by Yann Martel
"Hello!" Tomas shouts back.
"What an incredible machine!"
"Thank you!"
"Won't you stop?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"I still have far to go!" Tomas shouts.
The young man moves off. Another young man appears right away in his stead, eager to pursue his own hollered dialogue with Tomas. As he gives up, he is replaced by another. All the way through Porto Alto, Tomas is kept in constant, shouting conversation with eager strangers jogging next to the machine. When at last he reaches the far edge of the town, he would like to cry out in victory at having so adroitly controlled the machine, but his voice is too hoarse.
In the open country he eyes the change-speed lever. He has covered ground in the last three days, the machine has undeniable stamina--but so do snails. The manual is clear on the point, and his uncle proved it in practice in Lisbon: Real motoring results are to be achieved only in a higher gear. He rehearses in his mind. Finally it comes down to doing it or not. Pedals, buttons, levers--these are released or pressed, pushed or pulled, each according to its need. He performs all these actions without taking his eyes off the road--or letting air out of his lungs. The clutch pedal tingles, it seems, as if to signal to him that it has done its job and would be happy if he took his foot off its back, which he does. At the same moment, the accelerator pedal seems to fall forward ever so slightly, as if it, on the contrary, were hungry for the pressure of his foot. He pushes down harder.
The monster pounces forward in second gear. The road is disappearing under its wheels with such thunder that he feels it's no longer the machine that is moving forward on the landscape but the landscape that is being pulled from underneath it, like that hazardous trick in which a tablecloth is yanked off a fully set table. The landscape vanishes with the same menacing understanding that the trick will work only if done at lightning speed. Whereas earlier he was afraid of going too fast, now he's afraid of going too slowly, because if second gear malfunctions it won't be just he who meets his end smashing into a telegraph pole, but the entire porcelain landscape that will crash with him. In this madness, he is a teacup rattling on a saucer, his eyes glinting like bone china glaze.
As he careers through space, motionless while in headlong motion, furiously staring ahead, he yearns for still, thoughtful landscapes, a calm vineyard like he saw yesterday, or a shoreline like Father Ulisses frequents, where each small wave lands upon his feet in prayerful collapse like a pilgrim who has reached his destination. But the priest is jarred in his own way, is he not? As Tomas is shaking now in this infernal machine, so must Father Ulisses' hand shake at times as he commits his harrowed thoughts to the pages of his diary.
The priest quickly becomes disenchanted with Sao Tome. He gets along no better with the natural world there than he did in Angola. There is the same strangle of vegetation, fed by the same incessant showers and coddled by the same unremitting heat. He is afflicted by the wet season, with its torrents of rain interspersed with gaps of stifling moist heat, and he is afflicted by the dry season, with its burning heat and ground-level clouds of dripping mist. He complains bitterly of this hothouse weather "that makes a green leaf sing & a man die." And then there are the supplementary, incidental miseries: the stench of a sugar mill, bad food, infestations of ants, ticks as large as cherry pips, a cut to his left thumb that becomes infected.
He speaks of a "mulatto silence," a miscegenation between the heat and humidity of the island and the unhappy people on it. This mulatto silence creeps into all the senses. The slaves are sullen, have to be pushed to do anything, which they do in silence. As for the Europeans who live out their lives on Sao Tome, their words, usually curt and annoyed, are spoken, perhaps are heard, less likely are obeyed promptly, then are muffled by the silence. Work for the slaves on the plantations carries on from sunrise to sunset, with no singing or even conversation, with a one-hour break at noon to eat, rest, and become further aware of the silence. The working day ends with a speechless meal, solitude, and restless sleep. The nights are louder than the days on Sao Tome, because of the lively insects. Then the sun rises and it all starts over, in silence.
Nourishing this silence are two emotions: despair and rage. Or, as Father Ulisses puts it, "the black pit & the red fire." (How well Tomas knows that pair!) His relations with the island clergy become fraught with tension. He never gives the precise nature of his grievances. Whatever the cause, the result is clear: He becomes increasingly cut off from everyone. As his diary progresses, there are fewer and fewer mentions of interactions with fellow Europeans. Who else is there? The barriers of social status, language, and culture preclude any amicable dealings between a white man, even a priest, and slaves. Slaves come and go, communicating with Europeans mostly with their wide-open eyes. As for the locals, freed slaves and mulattos, what they have to gain from Europeans is precarious. To trade with them, to work for them, to leave their sight--that is the best policy. Father Ulisses laments:
The shacks of natives disappear overnight & rings of emptiness form around isolated white men & I am that. I am an isolated white man in Africa.
Tomas stops the machine and decides, after poking his face up at the sky, that the afternoon has turned cool and cloudy, unsuited to further motoring. Better to settle down for the day under the mink coat.
The next day the road continues nearly villagelessly until Couco, where there is a bridge across the River Sorraia. Under the narrow bridge, alarmed egrets and herons, until then peaceably standing in the water, flutter away. He is pleased to see orange trees, the only splash of colour in an otherwise grey day. He wishes the sun would come out. It's the sun that makes a landscape, drawing out its colour, defining its contours, giving it its spirit.
On the outskirts of a town named Ponte de Sor, he halts the automobile. He sets out on foot for the town. It's good to walk. He kicks his feet back vigorously. He's practically skipping backwards. But what is this itch that is bothering him? He scratches his scalp, his face, and his chest. It is his body crying to be washed. His armpits are starting to smell, as are his nether regions.
He enters the town. People stare at him, at his manner of walking. He finds an apothecary to buy moto-naphtha, following his uncle's advice of resupplying himself as often as he can. He asks the man at the counter if he has the product. He has to use a few names before the implacably serious man nods and produces from a shelf a small glass bottle, barely half a litre.
"Do you have any more?" Tomas asks.
The apothecary turns and brings down another two bottles.
"I'll have still more, please."
"I don't have any more. That's my whole stock."
Tomas is disheartened. At this rate, he will have to ransack every apothecary between Ponte de Sor and the High Mountains of Portugal.
"I'll take these three bottles, then," he says.
The apothecary brings them to the till. The transaction is routine, but something in the man's manner is odd. He wraps the bottles in a sheet of newspaper, then, when two people enter the shop, he hastily slides the package over to him. Tomas notices that the man is staring at him fixedly. Self-consciousness overcomes him. He scratches the side of his head. "Is something wrong?" he asks.
"No, nothing," replies the apothecary.
Tomas is bewildered but says nothing. He leaves the shop and takes a walk around the town, memorizing the route he will take with the automobile.
When he returns to Ponte de Sor an hour later, it all goes wrong. He gets horribly lost. And the more he drives around the town, the more he attracts the attention of the population. Crowds assail him at every turn. At one sharp corner, as his hands frenetically wrestle with the steerage wheel, he stalls once again.
The multitude of the curious and the offended descends upon him.
He starts the automobile well enough, despite the crowd. He even feels that he can get it into first gear. Then he looks at the steerage wheel and has no idea in which direction he i
s supposed to turn it. In trying to satisfy the fiendish angle of the street he was attempting to get onto, he turned the wheel several times before stalling. He tries to determine the matter logically--this way? that way?--but he cannot come to any conclusion. He notices a plump man in his fifties standing on the sidewalk level with the automobile's headlights. He's better dressed than the others. Tomas leans out and calls to him above the din of the engine. "Excuse me, sir! I need your help, if you would be so kind. I'm having a mechanical problem. Something complicated I won't bore you with. But tell me, is the wheel there, the one right in front of you, is it turning?"
The man backs away and looks down at the wheel. Tomas grabs the steerage wheel and turns it. With the automobile completely at rest, it takes real effort.
"Well," Tomas puffs loudly, "is it turning?"
The man looks puzzled. "Turning? No. If it were turning, your carriage would be moving."
"I mean, is it turning the other way?"
The man looks to the rear of the automobile. "The other way? No, no, it's not moving that way, either. It's not moving at all."
Many in the crowd nod in agreement.
"I'm sorry, I'm not making myself clear. I'm not asking if the wheel turned on itself in a round way, like a cartwheel. Rather, did it"--he searches for the right words--"did it turn on the spot on its tiptoes, like a ballerina, so to speak?"
The man stares at the wheel doubtfully. He looks to his neighbours left and right, but they don't venture any opinion, either.
Tomas turns the steerage wheel again with brutal force. "Is there any movement at all from the wheel, any at all?" he shouts.
The man shouts in return, with many in the crowd joining in. "Yes! Yes! I see it. There is movement!"
A voice cries, "Your problem is solved!"
The crowd bursts into cheers and applause. Tomas wishes they would go away. His helper, the plump man, says it again, pleased with himself. "There was movement, more than the last time."
Tomas signals to him with his hand to come closer. The man sidles over only a little.
"That's good, that's good," says Tomas. "I'm most grateful for your help."
The man ventures no reaction beyond a single callisthenic blink and the vaguest nodding. If a broken egg were resting atop his bald head, the yolk might wobble a little.
"But tell me," Tomas pursues, leaning forward and speaking emphatically, "which way did the wheel turn?"
"Which way?" the man repeats.
"Yes. Did the wheel turn to the left or did it turn to the right?"
The man lowers his eyes and swallows visibly. A heavy silence spreads through the crowd as it waits for his response.
"Left or right?" Tomas asks again, leaning closer still, attempting to establish a manner of complicity with the man.
The egg yolk wobbles. There is a pause in which the whole town holds its breath.
"I don't know!" the plump man finally cries in a high-pitched voice, spilling the yolk. He pushes his way through the crowd and bolts. The sight of the ungainly, bandy-legged town notable racing down the street dumbfounds Tomas. He has lost his only ally.
A man speaks out. "It could have been left, it could have been right. Hard to tell."
Murmurs of agreement rise up. The crowd seems cooler now, its indulgence turning to edginess. He has lifted his foot off the pedal and the engine has died. He gets out and turns the starting handle. He pleads with the crowd in front of the machine. "Listen to me, please! This machine will move, it will jump! For the sake of your children, for your own sake, please move away! I beg you! This is a most dangerous device. Step back!"
A man next to him addresses him quietly. "Oh, here comes Demetrio and his mother. She's not one you want to cross."
"Who's Demetrio?" Tomas asks.
"He's the village idiot. But so nicely dressed by his mother."
Tomas looks up the street and sees the town notable returning. He's weeping, his face covered in glistening tears. Holding his hand, pulling him along, is a very small woman dressed in black. She's holding a club. Her eyes are fixed on Tomas. The way she's straining at the end of her son's arm, she looks like a tiny dog trying to hurry its leisurely owner along. Tomas returns to the driver's seat and grapples with the machine's controls.
He humours the machine into not pouncing forward. As he plies the pedals, it growls but only leans forward, like an enormous boulder that has lost the tiny pebble that holds it back but hasn't yet gone crashing down the slope to destroy the village below. The crowd gasps and instantly creates a space all around. He presses a touch harder on the accelerator pedal. He prepares to twist the steerage wheel with mania in whatever direction his instincts will choose, hoping it will be the correct direction, when he is confounded to see that the steerage wheel is turning on its own, of its own will. And it proves to be turning the right way: The vehicle creeps forward and finishes clearing the turn onto the cross street. He would continue to stare in wonderment if he didn't hear the clanging sound of a wooden club striking metal.
"YOU DARE TO MAKE FUN OF MY SON?" cries the mother of the broken egg. She has clocked one of the headlights with such force that it has cleanly broken off. He is horrified--his uncle's jewel! "I'M GOING TO SUFFOCATE YOU UP A SHEEP'S ASS!"
The machine has conveniently brought its hood level with the aggrieved mother. Up goes the club, down goes the club. With a mighty crash, a valley appears on the hood. Tomas would push harder on the accelerator pedal, but there are still many people close-by. "Please, I implore you, hold your club!" he calls out.
Now the sidelight is within her easy reach. Another swing. In a glass-shattering explosion it flies off. The madwoman, whose son persists with his inconsolable blubbering, is winding up her club again.
"I'LL FEED YOU TO A DOG AND THEN EAT THAT DOG!" she shrieks.
Tomas pushes hard on the accelerator pedal. The woman narrowly misses the side mirror; her club instead shatters the window of the door to the cabin. In a roar, he and the injured automobile leap forth and escape Ponte de Sor.
A few kilometres onward, next to a growth of bushes, he brings the machine to a standstill. He gets out and gazes at the automobile's amputations. He clears the glass shards from the cabin. His uncle will be livid at what has been done to the pride of his menagerie.
Just ahead is the village of Rosmaninhal. Is that not one of the villages he mocked for its obscurity? Rosmaninhal, you can do me no harm, he had boasted. Will the village now make him pay for his arrogance? He prepares for yet another night sleeping in the machine. This time he supplements his uncle's coat with a blanket. He extracts the precious diary from the trunk and opens it at random.
The sun brings no solace, nor does sleep. Food no longer sates me, nor the company of men. Merely to breathe is to display an optimism I do not feel.
Tomas breathes deeply, finding optimism where Father Ulisses could not. Strange how this diary of misery brings him such joy. Poor Father Ulisses. He had such high hopes arriving on Sao Tome. Before his energies were depleted by disease, solitary and without purpose, he spent much of his time wandering and watching. There seems to be no purpose to these rambles other than the working off of despair--better to be desperate and itinerant than desperate and sitting in an overheated hut. And what he saw, he wrote down.
Today a slave asked me--signified to me--if my leather shoes were made from the skin of an African. They are of the same colour. Was the man also eaten? Were his bones reduced to useful powder? Some of the Africans believe that we Europeans are cannibals. The notion is the result of their incredulity at the use they are put to: field labour. In their experience, the material part of one's life, what we would call the earning of it, demands no great effort. Tending a vegetable garden in the tropics takes little time & occupies few hands. Hunting is more demanding, but is a group activity & source of some pleasure & the effort is not begrudged. Why then would the white man take so many of them if they didn't have ulterior motives greater than gardening? I reassur
ed the slave that my shoes were not made of his fellows' skin. I cannot say I convinced him.
Tomas knows what the slaves and Father Ulisses cannot: the unending demands of the sugar cane fields of Brazil and, later, of the cotton fields of America. A man or a woman may not need to work so hard to live, but a cog in a system must turn ceaselessly.
No matter their provenance--what territory, what tribe--the slaves soon sink to the same saturnine behaviour. They become lethargic, passive, indifferent. The more the overseers exert themselves to change this behaviour, freely using the whip, the more it becomes ingrained. Of the many signs of hopelessness the slaves manifest, the one that strikes me the most is geophagy. They paw the ground like dogs, gather a round ball, open their mouths, chew it & swallow it. I cannot decide if eating of the Lord's humus is unchristian.
Tomas turns his head and looks at the darkening fields around him. To be miserable upon the land--and then to eat it? Later, Father Ulisses records trying it himself.
A darkness blooms in me, a choking algae of the soul. I chew slowly. It does not taste bad, only is unpleasant on the teeth. How much longer, Lord, how much longer? I feel unwell & see in the eyes of others that I am worse. Walking to town exhausts me. I go to the bay instead and stare out at the waters.
Whatever it was that afflicted Father Ulisses--and Europeans in Africa had their unhappy choice of ailments: malaria, dysentery, respiratory illnesses, heart troubles, anemia, hepatitis, leprosy, and syphilis, among others, in addition to malnutrition--it was slowly and painfully killing him.
Tomas falls asleep thinking of his son and of how, sometimes at night, after an evening at his uncle's house, he would slip into Dora's room in the servants' quarters. She might be asleep already, after a long day of work. Then he would take sleeping Gaspar into his arms and hold him. Amazing how the two could sleep through any disturbance. He would hold his limp son and sing to him softly, nearly hoping he would wake so they could play.
