by Ted Simon
There are other goodbyes too delicate and too fraught with emotion to be written about in passing, for I have lived a while. On my way down through Europe I learn the value of the love I am abandoning. At times I experience a degree of misery and lovelessness I have not known since adolescence. I wonder whether I will have the capacity ever to bear such pain again. It occurs to me that that may be the condition for perpetual youth.
Goodbye to my unfinished dream, to the toasted vineyards of the Herault, to Montpellier, Nimes and Aix-en-Provence.
In Nice I have a friend who manages a 'Grand Hotel' on the Boulevard des Anglais, called 'The Westminster', slightly faded since its Edwardian heyday when expeditions like mine were undertaken by gentlemen. It strikes me as a suitable place from which to say a Last Goodbye, and the 'departing explorer' poses for a picture by the potted palm outside the revolving door. We hoped to line the hotel staff up outside, but the union won't allow it. So off to Monaco and the Italian frontier, Goodbye to France, and . . . Shit! I've left my passport at the hotel. The departing explorer returns red-faced to depart once more. Dramatic farewells, it seems, are not for me.
Enough of this messing about, I tell myself. It's time to take the journey seriously. For one thing, no more hotels. Tonight you sleep out and save money.
Monaco, Genoa, La Spezia and, as night falls, Florence. I pick up a Camping sign and follow it to Fiesole where I am ambushed by an English couple in a small restaurant who tell me to look up their relatives in Sierra Leone. If only I were going there.
It is late. The Camping sign leads up a very narrow steep hill, with a gate at the top. The gate is locked; the camp site deserted. The slope is too steep and the bike is too heavy. I can't turn it round. It falls over and I am too weak to move it. Disgusted with myself, I unpack it, pick it up, turn it round, re-pack it. Rain begins to fall. I will not go to a hotel. At the bottom of the hill is a small parking place. I put the bike up on the centre stand, put up my umbrella, and go to sleep in the saddle, lying forward on the tank bag. I am amazed how easy it is, how little I care what others may think, how little sleep I need. I am riding high on energy, like a surfer on a big wave.
To Rome on the autostrada, but the tolls are too high, and I get off it to go south through Latina and Terracina. Just before Naples, in the dark, I find a camp site that's open. During the last hours on the bike, my mood plunged to despair, but the work of unpacking and cooking keeps misery at bay, and a bottle of wine washes it away.
To Naples and Salerno, and now the autostrada is free. It rides the bumps down the spine of Italy, a wonder of engineering, always either tunnelling or soaring across great airy chasms. The weather is wonderful too, hot sun, crisp clean air. On the empty highway I begin to feel the rhythm of a long, uninterrupted ride. In most of Europe this is impossible, life is so dense, intricate, a million parishes joined up higgledy-piggledy and every patch intimately known to somebody for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. I feel I am already leaving Europe. I can feel Africa there, so vast I am already within its aura.
The movement has a complex rhythm with many pulses beating simultaneously. Underlying it is the engine with its subtle blend of sounds, eighty explosions a second, cams on push rods, push rods on tappets, rockers on valve stems, valves on seats, ball bearings revolving and racing, cogs meshing and thrashing in oil, oil pumps throbbing, gases hissing, chains whipping over sprockets, all this frenzy of metal in motion, amazing that it can last for even a minute, yet it will have to function for thousands of hours to take me round and home again. Through all these pulses blending and blurring I seem to hear a slow and steady beat, moving up and down, up and down, three semi-tones apart, a second up, a second down; as I listen it grows clearer, unmistakable. Is it there or am I inventing it? Is it the pulse of my own body intercepting the sound, modifying it with my bloodstream? Try as I will I can hear no other pulse, no other pitch. There are other instruments in the orchestra however. The lapel of the flying jacket flicks against my shoulder like a kettle drum, my overlong chinstrap beats a more complicated tattoo on the helmet, and undeniably there is vibration too, a faint tingle spreading
from foot rests, grips and saddle, comfortable at fifty, distinctly unpleasant at sixty-five and then flattening out again at seventy. With fifteen hundred miles on the clock I consider the bike run in, and I'm riding at seventy and over. On the autostrada the load has no apparent effect, until I go up over eighty on a curve and feel the beginnings of a nasty wobble. I settle back to seventy and lean forward to hit less air. A full tank takes me almost three hours without a stop, three hours of contemplation and speculation, contemplation of past mistakes, speculation on future dangers. Why does my mind dwell so much on the down side of life, when the present is so exhilarating and satisfying! I find myself anticipating ghastly accidents, desperate situations, macabre and quite unreal challenges, like riding the bike over a rope bridge swinging across a Peruvian canyon, as the vines slowly untwist and snap, a strand at a time . . . (shades of San Luis Rey) - my heart is actually beating faster when I catch on to what's happening. It's the 'B' movie syndrome. In my childhood they always used to show two movies, 'A' and 'B', though often they were both 'B'. In 'B' movies everything spelled disaster. Windscreen wipers at night meant a horrific crash. A creaking door, a footstep, an oversweet smile, a 'nice' stranger, all boded pure evil. Anything whatever to do with aeroplanes or of course rope bridges, had you clinging to your seat (or girl friend) waiting for the spine-chilling consequences. Was that how I was conditioned to expect the worst? Or were the pulp movie makers simply cashing in on an archetypal human instinct? 7s it possible, I asked myself indignantly, that all these years you've been palpitating because of some cheap Hollywood con trick....
Something touches my foot, and I look down to see objects streaming on to the road surface. One of the canvas bags has stretched down to the right hand exhaust pipe and caught fire. Half my tools and spare parts are spread across the autostrada. They are undamaged, the bag is easily tied up with string, and I go on.
There you are, you see. If you had imagined it, you would have had the screwdriver through your foot . . .
At four o'clock, with an hour of daylight left, I turn off the autostrada to find a place to camp. The small road leads me through a hot and dusty land, horse and cart country still, Calabria on the instep of Italy, where the favourite colour for clothes in still black. Rising toward the mountains I come to Roggiano, a small town baked into the hillside, encrusted with age, inward-looking and shy of visitors. In the town square I halt, uncertain what to do but unconcerned. I have seen nowhere yet to put a tent, but my night under the umbrella has given me a strange confidence. I no longer care what happens to me. I stop the engine, pull off my helmet and, still sitting astride the bike, light up a cigarette and let peace settle about me. On the further pavement a small group of men is assembled, all wearing carefully pressed suits. Some children spot me and rush up shouting. Eventually I walk over to the men, who are dignified but curious, and at a slow and easy pace we exchange pleasantries until, at last, one of them suggests that if I go up the hill I will find an 'international centre'. They will give me a bed. A swarm of small boys bears me and the bike like a carnival float up the hill.
The 'centre' is an assortment of low buildings set among trees and flowering bushes. In part it is devoted to the national campaign for literacy, but there is more to it.
A handsomely bearded young man welcomes me without hesitation, as though such arrivals were commonplace. In a matter of moments I am standing in a communal hall drinking black coffee. It is served by a young woman in black, who stands by us gravely as we drink. A minute ago I saw her, with a vast bundle of laundry at least as tall as herself balanced on her head. She passed easily through a doorway with not an inch to spare anywhere. Such impressive poise. It should be an Olympic event.
The young man explains that the buildings were erected by people from all the fourteen villages of the Esore Valley i
n their spare time. There are bedrooms for those who come from a long way off. It has a full-time staff of four, his father and himself, another teacher and a secretary.
The father and founder, Guiseppe Zanfini, receives me in his study. He beams at me with such concentrated benevolence that I want immediately to vote him into office, any office. Then, without preamble, he launches directly and astonishingly into his story.
'When I was eighteen I was a fascist from my eyes to my boots.'
His hands describe the ample portions of himself which that includes.
T volunteered for the army to go to war. I was in an officer school, then in Sicily, and four years after came my first real battle. I heard the toot toot on the bugle . . .', he goes toot toot into his fist, 'that means, "Prepare arms". I was in the tent to pick up my gun and clean it, and I thought "This time it is not for paper cut-out figures. This time you will have to kill real men", and I knew then I couldn't. Not to kill men with mothers like mine, with children - men who have come from homes like mine which will be in misery.'
In a measured hush he speaks of love and brotherhood, his face flitting between solemnity and ecstasy. As the battle progresses he shows graphically how others lost a hand, an eye or a leg, and wipes imaginary blood - other men's blood - from his face. Tears tremble under his lashes as he relives his moment of conversion in front of me, at his office desk.
'Afterwards the Colonel wanted to give me a decoration for staying on my feet through the battle. I refused. I told him I could never bring myself to kill another man. He said he understood and asked me only to keep my sentiments to myself. Three months later was armistice and I was able to go to university. In the new democratic Italy I studied to be a teacher and I came home to Roggiano to teach others that we must have peace not war.
'Then I saw that our men were returning from the prison camps to their firesides and talking about war. And soon the children in the square were rushing about going "Bang, bang" and "Boom, boom". I saw that although we had already lost one war, we were in danger of losing an even bigger one around the hearth.'
Zanfini is about to see his last and most extensive project realized. After seven years of bargaining and persuasion he has brought the mayors of I the fourteen communes of Esore - seven Christian Democrats, four Communists, three Socialists - together to agree on one school for the whole region. A school for children, and adults too.
Zanfini rises like Caesar and unfurls his blueprint, which is magically to hand. 'All this', he says, and there is a lot of it, some thirty or more buildings, sports stadium pavilion, theatre and so on, 'all this will cost only an eighth of what must be spent if each commune were to build its own necessary school.
'Calabria has agreed. Now we wait only for Rome and the Law.'
He sinks majestically to his seat.
'Another march on Rome?' I suggest jokingly.
'Never,' he says. 'There must never be another march anywhere.' And that same ineffable sweetness floods over his face. 'Peace and Love. Love and Peace.'
I am absolutely convinced of his sincerity. His opera tics only enhance the impression. If you really believe in something, why not give it all I you've got. I am sizzling with excitement at having stumbled on something so rare and passionate. I know that somehow the manner of my arrival enabled me to draw much more out of this man and the situation, I feel alive to every nuance, every colour, aroma and texture, even the soup stain on Zanfini's jacket.
I really did not expect the journey to start so soon.
In the morning I spend an hour repacking the bike. Every morning it's ; the same, but the improvement is always noticeable. I'm getting the weight where I want it, the bike feels better, and there's more room as things settle into place. Today I want to get to Palermo. I know it is about one hundred and fifty miles to Reggio where the ferry crosses to Sicily, but after that I have no idea. It did not occur to me to bring a map of Italy, so little did Europe figure among my preoccupations.
The ride to Reggio is glorious, with glimpses of the Mediterranean, as from a small aircraft, and then the drop down to the sea. The ferry chugs across to Messina and a promising new autostrada points to Palermo. Then abruptly, after ten kilometres, the road becomes narrow, twisting, replete with road works and jammed with unpassable trucks throwing undigested diesel in my face. It is one hundred and fifty more miles to Palermo, much further than I thought possible. Most of the way I crawl along in the dark. I arrive in Palermo at eight, very far gone, and lose myself in a maze of impoverished streets.
I stop, I have to stop somewhere, in the Via Torremuzzo, and try to collect my wits. After a really long hard ride, I feel my blood fizzing in my veins as though suddenly decompressed. I sit on the bike, for I dare not leave it, surrounded by a press of urchins, outside a noisy bar. In this strange period when movement has stopped but the noise and vibration are still ringing through my body, I seem to have stumbled into an enchanted canyon, populated by circus freaks and the odder characters of fiction from Rabelais to Damon Runyon. Dwarfs, giants, fat men, rubber men, sweeps, touts, pimps, slobs, whores and bearded ladies throng in the spotlights and cavernous shadows lurk behind bead curtains and make theatrical appearances on impossible balconies among outrageous articles of underwear. After a few moments my vision sobers down. Much of the effect is due to almost mediaeval street lighting, and a warmth in the night air that allows people to display a lot of skin, but even so Torremuzzo is a very flamboyant street.
I am beat. Too tired to think in English, let alone Italian. Where am I? No idea. Where should I go? No notion. The street life surges around me. I feel a hundred sharp and hungry eyes fastened on my bike as on a Christmas tree hung with gifts ripe for the plucking. Ashamed of my weakness I can think only of the telephone number I was given of friends of friends. The Fat Man, playing cards on the pavement, says Yes, there is a telephone in the bar. I carry the looser items of luggage in with me. The friends of friends are at home. They will come in a car and fetch me. I sit where I can watch the bike, and wait. What will I do when there are no friends of friends? I resolve to deal with this question later.
An Israeli approaches me. Yes, an Israeli, selling himself hard. Do I think, he asks, that if he goes back to Israel now they will put him in gaol for desertion?
What would you do, I ask, if you arrived in a strange, exotic city at night and had no friends to turn to?
Irritated, he turns away. It's as I always thought. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who ask questions and those who answer them.
Africa
At first I thought he was a noisy, obnoxious fool. He was sitting on one of the green, slatted benches on the deck of the Tunis ferry, loudly humming an Arab tune. His face, deeply pitted and wrinkled, was fixed in a state of bliss, and with a grimy thumb and forefinger joined at the tips like Siamese carrots he traced the course of the melody through the air. He as most probably stoned. His head was the shape of a coconut and he aw me coming with eyes like black olives buried in old grey cheese. He wore a padded green combat jacket zipped up to the neck, patch grey trousers and outmoded winkle-picker shoes. His body seemed to be coconut-shaped as well. 'Ah, you, yous, was machen. Sprechen Deutsch. Ich auch. Scheisse.' Then a burst of Arabic, and Ich bin Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, Hiel fraulein. Jolies filles. Eins. Zwei. Ja. Scheisse.' The wave of gibberish hit me as I walked towards him, and I thought it as some kind of invitation to talk, but he broke off again and went back "o his trance-like singing. There were other Tunisians around, all grinning madly, and I felt embarrassed and annoyed. For me this ferry crossing to Africa represented a decisive leap into the unknown, a voyage f no return. Although the fighting between Egypt and Israel had stopped, thought it might break our again at any moment. I was full of stern forebodings and in no mood for mockery, and I shied off to the far rail to talk to two effete Englishmen from Tangier who offered me the proper degree of respect. As far as I could see, we were the only European passengers. The crew members
were Italian and wore fancy blue sashes round their middles which I thought less than manly. The other travellers were evidently Tunisians going home from the great casual labour markets of the North, dressed by the flea-markets of Europe and carrying their belongings in great cardboard boxes or papier mache suitcases tied with string. As my friends gossiped about the goings-on at the court of the King of Morocco, I watched the thin, hardy men with their enormous bundles of stuff fighting their way along the gangways and through the hatches, the scapegoats of Europe, wearing our cast-off clothing, hassled and slandered from border to border, available to do any job too dirty for a white man. No wonder they looked ugly and morose, except when grinning. No wonder I thought they might have been mocking me.
After a while my smart friends decided to take to their cabin for a zizz, since they were travelling first class, and I went into the main saloon to see how I would pass the rest of the ten-hour crossing. The saloon was nearly full of Arabs, stretched out in the upholstered chairs and sofas trying to sleep. I started talking in French to my neighbour, a gentle Tunisian engine driver called Hassen, but it was only a few moments before I began to be aware of the barman. He was twiddling the knobs of the television set. He was angry. The thick white flesh of his face was set in an expression of stubborn conceit. He was literally pig-headed. The channel he wanted was showing an Italian football match. The picture was indiscernible through the interference patterns and the sound was merely a crashing roar of static but it seemed to satisfy him. It was plain; that he was not going to have any bloody wog music in his saloon. He was! a fat short man and his pregnant belly slung over the silly blue sash made him look unbearably pompous. As he steered his bumptious body back to the bar, he kicked aside the outstretched feet of sleeping Tunisians rather than walk round them. On his way he picked up empty soda bottles and flung them skilfully halfway across the lounge into a large cardboard box where they fell with a regular, shattering din. From then on I was unable to take my eyes off him.
