Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

Peter moves at a steady pace, often overtaking Odo as he dawdles. Then the ape canters up and hurtles past him. Each time he notes how Odo touches him as he goes by, a slap against the back of his leg, nothing hard or aggressive, more a verification. Good, good, you’re there. Then he lingers again and Peter gains the lead once more. In other words, Peter walks through the forest while Odo swings through it.

Odo is foraging. Bob from the IPR told him about this, how, given a chance, the ape would raid the larder of nature for shoots, flowers, wild fruit, insects, basically anything edible.

It starts to rain. Peter finds a large pine tree and takes refuge under it. Its protection is imperfect, but he doesn’t mind, as he has brought a waterproof poncho. He puts it on and sits on the layer of pine needles, his back against the trunk of the tree. He waits for Odo to catch up. When he sees the ape racing along the path, he calls out. Odo brakes and stares at him. The ape has never seen a poncho before, doesn’t understand where his body has gone. “Come, come,” he says. Odo settles on his haunches close-by. Though the ape doesn’t seem to mind the rain, Peter takes out a second poncho from his backpack. In doing so, he lifts his own. Odo grins. Oh, there’s the rest of you! He scoots next to him. Peter places the poncho over the ape’s head. They are now two disembodied faces looking out. Above them the tree rises in a cone shape, like a teepee, the space broken up and fractured by branches. The pine smell is strong. They sit and watch the falling rain and its many consequences: the drops of water that swell up at the end of pine needles before falling, as if thoughtfully; the forming of puddles, complete with connecting rivers; the dampening of all sound except the patter of the rain; the creation of a dim, damp world of green and brown. They are surprised when a solitary wild boar trots past. Mostly they just listen to the living, breathing silence of the forest.

They return to the house in the near darkness. Peter finds matches and lights a candle. Before going to bed he starts a fire in the woodstove. He sets it to a slow burn.

The next morning he wakes early. During the night Odo hovered around the now-occupied mattress in the bedroom before moving away; the ape prefers to sleep on his own, for which Peter is thankful. He goes looking for the ape and finds him atop the wardrobe, in the room next to his, soundly asleep in a nest made of a towel and some of Peter’s clothes, one hand between his legs, the other resting under his head.

Peter makes his way to the kitchen. He puts on a big pot of water to boil. He discovered the previous day a square metal basin about three feet square with low edges and a pattern of channels on the bottom. The key to proper hygiene in a house with no bathtub. Once the water is warm, he shaves, then stands in the basin and washes himself. Water splashes onto the stone floor. He will need a little practice to get it right, sponge-bathing in this basin. He dries himself, dresses, cleans up. Now for breakfast. Water for coffee. Perhaps Odo will like oatmeal porridge? He pours milk and rolled oats in a pot and sets it on the stovetop.

He turns to fetch the ground coffee and is startled to see Odo at the entrance of the kitchen. How long has he been squatting there, watching him? The ape’s movements are soundless. His bones don’t creak, and he doesn’t have claws or hooves that clatter. Peter will have to get used to this too, to Odo’s ubiquity in the house. Not that he minds it, he realizes. He much prefers Odo’s presence to his own privacy.

“Good morning,” he says.

The ape climbs onto the kitchen counter and sits right next to the stove, unafraid of the flame. The water for the coffee arouses no interest. The focus of his attention is the pot of porridge. When it starts to boil, Peter turns the heat down and stirs the mixture with a wooden spoon. The ape’s mouth tenses. He reaches and takes hold of the spoon. He begins to stir carefully, without spilling the porridge or tipping the pot. Round and round goes the spoon, the ingredients swirling and tumbling. Odo looks up at him. “You’re doing well,” Peter whispers, nodding. The oat flakes are large and uncooked. He and Odo spend the next fifteen minutes watching the porridge thicken, riveted by the workings of food chemistry. Actually, the next sixteen minutes. Being a plodding, uninspired cook, Peter follows instructions precisely and he times it. When he puts in chopped walnuts and raisins, Odo stares like an apprentice awed to see the wizard reveal the ingredients that go into the magic potion. Odo’s stirring continues, patient and unstinting. Only when Peter turns the burner off and covers the pot with its lid to allow the porridge to cool does the ape show signs of impatience. The laws of thermodynamics are a nuisance to him.

Peter sets the table. One banana for him, eight bananas for Odo. Two cups of milky coffee, one sugar each. Two bowls of oatmeal porridge. One spoon for him, five fingers for Odo.

The meal goes down exceedingly well. A lip-smacking, finger-licking, grunting feastorama. Odo eyes Peter’s bowl. Peter holds it tightly to his chest. Tomorrow he will measure out more oats in the pot. He washes up and puts the bowls and the pot away.

He fetches his watch from the bedroom. It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning. He looks at the table in the living room. There are no reports to be read, no letters to be written, no paperwork of any kind. There are no meetings to be organized or attended, no priorities to be set, no details to be worked out. There are no phone calls to make or receive, no people to see. There is no schedule, no program, no plan. There is — for a workingman — nothing at all.

Why then keep the time? He unstraps his watch. Already yesterday he noticed how the world is a timepiece. Birds announce dawn and dusk. Insects chime in further — the shrill cries of cicadas, like a dentist’s drill, the frog-like warbling of crickets, among others. The church’s bell also portions up the day helpfully. And finally the earth itself is a spinning clock, to each quadrant of hours a quality of light. The concordance of these many hour hands is approximate, but what does he gain from the censorious tick-tock tut-tut of a minute hand? Senhor Álvaro, in the café, can be the guardian of his minutes, if he needs them. Peter places his watch on the table.

He looks at Odo. The ape comes to him. Peter sits on the floor and begins to groom him. In response Odo plucks at his hair, at the fuzz balls on his cardigan, at his shirt buttons, at whatever is pluckable. He remembers Bob’s suggestion that he crush a dried leaf on his head to give the ape a grooming challenge.

Grooming confounds Peter. The ape is so proximately alien: in his image — but not. There’s also the living heat of him, felt so close up, the beating of the ape’s heart coming through to his fingertips. Peter is spellbound.

Nonetheless, as he picks seeds, burrs, dirt, specks of old skin off Odo’s coat, his mind wanders into the past. But quickly the past bores him. With the exception of Clara and Ben and Rachel, his past is settled, concluded, not worth the sifting. His life was always a happenstance. Not that he didn’t work hard at every lucky turn, but there was never any overarching goal. He was happy enough with his work as a lawyer in a legal firm, but jumped ship when presented with the opportunity of politics. He preferred people to paper. Electoral success was more accurately electoral luck, since he saw any number of good candidates fail and mediocre ones succeed, depending on the political winds of the day. His run was good — nineteen years in the House, eight election wins — and he attended well to the needs of his constituents. Then he was kicked upstairs to the Senate, where he worked in good faith on committees, unfazed by the headlines-driven turmoil of the lower chamber. When he was young, he never imagined that politics would be his life. But all that is swept away now. Now it doesn’t matter what he did yesterday — other than be bold enough to ask Clara on a date so many years ago. As for tomorrow, beyond certain modest hopes, he has no plans for the future.