The Frigidaire - North Africa: Literary Crossroads

Literary Review, Wntr, 1998 by Salah Garmadi, Hedi Abdel-Jaouad

One day my leg stopped loving me. It hurt. In order to punish it, I got in the habit of leaving her behind at home whenever I went out. It was in this manner that I went all over town in public, limping, supported by crutches. Each time I came back home I would however retrieve my hostile leg, caress it, massage and reassure it, which allowed me to put it back and walk around the house without limping, though carried by two legs that were equally in love with me.

But one year and three months later, upon leaving home on a mild February afternoon, suddenly it was the other leg which in turn ceased to love me. It too hurt. To punish both, I put them, not without their consent, in a hundred per cent genuine Frigidaire. I intended, through this somewhat trivial gesture, to save them for better days. This enabled me to present myself to the town's people as a legless person, crawling about as honorably as I could, carried by two elegant little ball bearing wheels.

Once at home, I noticed that both of my frozen legs refused, despite my caresses and massages, to resume loving me. So, to punish both, I got in the habit of planting them several times a day in my garden, in hopes that they might sprout two nice little leg offsprings which, when bigger, might perhaps love me. My legs should perhaps have no reason to say, as did my two old ones before when they conversed at night, while I slept like three logs [dormir sur mes trois oreilles]: "He loves us no more. He says we are hurting him, though it is he who is hurting us with all the weight that he's had us carry for tens of years, and especially since, as a married man, his wife began making him "little dishes" [petits plats].

But despite my multiple and repeated sprayings, nothing grew, not even the tiniest bit of nail of the tiniest bit of toe. I then decided to put those barren legs which I once used as legs back in the Frigidaire. Thus I was, even at home, compelled to crawl, always honorably carried by my two elegant little red ball bearing wheels. In order to save time, I kept them on in my sleep, so I didn't have to nail them back to the stumps of my thighs. In order to win their friendship, if not their love, I began to caress my two elegant carrying wheels, and shower them in the evening before going to bed with all kinds of care: massages with Bengay balsam then, when they protested, with Algipan; I also had them marinated in olive oil, vinegar and basil . . . etc. . . . etc.

Then one day, without the slightest warning, my left wheel suddenly stopped loving me. The pin that attached it to my stump hurt me in the thigh. To punish it, I got in the habit of leaving my left thigh with its little wheel at home. Again, I had to use crutches in public and even at home because my wheel-thigh, unlike my leg which is now in the Frigidaire, systematically refused to love me again when I returned home, in spite of my Algipan massages and in spite of the fact that I had consented to replace the marinading vinegar with one of the best wines in the country.

Exactly four years five months three days later, it was a Thursday, I remember, generally a day devoted to my weekly quarrel with my wife, it was the other wheel and the other thighs turn to stop loving me without prior notice. Again I had to crawl around town and around my house, but this time directly on the base of my trunk. Crawl is not, however, the right word, for it was hardly possible to do so, with all of my basin bones which produced quite an unbearable squeak on the town's sandy sidewalks. it would therefore and undoubtedly be more accurate to say that I hopped on my trunk in successive elegant leaps, as elegant as I could, like a female kangaroo whose hind legs and tail were gnawed at by her mate. After several fruitless attempts at gardening, the wheels-thighs ended up joining my legs in the Frigidaire; the thighs were quite willing to grow and multiply, but the wheels obstinately refused to fall to allow for the legs and the feet to form. Thusly, after seeing both of my thighs rise day after day up to the top of the eucalyptus tree in my garden, though still invariably holding, at both ends, their two elegant little red ball bearing wheels, and overcome by sudden despair, I ended up putting them, also, in the Frigidaire, after having cut them carefully into sections to fit them in. By so doing, I actually wanted to save them for better days. Some genius might one day discover some great manure capable not only of growing back thighs but more especially of ridding them, just at the right time, of their carrying-wheels, so that the legs and feet might thus reform in total peace.

But ten years and two weeks after these events which (all considered, they are only quite despairing on the surface) continued to take--at least some aspects of them--a relatively comical turn, my trunk, tired of my successive and elegant leaps and the shocks--deemed by him to be humiliating--to which I subjected it on the asphalted streets, with everyone's knowledge, especially my office manager and the patrons of the Grand Cafe, my trunk, as I said, suddenly stopped loving me. It hurt. I tried, though, to wrap it in little rag bands in order to absorb the shocks, but the little sly one amused itself by cutting them as I put them on, pretending that my action was a proof of lack of confidence. To punish it, I could not help, driven as I was by some quasi-invincible force, but to leave it home; in other words, I placed it purely and simply on top of my legs and thighs, on the third shelf of my huge Frigidaire. In so doing, I was surprised to discover that I couldn't any longer rely on my famous "best days," for, far from being preserved in the hundred per cent genuine Frigidaire, quite the opposite, my legs and thighs had shrunk beyond recognition. One would have thought them to be the limbs of some dwarf who had escaped from some palace court. Especially the two wheels, which were already little and elegant, had become so infinitesimal that I had all the trouble in the world recounting their balls. I was therefore compelled to go out in public and to continue my life at home with only my head and my two arm& I managed, quite easily, it must be said, a new deambulatory undertaking which would have filled me with joy, had I had the time and the possibility to observe myself. Perched on my two hands, with my head hanging, I went all over town in this upside-down position, with the wind whistling in my hair, as the song went [comme disait l'autre). In brief, I walked on the palms of my hands to which I had attached especially fitted sandals, and which cost me, by the way, a great deal, on account of the leather shortage. Still there remained hope to see at least my trunk preserved intact in the Frigidaire for better--if not at least not so bad--days. Besides, this relatively original manner of showing myself in public had earned several social successes. People did not pursue their humour as (on ne poussait pas l'humour] to accept to dance with me, but I was often invited to jumping sessions where I had already excelled during my jumping-trunk period. People had so much fun watching me that, as a consequence, several divorce cases were avoided and this kind of gathering became a lot less unbearable to my best friend and to me, if I so dare express myself.