The High Mountains of Portugal

by Yann Martel

  "And at the end of it, is that not the plainest way to describe the life of Jesus, as a Murder Mystery? A life was taken, the victim completely innocent. Who did it? Who had the motive and the opportunity? What happened to the body? What did it all mean? An exceptional detective was needed to solve the crime, and he came along, some years after the murder, the Hercule Poirot of the first century: Paul of Tarsus. Christianity starts with Paul. The earliest Christian documents are his letters. With them we have the story of Jesus, years before the life of Jesus of the Gospels. Paul vowed to get to the bottom of the Jesus affair. Using his grey cells, he sleuthed about, listening to testimony, poring over the record of events, gathering clues, studying every detail. He had a big break in the case in the form of a vision on the road to Damascus. And at the end of his investigation he drew the only conclusion possible. Then he preached and he wrote, and Jesus went from being a failed Messiah to the resurrected Son of God who takes on our burden of sins. Paul closed the case on Jesus of Nazareth. And just as the resolution of the crime in an Agatha Christie brings on a sort of glee, and the reader is struck by her amazing ingenuity, so the resurrection of Jesus and its meaning induces a powerful glee in the Christian--more: a lasting joy--and the Christian thanks God for His amazing ingenuity, as well as His boundless compassion. Because the resurrection of Jesus to wash away our sins is the only possible solution to the problem as understood by Paul, the problem of a loving God unexpectedly put to death who then resurrects. Hercule Poirot would heartily approve of the logic of Paul's solution.

  "The world of the Gospels is stark. There is much suffering in it, suffering of the body, suffering of the soul. It is a world of moral extremes in which the good are purely good and the evil insistently evil. Agatha Christie's world is equally stark. Who among us lives a life so beset by murders as Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple? And behind these murders, so much conniving evil! Our world is not like that, is it? Most of us know neither so much good nor so much evil. We sail a tempered middle. And yet murders happen, sometimes on a large scale, do they not? The Great War ended not so long ago. Next door the Spaniards are killing each other with abandon. And now there are insistent rumours of another war across our continent. The symbolic crime of our century is the murder, Eusebio. Anonymous is still very much with us. That tempered middle we sail is an illusion. Our world is stark too, but we hide in a shelter built of luck and closed eyes. What will you do when your luck runs out, when your eyes are ripped open?

  "The sad fact is that there are no natural deaths, despite what doctors say. Every death is felt by someone as a murder, as the unjust taking of a loved being. And even the luckiest of us will encounter at least one murder in our lives: our own. It is our fate. We all live a murder mystery of which we are the victim.

  "The only modern genre that plays on the same high moral register as the Gospels is the lowly regarded murder mystery. If we set the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie atop the Gospels and shine a light through, we see correspondence and congruence, agreement and equivalence. We find matching patterns and narrative similarities. They are maps of the same city, parables of the same existence. They glow with the same moral transparency. And so the explanation for why Agatha Christie is the most popular author in the history of the world. Her appeal is as wide and her dissemination as great as the Bible's, because she is a modern apostle, a female one--about time, after two thousand years of men blathering on. And this new apostle answers the same questions Jesus answered: What are we to do with death? Because murder mysteries are always resolved in the end, the mystery neatly dispelled. We must do the same with death in our lives: resolve it, give it meaning, put it into context, however hard that might be.

  "And yet Agatha Christie and the Gospels are different in a key way. We no longer live in an age of prophecy and miracle. We no longer have Jesus among us the way the people of the Gospels did. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are narratives of presence. Agatha Christie's are gospels of absence. They are modern gospels for a modern people, a people more suspicious, less willing to believe. And so Jesus is present only in fragments, in traces, cloaked and masked, obscured and hidden. But look--he's right there in her last name. Mainly, though, he hovers, he whispers."

  A smile creeps across Maria Lozora's face as she watches for his reaction. He smiles back but stays silent. If he is honest, it is jarring to hear Jesus Christ and Agatha Christie, the apostle Paul and Hercule Poirot so closely matched. The Pope in Rome will not be pleased to hear that he has a serious rival in the form of a forty-eight-year-old woman from Torquay, England, the author of many highly engaging entertainments.

  Maria speaks again, her gentle voice coming like an embrace. "That's the great, enduring challenge of our modern times, is it not, to marry faith and reason? So hard--so unreasonable--to root our lives upon a distant wisp of holiness. Faith is grand but impractical: How does one live an eternal idea in a daily way? It's so much easier to be reasonable. Reason is practical, its rewards are immediate, its workings are clear. But alas, reason is blind. Reason, on its own, leads us nowhere, especially in the face of adversity. How do we balance the two, how do we live with both faith and reason? In your case, Eusebio, I thought the solution would be stories that put reason on brilliant display while also keeping you close to Jesus of Nazareth. That way you can hold on to your faith, should it ever waver. And so I give to you: Agatha Christie."

  She is radiant. Her two-word gift, wrapped in spools of speech, is now in his lap. From decades of experience he knows that his turn to intervene has come. But he is unexpectedly tongue-tied. What? The miracles of Jesus, Jesus benefitting the human body, Jesus walking on water, Jesus the allegorist saved by other allegorists, Jesus the victim in a murder mystery, Jesus a whispering background character in Agatha Christie--all that winding argumentation so that he might read his favourite writer with greater religious comfort? He stumbles his way to words. "Thank you, Maria. I've never thought of Agatha Christie in this way. It's a--"

  "I love you," his wife interrupts him, "and I've done this for you. All you ever read is Agatha Christie. Next time you're at home sick with sadness pick up one of her books and imagine you're in a boat. Standing on the water alongside the boat is Jesus of Nazareth. He begins to read the Agatha Christie to you. The warm breath of God, who loves you, comes off the page and touches your face. How can you not smile, then?"

  "Why, M-M-Maria--" he cries. What is this stammer that is suddenly afflicting him? He looks at her and is reminded of that for which he is grateful, the rich earth and the sun and the rain and the crops. "My angel, it's so kind of you! I'm truly thankful."

  He stands and moves around the desk towards her. She also gets to her feet. He takes her in his arms. They kiss. She is cold. He holds her tighter to warm her with his body. He speaks into her shoulder. "It's a wonderful gift. I'm so lucky to have--"

  She pulls back and pats his cheek. "You're welcome, my dear husband, you're welcome. You're a good man." She sighs. "I should be getting home. Can you help me put the books back in the bag, please?"

  "Of course!" He bends down to pick up the volumes that fell to the floor. Together they fill the bag with all the Agatha Christies and walk the few steps to the door of his office. He opens the door.

  "You left the milk out," she says on the threshold. "For three days. It's gone bad. It stinks. I didn't notice, since I never drink the stuff. If you're going to work all night, get some fresh milk on your way home. And buy bread. Make sure you don't get lentil bread. It gives you gas. And lastly I've brought you a little gift. Don't look now. I'm leaving."

  But still he wants to hold her back, to thank her for the gift of her, his dear wife of thirty-eight years, still he wants to say things to her.

  "Shall we pray?" he asks, typically a good way to stop his wife in her tracks.

  "I'm too tired. But you pray. And you have work to do. What are you working on?"

  He looks at his desk. His work? He'd forgotten all about his wo
rk. "I have a number of reports to write up. One case is particularly unpleasant, a woman who was pushed off a bridge. A wicked murder."

  He sighs. Only the autopsies of babies and children are worse--all those toy organs. Otherwise, there is no greater abomination than the decomposed human body. Two or three days after death, the putrefying body manifests a greenish patch on the abdomen, which spreads to the chest and to the upper thighs. This green tinge is the result of a gas produced by bacteria in the intestinal system. During life, these bacteria help digest food, but in death they help digest the body. Nature is full of such friends. This gas contains sulphur and it smells foul. Some of it escapes from the rectum--the decaying body is often smelled before it is seen. But there is shortly much to be seen. When the gas has finished discolouring the skin, it proceeds to bloat the body. The eyes--their eyelids puffed--bulge out. The tongue protrudes from the mouth. The vagina turns inside out and is pushed out, as are the intestines from the anus. The colour of the skin continues to change. After a mere week, a pale white body, if given over to thoroughgoing, wet gangrene decomposition, will go from pale green to purple to a dark green marbled with streaks of black along the veins. Seeping blisters grow and burst, leaving puddles of rot on the skin. Cadaver juices seep out of the nose, the mouth, and other body orifices. Two of the chemicals found in these fluids are called putrescine and cadaverine, nicely capturing their aroma. By the second week of death, the body is taut with swelling, especially the abdomen, scrotum, breasts, and tongue. The slimmest person becomes gross with corpulence. The distended skin rips and starts to come off in sheets. Within another week, hair, nails, and teeth lose their grip. Most internal organs have ruptured and begun to liquefy, including the brain, which in its last solid phase is a dark green gelatin. All these organs become a stinking, gloppy river that flows off the bones.

  Outdoors, other organisms besides bacteria play a role in uglifying the body. Any number of birds will peck at dead flesh, gashing the way in for hosts of smaller invaders, among them flies, principally flesh flies and blowflies, with their generous and abundant contribution of maggots, but also beetles, ants, spiders, mites, millipedes, centipedes, wasps, and others. Each mars the body in its own way. And there are still more disfigurers: shrews, voles, mice, rats, foxes, cats, dogs, wolves, lynxes. These eat the face, pull away chunks of flesh, remove entire limbs. All this is done to a body that was, until very recently, living, whole, and standing, walking, smiling, and laughing.

  "How terrible," Maria says.

  "Yes. I'm going to avoid that bridge from now on."

  His wife nods. "Faith is the answer to death. Good-bye."

  She tilts her face up and they kiss one last time. To have her lovely face so close to his! To feel her body against his! She pulls away. A little smile and a glance of farewell, and she leaves his office and starts moving down the hallway. He follows her out.

  "Good-bye, my angel. Thank you for all your gifts. I love you."

  She disappears around a bend. He gazes down the deserted hallway, then returns to his office and closes the door.

  His office now feels empty and too quiet. Perhaps he should pray again, although he is not, as it happens, one who has seen many victories won through prayer, devoted though he is to Jesus of Nazareth. Nor is he of the age when throwing oneself upon one's knees comes easily. Genuflection proceeds with groaning and the slow working of parts, a precarious balancing act accompanied by moments of sudden giving way. And at the end of it, knees are painfully pressed against a marble floor that is hard and cold (though perfect for mopping up blood and cadaver juices). He begins to work his way down, using the desk for help. Then he remembers: Maria mentioned a gift. He looks at his desk. She must have placed her gift on it while he was bent down, gathering the Agatha Christies off the floor. Sure enough, some papers betray a bump that was not there earlier. He straightens himself and reaches over. A book. He takes it in his hands and turns it over.

  Appointment with Death, by Agatha Christie. He searches his memory. The title does not seem familiar, nor does the cover. But there are so many titles, so many covers. He checks the copyright page: 1938, this very year--or this year until a few minutes ago. His heart leaps. It's a new Agatha Christie! A successor to Death on the Nile. It must have arrived that day from the Circulo Portugues de Misterio. Bless them. Bless his wife, who graced him with the further gift of letting him read it first.

  The reports will wait. He settles in his chair. Or rather, as his wife suggested, he settles in a boat. A voice comes to his ears:

  "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

  The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.

  Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch. Frowning, he shut it decisively, thereby excluding any injurious night air! Hercule Poirot had been brought up to believe that all outside air was best left outside, and that night air was especially dangerous to the health.

  As he pulled the curtains neatly over the window and walked to his bed, he smiled tolerantly to himself.

  "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

  Curious words for one Hercule Poirot, detective, to overhear on his first night in Jerusalem.

  "Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!" he murmured to himself.

  Eusebio pauses. An Agatha Christie that starts in Jerusalem? The last one took place on the Nile, there was one set in Mesopotamia--circling around Palestine--but now Jerusalem itself. After all that Maria was saying, the coincidence amazes him. She will take it as confirmation of her theory.

  A rap at the door startles him. The book in his hands flies up like a bird. "Maria!" he cries. She has come back! He hurries to the door. He must tell her.

  "Maria!" he calls again as he pulls the door open.

  A woman stands before him. But it's not his wife. It is a different woman. This woman is older. A black-dressed widow. A stranger. She eyes him. There is a large beat-up suitcase at her feet. Surely the woman hasn't been travelling at this late hour? He notes something else. Hidden by wrinkles, blurred by time, hindered by black peasant dress, but shining through nonetheless: The woman is a great beauty. A luminous face, a striking figure, a graceful carriage. She must have been something to behold when she was young.

  "How did you know I was coming?" the woman asks, startled.

  "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

  "My name is Maria Dores Passos Castro."

  Maria that she is, who is she? She's not his Maria, his wife, she's a different Maria. What does she want? What is she doing here?

  "How can I be of assistance, Senhora Castro?" he asks stiffly.

  Maria Castro answers with a question. "Are you the doctor who deals with bodies?"

  That's one way of putting it. "Yes, I'm head of the department of pathology. My name is Dr. Eusebio Lozora."

  "In that case, I need to talk to you, Senhor doctor, if you have a few minutes to spare."

  He leans out to look down the hallway, searching for his wife. She isn't there. She and this woman must have crossed paths. He sighs inwardly. Another woman who wants to talk to him. Is she also concerned with his salvation? How many more biblical prophets lie waiting for him in the night? All he wants to do is get a little work done, get caught up. And since when do pathologists have consultations with the public, in the middle of the night at that? He's starving too. He should have brought something to eat if he was going to work all night.

  He will turn this woman away. For whatever ails her, she should see a family doctor, she should go to the emergency room. His hand is set to close the door when he remembers: No men attended Jesus when he was buried. Only women came to his tomb, only women.

  Perhaps one of the cases on his desk has to do with her? A relative, a loved one. It's highly unusual for him to deal with family members. He prides himself on his ability to
determine what may cause grief, but grief itself, dealing with it, is neither his medical specialty nor a talent he happens to have. That is why he went into pathology. Pathology is medicine reduced to its pure science, without the draining contact with patients. But before training to track down death, he studied life, and here is a living woman who wants to consult with him. This, he remembers, is what the original calling of the medical arts is about: the alleviating of suffering.

  In as gentle a voice as his weary frame can muster, he says, "Please come in, Senhora Castro."

  The old woman picks up her suitcase and enters his office. "Much obliged, Senhor doctor."

  "Here, sit here," he says, indicating the chair his wife has just vacated. His office is still a mess, his workbench still covered in papers--and what's that file on the floor in the corner? But it will have to do for now. He sits down in his chair, across the desk from his new visitor. A doctor and his patient. Except for the bottle of red wine standing on the desk and the Agatha Christie murder mystery lying on the floor.

  "How can I help you?" he asks.

  She hesitates, then makes up her mind. "I've come down from the village of Tuizelo, in the High Mountains of Portugal."

  Ah yes. The few people who live in the High Mountains of Portugal trickle down to Braganca because there's not a hospital in the whole thankless plateau or, indeed, a commercial centre of any size.

  "It's about my husband."

  "Yes?" he encourages her.

  She says nothing. He waits. He'll let her come round. Hers will be an emotional lament disguised as a question. He will need to wrap in kind words the explanation for her husband's death.

  "I tried to write about it," she finally says. "But it's so vulgar on the page. And to speak about it is worse."

  "It's all right," he responds in a soothing voice, though he finds her choice of words odd. Vulgar? "It's perfectly natural. And inevitable. It comes to all of us."