Once upon a time in a land far away, whilst on my travels, beyond the wide blue sea, I was accosted by a couple of bad fellows, who proceeded to deprive me of my wallet. They were an ill mannered navvy sort though they allowed me to keep the clothes on my back; but they took everything else nonetheless. It was a difficult time and I wish to relate my story here. Luckily I had paid my landlady's rent in advance; so for now at least, I was safe from the streets. It is curious. I had always wondered what it would feel like to be destitute and starving. And now here I was. Literally starving. Starving is not so bad if you have drink coursing through your veins to keep the mind from concentrating on the stomach. In a way it's a kind of release. Here you are. Penniless. Starving. Filthy. No girl will look at you on the street cos you reek. You're no longer a man in their eyes. More like a mangy cat. Yet, there's a morbid pleasure in knowing that you can take it and that you don't care.
Do you know, mon p'tit, do you know what it's like to go without eating eh? Forcement, otherwise you wouldn't be scrubbing dishes. Well, i'm not a lowly plongeur; and I went five whole days without eating. Five whole days without even a crust of bread - Jesus Christ!
I tell you, those five days were the devil. Luckily I had my rent paid in advance. I was living in a dirty cheap little hotel in the old quarter. It was called the hotel - , after some famous prostitute who was born in that quarter. I was starving. Do you know what it is to starve mon ami? It is a curious lowly feeling. Too weak to do anything even find work. Can't even go to the cafes cos I hadn't the price of a drink. You can't even walk down the street without fearing you might bump into a friend and have to pay for their drink. It's a intolerable life. Life? It's not even an existence. All I could do was lie in bed and get weaker and weaker and watch the bugs crawl like soldiers in zig-zags across the ceiling. After the fifth day without food I went half mad I tell you. I was staring at the wall. There was an old faded print of a bearded man's head hanging on the wall of my room, and in my delirium I took to wondering who the devil it could be. After an hour or so of serious cogitation I realised it must be some Muslim Saint. I had never taken any notice of such things before. Saints and the like were never tangible things to me. But here, now, as I lay withering and etiolated on these sweat infused dirty bed-sheets with my cheeks sunken in like hollows, an extraordinary thought occurred to me. 'I shall pray!' I said to myself. 'By god I shall pray to this Saint and see whether he helps me!'
So I got down on my knees and clasped my hands together in the form of an open book and read a 'duaa' (prayer).
At first I didn't know what to say to the man. How do you begin? So I thought maybe the best thing to do at first was to ask for forgiveness for not praying as often as he would like me to. I asked him how he was. Asked if he was OK. And then I told him at length of my sorrows. I related my story of the hole in my heart (left ventricle to be precise) and I told told him at length of the emptiness in my stomach. I told the old Saint of my love for chicken drumsticks deep-fried in bread batter...
[to be continued]
