The Devil's Larder

26

MONDAZY IS the greatest writer from this town, but not the wealthiest. That honour rests with Alicja Lesniak (a pseudonym), who wrote The Boulevard of Perfect Health and The Well of Wellbeing and sold more than a million copies of each in seven years, not out of bookshops but from cardboard serve-yourself stands inside pharmacies and fitness clubs worldwide. The day after she died, from a stroke in her seventy-first year and not five kilometres from here, the local newspaper attached to its obituary a photograph of Lesniak, looking oddly robust in the driveway of her villa, and the following transcript from one of her famously assertive radio broadcasts:

If you wish to banish migraines from your life avoid the following: champagne, wine and wheat-based alcohol, malt beers, hard cheese (particularly English Cheddars and blue varieties), coffee, all forms of chocolate, strong pickles, cigarettes, rhubarb, spinach, tomatoes, cereals, cola, and meats excepting white fish, prawns and chicken breast.

Set a day aside each week for fasting, and an hour every morning for meditation in a screened or darkened room, refreshed only by bottled water, not sparkling. That’s a hidden stimulant.

On other days, eat nothing but fruit, preferably pears, before midday, and never drink after your (early) evening meal, except weak tea or water.

Try to include cooked onions or some garlic with every dish. Carrots, too, are generally regarded as safe. Throw sugar, salt and spices in the kitchen bin. They’re irritants and, incidentally, ruinous for your complexion. It might be a good idea as well to reduce domestic static by taking your television to the tip and not bothering to renew the radio batteries. Unplug the telephone. A migraine flourishes in noise. Cars and public transport do not help. Nor does a stressful job, nor arguments at home. Do not take over-heated baths. Do not keep pets.

Migraines are occasioned by modern life. Eschew it if you can. Migraines are driven off by purity of spirit. Embrace it if you can. It’s best, in all, to live a monkish life, avoid most work except the gentlest, and concentrate on keeping all the pain at bay. You owe it to yourself, no matter what your family or friends might say.

Once you’ve been clear of migraines for three months, it might be tempting to introduce into your diet one of the foods you’ve missed the most, but this could cause a more vigorous recurrence of your allergy. It’s wiser to be patient and complete the journey until you’ve truly reached ‘the Boulevard of Perfect Health’. You will, of course, have hunger headaches during this regime, but they shouldn’t be confused with migraines, though they might feel just as punishing and last as long.

Within six months, the benefits should start to manifest themselves. Where there was once discomfort, you will now encounter evidence of the kinder and less brutal world ahead. Within nine months your migraines will be vanquished. You’ll feel wide-eyed, clear-headed and smooth-browed. Then you’ll be calm enough to cope with any pain and strong enough, once in a while, to risk a little coffee or some cheese.

Mondazy, incidentally, wrote in his last year, aged ninety-two, this little jeu d’esprit for his great-grandson: