The High Mountains of Portugal

by Yann Martel

  It is a good hour before he heads off. The problem does not lie in starting the automobile. That, after seeing Sabio do it so many times, is manageable. Arms straight, back straight, legs doing the work, he turns the starting handle. The warm engine seems disposed to starting again. The problem lies in getting the machine moving. Whatever permutation of pedals and levers he uses, the end result is always the same: a grinding squeal or an angry barking, often quite violent, with no movement forward. He takes breaks. He sits in the driving compartment. He stands next to the automobile. He goes for short walks. Sitting on the footboard, he eats bread, ham, cheese, dried figs, and he drinks wine. It is a joyless meal. The automobile is always on his mind. It stands there, looking incongruous on the side of the road. The horse and ox traffic going by notice it--and notice him--but so close to Lisbon, either coming or going, the drivers hurry their animals on, only shouting or waving a greeting. He does not have to explain himself.

  At last it happens. After countless fruitless efforts, he presses on the accelerator pedal and the machine advances. He mightily wrenches the steerage wheel in the direction he hopes is the correct one. It is.

  The vehicle is now in the centre of the road and moving ahead. To avoid the ditch on either side, he has to hold his ship to a single fixed course: the narrow, shrunken horizon dead ahead. Maintaining a straight line towards that bottomless dot is exhausting. The machine constantly wants to veer off course, and there are bumps and holes in the road.

  There are people too, who stare harder the farther he gets from Lisbon. Worse, though, are the large drays and carts heavily laden with goods and produce for the city. They appear ahead of him, plugging the horizon. As they get closer, they seem to take up an increasing share of the road. They clip-clop slowly, confidently, stupidly, while he races towards them. He has to calculate his course exactly so that he drives next to them and not into them. His eyes tire from the strain and his hands hurt from gripping the steerage wheel.

  Suddenly, he has had enough. He presses on a pedal. The automobile coughs to a harsh stop, throwing him against the steerage wheel. He steps down, exhausted but relieved. He blinks in astonishment. The application of the brake pedal has unpacked the landscape and it billows out around him, trees, hills, and vineyards to his left, textured fields and the Tagus to his right. He saw none of these while he was driving. There was only the devouring road ahead. What luck to live in a land that so unceasingly agrees to be agreeable. No wonder wine is made here. The road is now empty and he is alone. In the dying light of the day, wispy and opal, he is soothed by the quiet of an early evening in the country. He remembers lines from Father Ulisses' diary, which he recites under his breath:

  I come not to shepherd the free, but the unfree. The first have their own church. My flock's church has no walls & a ceiling that reaches up to the Lord.

  With his lungs and with his eyes, Tomas takes in the open church around him, the soft fecund appeal of Portugal. He doesn't know how far he has travelled, but surely more than he would have on foot. Enough for a first day. Tomorrow he will apply himself further.

  Constructing a shelter from a rain tarp seems a great bother. He chooses instead to make a bedroom of the enclosed back cabin, as his uncle suggested, which leads him to inspect his uncle's contribution to the expedition. He finds: lightweight pots and pans; a small burner that works on white cubes of dried spirit; a bowl, a plate, a cup, utensils, all of metal; soup powder; rolls and loaves of bread; dried meats and fish; sausages; fresh vegetables; fresh and dried fruit; olives; cheese; milk powder; cocoa powder; coffee; honey; cookies and biscuits; a bottle of cooking oil; spices and condiments; a large jug of water; the motoring coat with its attending items, the gloves, the hat, the hideous goggles; six automobile tires; rope; an axe; a sharp knife; matches and candles; a compass; a blank notebook; lead pencils; a set of maps; a French-Portuguese dictionary; the Renault manual; wool blankets; the box of tools and other motoring necessities; the barrel of moto-naphtha; the canvas rain tarp, with lanyards and pegs; and more.

  So many things! His uncle's excessive solicitude means that he has difficulty making space for himself in the cabin. When he has cleared the sofa, he tries lying down on it. It's not very long--to sleep on it, he would have to lie with his knees tucked in. He peers through the wide front window of the cabin into the driving compartment. The seat there is a tad firm, but flat and level, more like a bench, and because it's not boxed in at either end by a door he will be able to stretch his feet out.

  He picks out bread, dried cod, olives, a wineskin, his uncle's coat, as well as the automobile manual and the dictionary, and transfers back to the driving compartment. He lies on his back on the seat, feet sticking out of the compartment. Doing as he was told by his uncle, he settles down to some motoring study, his hands holding the automobile manual, the dictionary lying on his chest.

  It turns out that lubrication is a serious affair. With dawning horror, he realizes that the gears, the clutch, the clutch cup, the back axle, the front and back joints of the transmission shaft, the bearings of all the wheels, the joints of the front axle, the spindle axle bearings, the connecting axles, the joints of the driving rod, the magneto shaft, the hinges of the doors, and the list goes on--essentially everything that moves in the machine--needs obsessive lubrication. Many of these need a little squirt every morning before the engine is started, some need it every two to three days, others once a week, while with still others it's a question of mileage. He sees the automobile in a different light: It is a hundred little chicks chirping frantically, their necks extended and their beaks opened wide, their whole beings trembling with need as they scream for their drops of oil. How will he keep track of all these begging mouths? How much simpler were the instructions for Father Ulisses' gift! These turned out to be no more than a plea that good Portuguese craftsmen back home, blessed with access to the highest-quality paint, should do a proper job of repainting his masterwork. In the meantime he had to do with poor local substitutes.

  As the night freshens, Tomas is thankful for his uncle's coat. The mink is warm and soft. He falls asleep imagining that the coat is Dora. She too was warm and soft, and gentle and graceful, and beautiful and caring. But the ministrations of Dora are overcome by worry--all those begging mouths!--and he sleeps poorly.

  The next morning, after breakfast, he finds the oiling can and he follows the manual's directives line by line, illustration by illustration, paragraph after paragraph, page after page. He lubricates the entire automobile, which involves not only lifting the hood up on its hinges and sticking his head in the machine's entrails, but removing the floor of the driving compartment to access parts of its anatomy there, and even crawling on the ground and sliding under the machine. It is a tiresome, finicky, dirty business. Then he gives it water. After that, he has to confront a pressing problem. The machine, which his uncle claimed was at the acme of technological perfection, fails to provide one of the more basic feats of technology: plumbing. He has to use the leaves of a nearby shrub.

  The starting up of the cold engine is long and painful. If only his limbs were stronger. Then there is the maddening conundrum of getting the machine to giddy-up once it is huffing and rattling. From the moment of waking to the moment when the machine fortuitously jerks forward, four hours pass. He grips the wheel and focuses on the road. He approaches Povoa de Santa Iria, a small town near Lisbon, the closest settlement to the northeast of the capital on this road, a place that until then has lain dormant in the atlas of his mind. His heart beats like a drum as he enters the town.

  Men appear with napkins hanging from their shirt fronts, a chicken leg or other repast in their hands, and stare. Barbers holding foaming brushes, followed by men with shaving foam lathered on their faces, run out, and stare. A group of old women make the sign of the cross, and stare. Men stop their talking, and stare. Women stop their shopping, and stare. An old man makes a military salute, and stares. Two women laugh in fright, and stare. A bench of old men
chew with their toothless jaws, and stare. Children shriek, run to hide, and stare. A horse neighs and makes to buck, startling its driver, and stares. Sheep in a pen off the main street bleat in despair, and stare. Cattle low, and stare. A donkey brays, and stares. Dogs bark, and stare.

  In the midst of this excruciating visual autopsy, Tomas fails to press hard enough on the accelerator pedal. The machine coughs once, twice, then dies. He jabs at the pedal. Nothing happens. He closes his eyes to contain his frustration. After a moment he opens them and looks around. In front of him, to the sides of him, behind him, a thousand eyeballs, human and animal, are staring at him. Not a sound is to be heard.

  The eyeballs blink, and the silence crumbles. Imperceptibly, shyly, the people of Povoa de Santa Iria ooze forward, pressing the automobile on all sides until they are ten, fifteen thick.

  Some are wreathed in smiles and pepper him with questions.

  "Who are you?"

  "Why have you stopped?"

  "How does it work?"

  "What does it cost?"

  "Are you rich?"

  "Are you married?"

  A few glare and grumble.

  "Have you no pity for our ears?"

  "Why do you throw so much dust in our faces?"

  Children shout silly questions.

  "What's its name?"

  "What does it eat?"

  "Is the horse in the cabin?"

  "What does its caca look like?"

  Many people come forward to stroke the machine. Most simply stare in benign silence. The man of the military salute salutes every time Tomas happens to look his way. In the background, the sheep, horses, donkeys, and dogs start up again with their respective noises.

  After an hour of idle talk with the townspeople, it becomes clear to Tomas that they will not go away until he has left their town. He has somewhere to go; they don't.

  He must, at this moment, overcome his natural reticence. In a morass of self-consciousness, digging deep into his inner reserves, he climbs out of the driving compartment, stands on the footboard, and asks the people to move away from the front of the machine. The people do not seem to hear or understand. He exhorts them--but they only creep forward again and again, in ever greater numbers. There develops such a crush of people around the automobile that he has to squeeze himself between bodies to get to the starting handle, and he has to push them back to make space to turn it. Some gawkers stand on the footboards. Others even make to clamber into the driving compartment, though a stony glare dissuades them. Children, grins plastered upon their faces, keep squeezing the horn's rubber bulb with demented glee.

  Fatefully, after several trips to the starting handle and yet another bout of plying pedals and levers, the vehicle leaps forward, then promptly dies. Cries erupt all round as the people in front of the machine shriek and clutch their chests in fright. Women scream, children wail, men mutter. The military man stops saluting.

  Tomas shouts apologies, strikes the steerage wheel, reprimands the automobile in the strongest terms. He jumps out to help the affronted people. He kicks the vehicle's tires. He slaps its elephant-ear mudguards. He insults its ugly hood. He fiercely turns the starting handle, putting the machine in its place. All to no positive effect. The goodwill of the people of Povoa de Santa Iria has evaporated in the wintry Portuguese sun.

  He hurries back to the driving compartment. Miraculously, the automobile whines, shakes itself, and tiptoes ahead. The people of Povoa de Santa Iria part fearfully before him and the road opens up. He urges the machine on.

  He determinedly roars through the next town, Alverca do Ribatejo, keeping his foot firmly on the accelerator pedal. He ignores all the people and their stares. It is the same with the town of Alhandra. Past Alhandra he sees a sign saying Porto Alto, pointing to the right, off the main road, to the Tagus. Three bridges span two small islands. He peers across to the flat, desolate countryside beyond the river's eastern shore and brings the automobile to a halt.

  He turns the engine off and fetches the maps of Portugal from the cabin. There are a number of these, neatly folded and labelled, a national map and regional ones of Estremadura, Ribatejo, Alto Alentejo, Beira Baixa, Beira Alta, Douro Litoral, and Alto Douro. There are even maps of the neighbouring Spanish provinces of Caceres, Salamanca, and Zamora. It seems his uncle has prepared him for every conceivable route to the High Mountains of Portugal, including the wayward and lost.

  He examines the national map. Exactly as he thought. To the west and north of the Tagus, along or near Portugal's littoral, the land is crowded with towns and cities. By comparison, the backcountry beyond the river, to the east of the Tagus and in the lands bordering Spain, reassures him with the sparseness of its settlements. Only Castelo Branco, Covilha, and Guarda glare with urban danger. Perhaps he can find ways to avoid them. Otherwise, what motorist would be afraid of settlements such as Rosmaninhal, Meimoa, or Zava? He has never heard of these obscure villages.

  He starts the automobile and plies different pedals and pushes the change-speed lever into first gear. Fortune favours him. He turns to the right and works his way down the road to the bridges. On the cusp of the first bridge, he hesitates. It is a wooden bridge. He remembers about the thirty horses. But surely the engine does not weigh thirty horses? He is mindful of Father Ulisses' experience on water, sailing from Angola to his new mission on Sao Tome:

  Travelling over water is a form of hell, all the more so in a cramped & fetid slave ship holding five hundred & fifty-two slaves & their thirty-six European keepers. We are plagued by periods of dead calm, then rough seas. The slaves moan & cry at all hours of the day & night. The hot stench of their quarters seeps through the whole ship.

  Tomas presses on. He is not bedevilled by slaves, only ghosts. And his ship must only make three jumps over a river. The crossing of the bridges is a rumbling affair. He fears that he will drive the machine off them. When he has escaped the third bridge and reached the eastern shore of the river, he is too rattled to drive on. He decides that since he is motoring, perhaps he should properly learn how to motor. He stops and retrieves what he needs from the cabin. Sitting behind the steerage wheel, manual and dictionary at hand, he applies himself to learning the proper operation of the change-speed lever, the clutch pedal, and the accelerator pedal. The manual is illuminating, but the knowledge he gains from it is purely theoretical. Its application is the rub. He finds moving smoothly from neutral gear--as his uncle called it, though he finds nothing neutral about it--to first gear insuperably difficult. Over the course of the rest of the day, in jarring fits and starts, he advances perhaps five hundred metres, the machine roaring and coughing and shuddering and stopping the whole way. He curses until nightfall sends him to bed.

  In the dimming light, as fingers of cold reach for him, he seeks calm in Father Ulisses' diary.

  If the Empire be a man, then the hand that is holding up a solid gold bullion is Angola, while the other that is jingling pennies in the pocket--that is Sao Tome.

  So the priest quotes an aggrieved trader. Tomas has studied the history that Father Ulisses is fated to live: The priest set foot on Sao Tome between sugar and chocolate, between the island's time as a leading exporter of sugar, in the late sixteenth century, and of the chocolate bean now, in the early twentieth century. He would live the rest of his short life at the start of a three-century-long trough of poverty, stagnation, despair, and decadence, a time when Sao Tome was an island of half-abandoned plantations and feuding elites who made the better part of their meagre living off the living, that is, from the slave trade. The island supplied slave ships with provisions--water, wood, yams, maize flour, fruit--and exploited some slaves for its own needs--the ongoing marginal production of sugar, cotton, rice, ginger, and palm oil--but the white islanders mainly acted as slave brokers. They could not dream of rivalling Angola's vast and endless domestic supply, but the Bight of Benin was at their doorstep across the Gulf of Guinea and that coast was rich with slaves. The island was both an idea
l way station for a ship about to cross the Atlantic, the hellish voyage that came to be called the Middle Passage--such an intestinal expression, Tomas thought--and an excellent back door into Portuguese Brazil and its ravenous hunger for slave labour. And so the slaves came, in their thousands. "This pocket jingles with dazed African souls," Father Ulisses comments.

  That he travelled to Sao Tome on a slave ship was not incidental. He had applied to be a slave priest, a priest assigned to the salvation of the souls of slaves. "I want to serve the humblest of the humble, those whose souls Man has forgot but God hasn't." He explains his urgent new mission on Sao Tome:

  A century & a half ago some Hebraic children, in ages from 2 to 8 yrs, were brought to the island. From these noxious seeds a wretched plant grew that spread its poison to all the soil, polluting the unwary. My mission is twice then--once more to bring the African soul to God & further to tear away from that soul the foul grappling roots of the Jew. I spend my days at the port, a sentinel of the Lord, waiting for slave ships to bring in their bounty. When one arrives, I board it and christen the Africans & read the Bible to them. You are all God's children, I repeat to them tirelessly. I also draw the odd sketch.

  That is his duty, which he fulfils with unquestioning diligence: to welcome strangers to a faith they do not follow in a language they do not understand. At this stage in his diary, Father Ulisses appears to be a churchman typical of his time, steeped in the Lord, steeped in ignorance and contempt. That will change, Tomas knows.

  He falls asleep in an unsettled frame of mind. He cannot find comfort in the automobile, neither in driving it nor in sleeping in it.

  In the morning he would like to wash, but neither soap nor towel is to be found in the cabin. After the usual motoring difficulties he sets off. The road through a dull, flat landscape of tilled fields leads him to Porto Alto, which is a larger town than he expected. His skill in getting the automobile going has improved, but whatever composure this new ability gives him is seriously undermined by the surge of people who appear on all sides. People wave, people shout, people come close. A young man runs alongside the automobile. "Hello!" he shouts.