The High Mountains of Portugal

by Yann Martel

  His efforts have been futile. The tree mocks him. Still entangled in the branches, he slumps. He begins to sob awkwardly. He closes his eyes and abandons himself to grief.

  He hears the voice just before a hand touches his shoulder.

  "My friend, you are hurt."

  He looks up, startled. A peasant has materialized out of the air. Such a bright white shirt he is wearing. Tomas chokes on his last sob and wipes his face with the back of his hand.

  "You've been thrown so far!" says the man.

  "Yes," replies Tomas.

  The man is looking at the automobile and the tree. Tomas understood him to mean how far he was projected from the tree (which, in fact, he hasn't been at all; he's in the tree, like a bird in its nest). But the peasant meant from the automobile. He must think that Tomas crashed into the tree and was projected from the vehicle into its branches.

  "My hands and feet hurt. And I'm so thirsty!" Tomas says.

  The peasant wraps one of his arms around his waist. Though short, he's a powerful man and he lifts Tomas off the ground. He half-carries him to the automobile, setting him down on the footboard. Tomas massages his ankles.

  "Anything broken?" the man asks.

  "No. Just bruised."

  "Have some water."

  The man produces a gourd. Tomas drinks from it greedily.

  "Thank you. For the water and for your help. I'm most grateful. My name is Tomas."

  "My name is Simao."

  Simao gazes at the fallen tree and the automobile's broken windows, burned-out cabin, and many dents and scratches. "What a terrible accident! Such a powerful machine!" he exclaims.

  Tomas hopes Simao doesn't notice the axe on the ground.

  "Pity about the tree," Simao adds.

  "Is it yours?"

  "No. This is Casimiro's grove."

  For the first time Tomas looks at the tree not as an obstacle in his way but as a being in its own right. "How old was it?"

  "By the looks of it, two to three hundred years old. A good one, producing plenty of olives."

  Tomas is aghast. "I'm so sorry. Casimiro will be very angry."

  "No, he'll understand. Accidents happen to all of us."

  "Tell me, is Casimiro somewhat older, with a round face and greying hair?"

  "Yes, that would describe Casimiro."

  As it would the peasant from last night, the one who watched Tomas's vermin dance. Tomas suspects that Casimiro will see the events in his olive grove in a different, less forgiving light.

  "Do you think the machine will still work?" asks Simao.

  "I'm sure it will," replies Tomas. "It's a solid thing. But I need to move it backwards. That's my problem."

  "Put it in neutral and we'll push it."

  That word again. Tomas is not sure why the machine's neutrality will allow it to move backwards, but Simao seems to know what he's talking about.

  "It's already in neutral. Only the hand brake needs to be released," Tomas says.

  He puts his shoes back on and climbs into the driving compartment. With a sore hand, he releases the hand brake. Nothing happens. He doubts Simao's quick fix will yield anything more fruitful than his own tree-chopping solution.

  "Come," says Simao.

  Tomas joins him at the front of the automobile. This notion of pushing the automobile is preposterous. Still, to be polite to the man who has so obligingly helped him and is now ready beside him to push, he places a shoulder against the automobile.

  "One--two--three!" cries Simao, and he pushes, and Tomas too, though not very hard.

  To his amazement, the automobile moves. He's so amazed, in fact, that he forgets to move with it and he falls flat on his face. In a matter of seconds, the vehicle stands three lengths from the tree.

  Simao is beaming. "What an astonishing machine!"

  "Yes, it is," says Tomas, incredulous.

  As he picks himself up off the ground, he discreetly takes hold of the axe. Placing it close to his leg, he returns it to the cabin. Simao is still gazing at the automobile with unbounded admiration.

  Tomas would like nothing better than to stay where he is for the night, but the prospect of Casimiro arriving on the scene, and having to explain the attack on his quarter-millennium olive tree, strongly advises against the option. Besides, he's lost. If he stays the night, he will still be lost in the morning.

  "Simao, I was wondering if you might help me find my way out of here. I seem to have got lost."

  "Where do you want to go? To Nisa?"

  "No, I've just come from there. I'm heading for Vila Velha de Rodao."

  "Vila Velha? You have got very lost. But it's no problem. I know the way."

  "That's wonderful. Might you help me start the automobile?"

  With the condition his hands are in, the idea of having to turn the starting handle makes Tomas feel faint. He supposes Simao will take pleasure in it. He's right. The peasant's face breaks into a wide grin.

  "Yes, of course. What do you want me to do?"

  Tomas shows him the starting handle and the direction in which to turn it. As the machine explodes to life, Simao might as well be struck by lightning--the effect is the same. Tomas waves at him to get into the driving compartment and Simao scampers aboard. Tomas puts the vehicle into first gear, and as it moves forward he glances at his passenger. His face confirms what Tomas already suspected from watching his uncle: The machine turns grown men into little boys. Simao's weathered features are transformed by delight. If he shrieked and giggled, Tomas would not be surprised.

  "Which way should I go?" he asks.

  Simao points. Every few minutes Simao corrects his course and soon the trace of a track appears. Then a proper track, smoother and verged. The driving becomes easier and faster. Simao's delight continues undiminished.

  After a good half hour of driving, they reach a true, blessed road. Tomas stops the automobile.

  "I never thought I'd be so happy to see a road. So which way is Vila Velha de Rodao?" he asks.

  Simao indicates to the right.

  "Thank you very much, Simao. You've been of invaluable help. I must reward you." Tomas reaches into the pocket of his charred jacket.

  Simao shakes his head. With a struggle, as if his tongue has been lost deep inside his body, he speaks. "My reward is having been in this amazing carriage. It is I who thank you."

  "It's nothing. I'm sorry I've taken you so far out of your way."

  "It's not so far on foot."

  Simao reluctantly vacates the passenger seat, and Tomas prods the machine onward. "Thank you, thank you again," he shouts.

  Simao waves until he disappears from view in the side mirror.

  Shortly thereafter, with a dragging to one side and a fluf-fluf-fluf-fluf sound, Tomas realizes that something is wrong. He presses on one pedal, then another.

  It takes a few walkabouts around the vehicle before he sees that the front right tire is--he searches for the word--flat. The roundness of the wheel is no longer so round. There were some pages in the manual about this eventuality. He skipped them when it became apparent that the wheels, in their roundness, at least, did not require lubrication. He retrieves the manual and finds the appropriate section. He blanches. This is serious engineering work. He can see that even before he has translated the details from the French.

  Understanding the nature and operation of the jack; assembling it; finding where it must be placed under the automobile; jacking the automobile up; unbolting and removing the wheel; replacing it with the spare wheel from the footboard; tightly bolting the fresh wheel into place; returning everything to its proper place--an experienced motorist might do it in half an hour. It takes him, with his raw hands, two hours.

  At last, his hands sullied and throbbing, his body sweaty and aching, the task is done. He should be pleased that he can proceed again, but all he feels is mortal exhaustion. He retreats to the driving compartment and stares out in front of him. His head is prickly, as is the unwanted beard that is gro
wing on his face. "Enough! Enough!" he whispers. What does suffering do to a man? Does it open him up? Does he understand any more as a result of his suffering? In the case of Father Ulisses, for the longest time it seems the answer to these questions was no. Tomas remembers a telling incident:

  Today I saw a fight on a plantation. Two slaves clashed. Others stood about, with stupefied expressions. A female slave, the object of contention, looked on, impassive, indifferent. Whoever won, she would lose. Continually shouting in their native gibberish, the two fought, at first with words & gestures, then their fists, then their tools. The matter proceeded swiftly, from injured prides to injured bodies, from bruising & bleeding to frenzied hacking, till the end was reached: a dead slave with a torso cleft with deep cuts & a half-severed head. Whereupon the other slaves, the female included, turned & got back to their work lest the overseer arrive on the scene. The victor slave, his visage apathetic, threw some soil on the body, then returned to cutting cane. None of the slaves will come forward to acknowledge or explain, to accuse or defend. Just silence & the hoeing of sugar cane. The dead man's decay will be rapid, started by insects & predatory birds & beasts & accelerated by the sun & rain. Soon nothing but a lump will be left of him. Only if the overseer directly steps onto this lump will its gashed blackness reveal white bones & decaying red flesh. Then the overseer will know the whereabouts of the slave who went missing.

  Of this appalling scene, Father Ulisses has only one significant comment to make:

  Such were the Lord's wounds, like that dead slave's injuries. His hands, his feet, his forehead where the crown of thorns pierced his skin & especially the wound on his side from the soldier's spear--carmine red, very, very bright, a pull on the eyes.

  Such was the suffering of Christ: "carmine red" and a "pull on the eyes". But the suffering of the two men who fought to death before his very eyes? They are not worth a word. No more than the spectator slaves would Father Ulisses come forward to acknowledge or explain, to accuse or to defend. He seems to have been deaf and dumb to the suffering of the slaves. Or, to be more accurate, he seems to have seen nothing peculiar about it: They suffer, but so do I--so what of it?

  The land begins to change as Tomas drives on. The Portugal that he knows is a land solemn in its beauty. A land that prizes the sound of work, both human and animal. A land devoted to duty. Now an element of wilderness begins to intrude. Great outcrops of round rocks. Dark green vegetation that is dry and scrubby. Wandering flocks of goats and sheep. He sees the High Mountains of Portugal foreshadowed in these extrusions of rocks, like the roots of a tree that break above ground, heralding the tree itself.

  He is fretful. He is approaching Castelo Branco, which is a proper city, the largest on his deliberately rural route. An idea strikes him: He will drive through the city in the middle of the night. Thus will he avoid people, because it is people who are the problem. Streets, avenues, boulevards--these he can handle, if people aren't staring and shouting and congregating. If he crosses Castelo Branco at, say, two in the morning in full-throttle third gear, he will likely meet only the odd nightshift worker or drunkard.

  When Castelo Branco is near, he leaves the automobile behind and makes his way into the city on foot, backwards as always. He hitches a ride with a man driving a cart, which is fortunate, as the distance to the city turns out to be considerable. The man asks if he saw the strange carriage down the road. He says that he did, without mentioning that he is its driver. The man speaks of the machine in terms of wonder and worry. It's the quantity of metal that surprises him, he says. It reminds him of a safe.

  In Castelo Branco Tomas determines the route he should take. He is pleased to discover that the road continuing to the north of the country mostly avoids the city, circling it on its northwest side. Only the junction with the road is tricky.

  He tells three apothecaries his horses-afflicted-with-lice story, which gets him ten bottles of moto-naphtha and, as an unfortunate corollary, three tins of horse lice powder. He carries these in two bags, evenly balanced. He decides to check in to a hotel for the day to wash himself and rest, but the two hotels he finds refuse to admit him, as does the restaurant he seeks to eat in. The proprietors look him up and down, study his singed face and burned hair--one pinches his nose--and they all point to the door. He is too tired to protest. He buys food from a grocer and eats on a bench in a park. He drinks water from a fountain, gulping it avidly, splashing it over his face and head, scrubbing at the soot plastered to his scalp. He wishes he'd remembered to bring the two wineskins, which he could have filled with water. Then he walks in reverse back to the automobile, watching Castelo Branco recede into the distance.

  He waits in the cabin for night to fall, idly leafing through the diary to pass the time.

  The provenance of the slaves on Sao Tome was at first a matter of concern and interest to Father Ulisses--he named the newcomers' origins in his diary: "from the Mbundu tribe" or "the Chokwe tribe." But he was hazier on the origins of slaves who came from outside the Portuguese sphere of influence in Africa, and Sao Tome, being usefully located, saw slave ships of every nationality--Dutch, English, French, Spanish--and soon he grew weary as a result of the slaves' too-great numbers. They received his weakening blessing in a state of increasing anonymity. "Does it matter," he wrote, "wherefrom a soul comes? The exiles of Eden are varied. A soul is a soul, to be blessed & brought to the love of God."

  But one day there was a change. Father Ulisses wrote with uncharacteristic excitement:

  I am at the port when a Dutch slaver is unloading its stock. Four captives catch my eye. I see them from afar as they shuffle down the gangplank in shackles & chains. What poor souls are these? They walk with a listless gait, their backs bent, their will broken. I know how they feel. My exhaustion & theirs is the same. The fever is upon me again. Jesus reached out to all, Romans, Samaritans, Syrophoenicians, and others. So must I. I want to get closer but am too weak, the sun too bright. A sailor from the ship is passing by. I beckon to him. I point & ask & he tells me that the captives come from deep within the Congo River basin & were captured in a raid, not traded by a tribe. Three females & a child. My Dutch is poor & I don't fully understand the sailor. I believe he uses the word "minstrel". They are to be entertainers of some sort. He gives no sense of impropriety to the term. What? I say to him. Straight from the jungles of the Congo to amusing the white man after his dinner in the New World? He laughs.

  I have learned that the four are now jailed on Garcia's plantation. The mother of the child attacked an overseer & was severely beaten for the offence. They were unwilling to put on clothes & it seemed they provided poor entertainment. Their fate will be decided shortly.

  Though I am so feeble I cannot stay long on my feet, I went to Garcia's today & slipped in to see his captives in their dark, hot cell. The rebellious female has died of her injuries. Her body was still there, her child at her side, listless, nearly unconscious. Fruit lay rotting on the ground. Are the two females that remain starving themselves to death? I spoke to them, knowing they would not understand me. They did not respond or even seem to hear me. I blessed them.

  I have gone again. The stench! The child is most certainly dead. At first I had no greater success with the two survivors than yesterday. I read to them from the Gospel of Mark. I chose Mark because it is the most humble Gospel, revealing a messiah at his most human, racked by doubt & anxiety while still shining with loving kindness. I read until fatigue, the heat & the stench nearly overcame me. Thereafter I sat in silence. I was about to leave when one of the captives, the youngest, an adolescent female, stirred. She crawled & settled against the wall on the other side of the bars from me. I whispered to her, "Filha, o Senhor ama-te. De onde vens tu? Conta-me sobre o Jardim do Eden. Conta-me a tua historia. O que fizemos de errado?" She did not react in any way. A time passed. Then she turned her head & looked me in the eyes. She looked only briefly before moving away. She guessed that she had nothing to gain from my nearness or interest. I s
aid not a word. My tongue was stilled of any priestly cant. I am transformed. I saw. I have seen. I see. That short gaze made me see a wretchedness that until then had never echoed in my heart. I entered that cell thinking I was a Christian man. I walked out knowing I was a Roman soldier. We are no better than animals.

  When I returned this day, they were dead, their bodies taken away and burned. They are free now, as they should have been all along.

  The next entry in Father Ulisses' diary is fierce and accusatory, outlining the final rift between him and the island's civil and religious authorities. He made a scene at the cathedral, interrupting the Mass with his shouts and protests. The consequence was swift.

  I was summoned by the Bishop today. I told him that I had met the unequal & in meeting them found them equal. We are no better than they, I told him. In fact, we are worse. He yelled at me that as there are hierarchies of angels in heaven and of the damned in hell, so there are hierarchies here on earth. The boundaries are not to be blurred. I was sent off, struck by his harshest thunderbolt, excommunication. In his eyes I am no longer a man of the cloth. But I yet feel the Lord's hand holding me up.

  Tomas is amazed, as he is every time he reads this passage. To exclude French and English pirates, or Dutch sailors, little more than mercenaries, from the communion of God is one thing--but an ordained Portuguese priest? That seems an extreme measure, even by the standards of Sao Tome. But a place that made its living off slavery would think poorly of a fevered emancipator.

  It is then that Father Ulisses mentioned the gift for the first time. Tomas always reads the sentence with trepidation.

  I know my mission now. I will make this gift to God before death takes me. I thank God that I drew a sketch while I was at Garcia's, visiting her in her hellish confinement. Her eyes have opened mine. I will bear witness to the wreckage we have wrought. How great is our fall from the Garden!

  Tomas turns the page and stares for the thousandth time at the sketch in question. It is this sketch, with its haunting eyes, that set him on his search.