TE22 Potpourri

Michèle Rakotoson

Lalana

incessant diarrhea, decomposing him on the spot, leaving him to rot away alive. And there’s nothing for him, not even words of comfort, nothing but fear, an abject fear, scaring everyone away. A country like Madagascar, with AIDS or cancer, when calamity strikes, the head lowers, the cleaver falls, it’s merely awaiting God’s time and decision. There’s nothing for them, except a few halfhearted media campaigns, when the West is reminded that those pariahs exist and sends somemoney, most of which washes up elsewhere, usually in villas with security systems. May as well protect a few. How long did they remain there, the two of them, in that silence of anger and rage? How long for clenched fists and pinched lips? Down below, the pilgrims and all the flock have fallen silent. The pastor must have started his sermon. He can picture him from here with his preaching and lecturing, voice full of contrition, gut protruding, lower lip paunched. Naivo hates all of them, pastors, flock, believers, the rest of the mob, so much more than before. He hates them for having been there to witness the final days, final throes, final pains, those buzzards and vultures seeking a carcass to swallow, feasting on disasters. He hates them for their smugness and their cursing, they who have never offered a hand, who were there only to express their abomination. He hates them for being what they are: the stymied petty bourgeoisie, who have found religion as a means of avowing power. Naivo, he sobs with hate and despair, sudden, long, drawn out sobs, an unending wail. For years he has held back his tears, for years he has worn a mask of dignity, shoes shined, shirts threadbare but meticulously

cleaned, for years he has stayed aloof, so as never to attract pity. But now, the dikes are collapsing, their hardships are blowing up in his face, and the abandonment too. The bitch of living, and living’s a bitch. Henearly fallsapart, too, whenhesees, in thedistance, between thehills, amistywhiteveil.Atthree intheafternoon.Acurtainof rain trailing behind a cloud that drifts slowly between two hills. Out of place in that blue, translucent sky. A cloud that doesn’t stretch into gradually dimming shades as usual. No, this one is trailing a veil of rain that hides the landscape, opaquely and markedly covering parts of it. Tandrifin-drahona, a shower, the facing rain. The cloud is pearly gray andmoves its rain, in broad daylight, in full sunlight, through this advancing afternoon and these colors glowing redder, bit by bit. The ground is wet, and not far from them the droplets sparkle like morning dew, although it’s nearly the end of the afternoon, and the sweaty heat is evaporating all the water that can still make a mark on the earth.

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