Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

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 São Tomé, 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 São Tomé, 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 Tomás 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.

Tomás 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 Couço, 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?” Tomás 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.”

Tomás 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. Tomás 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.

Tomás 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 is 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. Tomás 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. Tomás grabs the steerage wheel and turns it. With the automobile completely at rest, it takes real effort.

“Well,” Tomás 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.

Tomás 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. Tomás wishes they would go away. His helper, the plump man, says it again, pleased with himself. “There was movement, more than the last time.”

Tomás signals to him with his hand to come closer. The man sidles over only a little.

“That’s good, that’s good,” says Tomás. “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,” Tomás 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?” Tomás asks again, leaning closer still, attempting to establish a manner of complicity with the man.