Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

“Batista — meu…avô,” he confesses. He points to Ben, but he doesn’t know the Portuguese word for “great-grandfather”.

“A criança dourada!” Dona Amélia practically shouts. She couldn’t care less that Batista was his grandfather and his son’s great-grandfather. She takes hold of his sleeve and drags him along. They head for the church. The angel in the church, she said. As they go, her excitement is contagious. Other villagers, mainly women, join them. They arrive at the church as a gaggle, in a flurry of rapid Portuguese. Odo seems pleased with the commotion, adds to it by hooting happily.

“What’s happening?” Ben asks.

“I’m not sure,” replies Peter.

They enter and take a left down the aisle, away from the altar. Dona Amélia stops them at the shrine set up at the back of the church, on the north wall. In front of the shelf bookended by its vases of flowers stands a long three-tiered flower box filled with sand. The sand is studded with thin candles, some burning, most burned out. Any neatness in the arrangement is disturbed by the dozens and dozens of bits of paper that cover the shelf and the floor, some rolled up into scrolls, others neatly folded into squares. Peter never came close enough on his previous visits to see this scattered litter. A framed photo is fixed to the wall just above the middle of the shelf, a black-and-white head shot of a little boy. A handsome little boy. Staring straight out with a serious expression. His eyes are unusual, of such a pallor that, amidst the chiaroscuro of the photo, they match the white wall that is the background. The photo looks very old. A young child from a long time ago.

Dona Amélia opens the photo album. “É ele! É ele!” she repeats. She points to the child on the wall and to the child in the album. Peter looks and examines, tallying eyes with eyes, chin with chin, expression with expression. Yes, she’s right; they are one and the same. “Sim,” he says, nodding, bemused. Mutters of amazement come from the crowd. The album is taken from his hands and is passed around, everyone seeking personal confirmation. Dona Amélia is aglow with rapture — while keeping a sharp eye on the photo album.

After a few minutes she takes firm hold of it again. “Pronto, já chega! Tenho que ir buscar o Padre Eloi.” Okay, that’s enough. I must get Father Eloi. She rushes off.

Peter squeezes between people to get closer to the photo on the wall. The Golden Child. Again his memory is stirred. Some story his parents told. He searches his mind, but it is like the last leaves of autumn, blown away, dispersed. There is nothing he can seize, only the vague memory of a lost memory.

He suddenly wonders: Where’s Odo? He sees his son on the edge of the group of villagers and the ape at the other end of the church. He extricates himself and he and his son make their way over to Odo. Odo is looking up and grunting. Peter follows with his eyes. Odo is staring at the wooden crucifix looming above and behind the altar. He appears to want to climb onto the altar, exactly the sort of scene Peter has feared would happen in the church. Mercifully, at that moment, Dona Amélia bustles back in with Father Eloi and hurries towards them. Her excitement distracts Odo.

The priest invites them to adjourn to the vestry. He places a thick folder on a round table and indicates that they should sit. Peter has had only cordial relations with the man, without ever feeling that the priest was trying to draw him into the flock. He takes a seat, as does Ben. Odo sets himself on a window ledge, watching them. He is silhouetted by daylight and Peter cannot read his expression.

Father Eloi opens the folder and spreads quantities of papers across the table — documents handwritten and typed, and a great number of letters. “Bragança, Lisboa, Roma,” the priest says, pointing to some of the letterheads. The explanations come patiently, as Peter’s consultations of the dictionary are frequent. Dona Amélia at times gets emotional, with tears brimming in her eyes, then she smiles and laughs. The priest is more steady in his intensity. Ben stays as still and silent as a statue.

When they leave the church, they go straight to the café.

“Gosh, and I thought Portuguese village life would be dull,” Ben says, nursing his espresso. “What was that all about?”

Peter is unsettled. “Well, for starters, we’ve found the family home.”

“You’re kidding? Where is it?”

“It happens to be the house I’m already living in.”

“Really?”

“They had to put me in an empty one, and the house has been empty since our family left. They never sold it.”

“Still, there are other empty houses. What an amazing coincidence.”

“But listen — Father Eloi and Dona Amélia also told me a story.”

“Something about a little boy a long time ago, I got that.”

“Yes, it happened in 1904. The boy was five years old and he was Grandpa Batista’s nephew, your great-grandfather’s nephew. He was away from the village with his father — my great-uncle Rafael — who was helping out on a friend’s farm. And then the next moment the boy was miles away, by the side of a road, dead. The villagers say his injuries matched exactly the injuries of Christ on the Cross: broken wrists, broken ankles, a deep gash in his side, bruises and lacerations. The story spread that an angel had plucked him from the field to bring him up to God, but the angel dropped him by accident, which explains his injuries.”

“You say he was found by the side of a road?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds to me like he was run over.”

“As a matter of fact, two days later a car appeared in Tuizelo, the first ever in the whole region.”

“There you go.”

“Some villagers right away believed there was a link between the car and the boy’s death. It quickly became such a story in the region that it was all documented. But there was no proof. And how did the boy, who was next to his father one moment, end up in front of a car miles away the next?”

“There must be some explanation.”

“Well, they took it as an act of God. Whether it was by God’s direct hand or by means of this strange new transportation device, God was behind it. And there’s more to the story. O que é dourado deve ser substituído pelo que é dourado.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a local saying. What is gilded should be replaced by what is gilded . They say God was sorry about the angel dropping the boy and so He gave him special powers. Apparently any number of infertile women have prayed to the boy and shortly afterwards become pregnant. Dona Amélia swears it happened to her. It’s a legend in these parts. More than that. There’s a process afoot to have him declared venerable by Rome, and because of all the fertility stories attributed to him, they say he has a good chance.”

“Is that so? We have an uncle who’s a saint and you live with an ape — that’s quite the extended-family situation we’ve got going.”

“No, venerable, two notches down.”

“Sorry, I can’t seem to tell my venerables from my saints.”

“Apparently, the little boy’s death turned the whole village upside down. Poverty is a native plant here. Everyone grows it, everyone eats it. Then this child appeared and he was like living wealth. Everyone loved him. They call him the Golden Child. When he died, Father Eloi told me, they say days turned to grey and all colour drained from the village.”

“Well, sure. It would be incredibly upsetting, a little boy’s death.”

“At the same time, they talk about him as if he’s still alive. He still makes them happy. You saw Dona Amélia — and she never even met him.”