Now what? Thrashing slick with blood, the horse was down, and the wounded man was in worse shape. True, his leg could be tied off with a leather strip, then, once in camp, amputated and the stump cauterized, vein by vein, with a red-hot dagger. Tomorrow he might be tied on a horse, but what then? The cut was high; he would be no one, a woman, and likely would die anyway. Assuming, of course, they could even reach camp without being overrun.

  No time to puzzle. Correct behavior in such situations had long been agreed on, and the wounded man, Audou Sakina, although drifting, readily understood their decision as they pulled him around, east to face Mecca and the blessed sun that, come morning, would shine upon his face. Indeed, Audou Sakina thanked them, then shouted to God as, with two blasts, they first finished him, then the horse. Leave nothing. Quickly, they stripped Audou Sakina of all valuables and weapons, laid his hands upon his stomach, and patted his cheek tenderly—left to God. Then, remounting, hotly they kicked ribs and off they rode, long spears pointing back over their shoulders as they launched into the night sky.

  In fury, Audou Sakina’s two rescuers looked at Rimbaud, mutinous and surly as they rode into camp and dismounted, heavily stained with their friend’s blood. It wasn’t just the death of Audou Sakina that enraged them. As five then returned as four, they had lost face, surrendering one of their own to the enraged villagers—unworthy men, amateurs in their eyes. And all because of Rimbaud’s sentimental stunt. Over what? A half-dead donkey?

  Honestly, why they didn’t kill him and seize the lot right there, Rimbaud had no idea. Perhaps it was their blood oath to the chief whom Rimbaud had paid so handsomely and armed so magnificently. Or inertia. Or that begrudged but still almost hatefully inestimable power of the frangi, he who broug
ht the rain. In any case, Rimbaud paid them. Later, with much haggling, he paid them dearly for Audou Sakina, a believer, as well as the hundreds, obviously, who depended upon the proceeds from Audou Sakina’s unswerving sword and prolific gun.

  36 Child of the Sun

  The day before, upon fleeing the Mautés, they had had their hasty preliminaries, the elder and the putative understudy—the confessions, the whispered dreams, the lapel-grabbing excitement. And late that night, by which point Verlaine was far too drunk to heed fully Rimbaud’s words (much as, the night before Christ’s crucifixion, his disciples dozed during his Agony in the Garden), he failed to grasp the full implications of the kid’s fanatical creed about a “rational derangement of all the senses.”

  Not rash—rational.

  Not subjective—objective.

  Not parlor-trained—monstrous.

  Not personal—egoless.

  Not my language—une langue universelle … of ecstasies!

  And, above all, not love, that lying negation: it did not exist, posited Mme. Rimbaud’s prodigal—yet. No, love, love in the old sense, was a lie. Love, thus, would have to be wholly reinvented, resulting in nothing less than revolution of the soul. As for language, it would be a language of the soul, for the soul, a universal language inaccessible to the mere versifiers who infested Paris. Rather, this new language would be accessible to the one, the true poet, le voyant, the visionary, the great scholar and criminal, the one accused! The one who, swallowing black poisons, produces, like a milk cow, blond quintessences.

  Banished, then, the compromises of mediocrity. Cleansed, the contagions of the Church. Love reborn. Hope reborn—new faith, new zones, new skies. And on the shores of this new world, armed with new love and infused with true hope, he would run with limbs of gold. A child again. Reborn again into strength and beauty—Child of the Sun! Deathless as the sun and immense as the sea.