The Necessary Beggar

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Authors: Susan Palwick
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return to Lémabantunk, because Darroti’s fear kept him tethered to them for too long, at least now they will not be stuck in the refugee camp because he is a criminal. He wrote them a note to tell them this. The note, written in their own beloved language, is in the pocket of his tunic. They will find it soon, and then they will know why he has done this. Because he loves them.
    They find it; an American soldier finds it, and gently hands it to Timbor, putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder. Timbor reads it. Now he will smile and be relieved.
    He doesn’t smile or look relieved. He puts a hand to his face, over his eyes; he weeps and staggers and holds out the note in a clenched fist to Erolorit, who takes it and reads, who hurls the paper with an oath to the ground, and Harani bends and picks it up and reads, tight-lipped, and hands it to Macsofo, who is sitting up now, his face and front smeared with dirt. Zamatryna stands with her arms around her grandfather, watching wide-eyed as the paper passes from hand to hand.
    Darroti’s note has not helped them, as he intended. It has all gone wrong. Everything he does goes wrong. That is his curse.
    It is full morning now; a crowd has gathered to gape. The soldiers keep them back. Some people in white come, and Darroti watches as his empty body is cut down from the fence and gently laid on a stretcher, where it is covered with a sheet. One of the doctors closes Darroti’s eyes, which will never see anything again. Darroti finds it oddly touching, this quiet reverence from someone who does not even know him.
    The doctor who closed Darroti’s eyes speaks now to Zamatryna, who speaks to Timbor and the others, who nod. Darroti’s body is taken away. Darroti’s spirit remains, bobbing above his family, and when they turn at last from the fence and, leaning heavily upon one another, make their way
haltingly back to their tent, he is pulled along behind them, like a child’s toy on a string.
    They are back inside the tent now, and so is he, watching as they tell Aliniana and the cousins what has happened. Aliniana becomes a wailing, crumpled heap of cloth upon her bed, and the children, lower lips trembling, rush to their grandfather, who collapses now too, wracked with grief. Harani rocks Zamatryna. Erolorit and Macsofo curse and rage and shout, and their fury buffets him where he hangs beneath the ceiling.
    They hate him. He loves them, did what he did only out of love for them, and they hate him. He turns all love for him into scorn and rage. He wonders helplessly how anyone could ever have loved him: his family or Gallicina, the daughter of the third cousin of the second wife of the Prime Minister, who was far too good for the drunken youngest son of a carpet merchant.
    Beautiful, brave Gallicina, who fought for the right to be a Mendicant, that she might have equal standing in the Temple. How she must hate him now, for his clumsiness and stupidity! How he hates himself! He cannot bear to think of it. He cannot bear to watch his family, whose pain skewers him. Impaled, he twists and tries to flee, tries to escape through the roof of the tent, but he is trapped here by their tears.
    Americans have come now, to counsel and comfort: someone in green, someone in white, someone in black wearing a pendant of crossed sticks, the symbol for silence. The person with the pendant, oddly, talks most of all. Little Zamatryna looks bewildered as she translates for the others, who stare stonily at the speaker.
    He wishes that he could hear what they are saying. All he can perceive is the family’s emotions, an oceanic expanse of loss. How can they grieve to lose him, who was only a burden to them? How can they hate him and so desperately mourn him at the same time?
    It is unendurable; the feelings are unendurable. If he were still alive he would kill himself again, to be away from these feelings, but of course he would not be away from them, for he is

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