Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

But he knows nothing of the country. He is Canadian through and through. As they drive in the fading light of day, he notes how pretty the landscape is, how busy the rurality. Everywhere there are flocks and herds, beehives and grapevines, ploughed fields and tended groves. He sees people carrying firewood on their backs and donkeys carrying loaded baskets on theirs.

The night stops them and sends them to sleep. He moves to the cramped back seat. At a late hour, he is vaguely aware of Odo exiting the car through the door, but he is too knocked out by sleep to check on him.

In the morning he finds the ape sleeping on top of the car, on its fabric roof. Peter does not rouse him. Instead he reads the guidebook. He learns from it that the peculiar tree he keeps seeing — stocky, thick-limbed, the trunk dark brown except where the precious bark has been neatly removed — is the cork tree. The parts of the trees that have been stripped glow a rich reddish brown. He vows from then on to drink only from wine bottles that have been cork-stoppered.

Visigoths, Francs, Romans, Moors — all were here. Some did no more than kick over furniture before moving on. Others stayed long enough to build a bridge or a castle. Then, in a sidebar, he discovers that “faunal anomaly of northern Portugal”: the Iberian rhinoceros. Was that what the man at the airport meant? This biological relic, descended from the woolly rhinoceros of earlier glacial ages, existed in Portugal in shrinking pockets right up into the modern era, with the confirmed death of the last known specimen taking place in 1641. Hardy and fierce-looking but mostly benign — a herbivore, after all, slow to anger and quick to forgive — it fell out of step with the times, unable to adapt to the shrinking space given it, and so it vanished, though with occasional claims of sightings to this day. In 1515 King Manuel I of Portugal offered an Iberian rhinoceros as a gift to Pope Leo X. The guidebook has a reproduction of the Dürer woodcut of that rhinoceros, “incorrectly single-horned.” He peers at the image. The animal looks grand, ancient, unlikely, appealing.

Odo awakes as Peter is preparing breakfast on the camping stove. When Odo sits up, and even more so when he stands on the roof of the car, taking in his surroundings, Peter is again struck by his situation. If he were in this foreign land alone, it would be unbearable; he would die of loneliness. But because of his strange companion, loneliness is pushed away. For that he is deeply grateful. Even so, he can’t ignore the other feeling troubling him at the moment, which seems to liquefy his innards: fear. He can’t explain the sudden onset of the emotion. He’s never been subject to panic attacks, but perhaps this is what they feel like. Fear melts through him, opening his every pore, causing his breaths to shorten and quicken. Then Odo climbs down from the car, ambles over on all fours to sit and stare at the camping stove, amiably disposed, and the fear goes away.

After breakfast, they hit the road again. They cross villages with stone houses, cobbled streets, sleeping dogs, and observant donkeys. Places of stillness, with few men and the women dressed in black, all of them older. He senses that the future comes like the night in these settlements, quietly and without surprise, each generation much like the previous one and the next, only shrinking in numbers.

In the early afternoon they reach — according to the map — the High Mountains of Portugal. The air is cooler. He is puzzled. Where are the mountains? He wasn’t expecting soaring, winter-clad Alps, but he didn’t expect an undulating barren savannah either, its forests hidden away in valleys, without any peaks anywhere. He and Odo cross plains of enormous grey boulders, each sitting on its own in the grassland. Some of these rocks reach past what would be the second floor of a house. Perhaps to a man standing next to one, there is something mountain-like about them, but it’s a stretch. Odo is as intrigued by the boulders as he is.

Tuizelo appears at the end of a winding road, on the edge of a forest, tucked in a valley. The narrow, sloping, cobbled streets wend their way to a small square with a humble, gurgling fountain at its centre. On one side of the square is a church, on the other, a café, which also appears to be a small grocery store and bakery. These two institutions, each plying its own wares, are set amidst modest stone houses with wooden balconies. Only the many vegetable gardens are large, as large as fields, and neat. Here, there, everywhere, chickens, goats, sheep, lazing dogs.

Right away he is taken by the tranquility and isolation of the village. And his parents came from here. In fact, he was born here. He can hardly believe it. The distance between this place and the house in the heart of Toronto, in Cabbagetown, where he grew up, seems immeasurable. He has no memories of Tuizelo. His parents left when he was a toddler. Nonetheless, he will give the place a try.

“We’ve arrived,” he announces. Odo looks around with a blank expression.

They eat sandwiches and drink water. Peter notices a small group of people in a vegetable garden. He reaches for the dictionary. He practices a phrase a few times.

“Don’t move. Stay in the car,” he says to Odo. The ape sits so low in the car seat that he’s barely visible from the outside.

Peter gets out of the car and waves to the group. They wave back. A man shouts a greeting. Peter goes through the small gate and joins them. Each villager steps forward to shake his hand, a smile on his or her face. “Olá,” he says each time. When the ceremony is over, he self-consciously recites his phrase. “Eu quero uma casa, por favor,” he says slowly. I would like a house, please.

“Uma casa? Por uma noite?” says one.

“Não,” he replies as he flips through the dictionary, “uma casa por…viver.” No, a house to live in.

“Aqui, em Tuizelo ?” says another, his wrinkled features expanding in surprise.

“Sim,” Peter replies, “uma casa aqui em Tuizelo por viver.” Yes, a house here in Tuizelo to live in. Clearly, immigration is unknown in these parts.

“Meu Deus! O que é aquela coisa?” a woman gasps. He guesses that the horror in her tone has nothing to do with his request to live in the village. She is looking beyond him. He turns. Sure enough, Odo has climbed onto the roof of the car and is observing them.

The group makes various startled, fearful noises. One man grips his hoe and lifts it in the air somewhat.

“No, no, he’s friendly,” Peter says, his palms raised to appease them. He rifles through the dictionary. “Ele é…amigável! Amigável!”

He repeats the word a few times, trying to heed the tonic accent and get the pronunciation right. He retreats to the car. The group stays frozen. Already Odo has attracted further attention. Two men are staring from the café, as is a woman from her doorstep, and another from a balcony.

Peter had hoped to ease Odo into village life, but the notion is foolish. There are no degrees to amazement.

“Amigável, amigável!” he repeats to all.

He beckons to Odo, who clambers down from the car and knuckle-walks to the vegetable garden with him. The ape chooses not to go through the gate but to leap onto the stone wall. Peter stands next to him, stroking one of his legs.

“Um macaco,” he says to the group, to help with what they are seeing. “Um macaco amigável.” A friendly ape .

The people stare while he and Odo wait. The woman who first noticed Odo is the first to relax a little. “E ele mora com o senhor?” she asks. Her tone is open, touched by wonder.

“Sim,” he replies, though he doesn’t know what “mora” means.

One villager decides that he’s had enough. He turns to move away. His neighbour reaches for him, but in doing so he stumbles. The result is that he pulls hard on the first man’s sleeve as he seeks to regain his balance. The other man in turn loses his balance momentarily, cries out, flings his arm back to throw off the other man’s hand, and walks off in a huff. Odo instantly feels the tension and lifts himself onto his legs, following the departing man with his eyes. Standing on the wall as he is, he now towers over the group in the garden. Peter senses their apprehension. “It’s all right,” he whispers to the ape, tugging on one of Odo’s hands, “it’s all right.” He’s anxious. Might this be enough to make the ape run amok?