The High Mountains of Portugal (11 page)

This burning is infernal. He tries to get used to it, but he can't. It's as if the paste has consumed his skin and now is working through his flesh. He is being roasted alive. But so are the vermin. They and their eggs are dying by the thousands. He needs to endure the agony only a little longer, until they are all dead. After that, he will be well on the road to recovery. He continues to wait, slowly sizzling.

Then it happens: a shattering
BOOM!
He is projected from the footboard, as much by surprise and fright as by the force of the explosion. He turns and stares, the vermin and the pain all forgotten. The automobile is on fire! Where before there was only a single wavering flame atop the bottle of moto-naphtha, now there are great patches of fire all over the inside of the cabin. And upon feeling a prickling at the back of his head, he realizes that the fire has leapt from the cabin onto his head. In a moment it spreads to his beard, his chest, his entire body.
POUF!
goes his pubic mound, now an orange forest of flames. He screams. Luckily for him, the lice powder is not flammable. But there are stabs of pain coming from his head, from his chest, from his penis—wherever the moto-naphtha-fuelled fire has worked its way through lice powder and hair and reached bare skin. He hops about, slapping his hands all over his body, stamping the fires out. When he is done, he stands, smoke rising off him in a column.

The automobile is still burning. He runs to it. On the way he picks up off the ground the wet blanket that he used the previous day to cover the broken cabin window and keep the rain out. He dives into the cabin. Throwing the blanket around and flinging horse lice powder about, he manages to extinguish the fires.

He pulls the trunk out from the cabin and opens it. Father Ulisses' diary, for being inside it, is undamaged. He nearly cries with relief. But the cabin—the state of it! The leather of the sofa—charred and crispy. The side panels—scorched. The ceiling—black with soot. All the windows except the one in front of the driving compartment—blown out, shards of glass everywhere. The food, the motoring supplies, his clothes—all singed and burned. Everything covered in ashes and carbonized horse lice powder. And the reek!

He finishes the last of the red wine, clears the driving compartment seat of broken glass, then lies down naked on the blanket on the seat, covering himself with the mink coat. Pain racks his body, his uncle yells at him in his dreams. He is chilled by the night while yet burning from his sores.

In the morning light, he dresses gingerly. However carefully he puts his clothes on, they rake at his tender skin. He sweeps and cleans the cabin as best he can. He opens the trunk again to check the diary. He does not want to lose his connection to Father Ulisses. He has come to see in the priest a man perfected by his suffering. A man to be imitated. Because to suffer and do nothing is to be nothing, while to suffer and do something is to become someone. And that is what he is doing: He is doing something. He must strike onward to the High Mountains of Portugal and fulfil his quest.

But he is confronted with an unexpected problem: the tree right in front of the automobile. There's not enough space to drive around it. He has not encountered this situation until now. Always there has been space in front of the vehicle to make use of the steerage wheel and move forward. He exclaims and blames and curses. Finally he tries to think of a solution, and there is only one, clearly: to cut down the tree. There's an axe among the store of essential items in the cabin. He has just seen it, covered in soot. His ever considerate and farsighted uncle no doubt included it for this precise purpose. The grand march of progress apparently includes the unfortunate necessity of chopping down every obstacle in its way. But the tree is so large, the trunk so thick, his body so sore!

He dithers. Finally the sight of his trunk of papers in the breezy cabin focuses his scattered energies. He picks up the axe.

He stands, facing the side of the tree opposite where the automobile is held prisoner. He raises the axe and swings. He chops and chops and chops. The bark flies off well enough, but the pale flesh of the tree is rubbery and resistant. The axe, sharp though it is, bounces back, producing only the smallest indentation each time. Hitting the same spot repeatedly demands a skill that mostly eludes him. And every swing grinds tender flesh against harsh clothing.

Quickly he is bathing in perspiration. He rests, eats, goes at it again. The morning is spent in this fashion. Then the early afternoon slips by.

By late afternoon, he has hacked a large hollow into the side of the trunk. The hollow goes beyond the midway point, but the tree doesn't seem to feel any inclination to fall. His palms are shredded red and bleeding. The pain in his hands barely masks the pain he feels in his whole body. He is so exhausted he can barely stand.

He can chop no longer. The hindrance has to go away—now. He decides to use the weight of his body to make the tree topple. Placing one foot on the edge of the mudguard and another on the edge of the hood, he reaches for the first branch. It's torture to grip the bark with his hands, but he manages to hook a leg around another branch and heave himself up. After all his struggles with the axe, the comparative ease with which he climbs the tree cheers him.

He moves out along a bough. He holds on to two separate branches. Of course, when the tree falls, he will fall with it. But the height isn't great, and he will brace himself.

He begins to swing his body back and forth, ignoring the excruciating pain that is radiating from his palms. The head of the tree dances and dances. He expects to hear at any moment a sharp crack and feel himself drop through the air the short distance to the ground.

Instead, the tree gives up with quiet, rubbery elasticity. It tips over slowly. Tomás turns his head and sees the ground coming up. The landing is soft. But his feet slip off their bough, and where they come to rest on the ground is the precise spot where the tree chooses to press down with its heaviest limb. He yelps with pain.

He wrenches his feet free. He moves his toes. No bones are broken. He turns and looks at the automobile. He sees in an instant from the ground what he didn't during his long hours of toil standing up: The stump is too high. The automobile, its bottom, will never be able to reach over it. He should have chopped much lower. But even if he had, the tree is still attached to the stump. It has fallen over without breaking off. The point at which tree and stump cling to each other is twisted and will be even more resistant to the axe. And even if he did manage to chop through the rest of the trunk, and supposing the stump were shorter,
would he be able to pull the tree away?
It seems scarcely imaginable. It's no bush.

His efforts have been futile. The tree mocks him. Still entangled in the branches, he slumps. He begins to sob awkwardly. He closes his eyes and abandons himself to grief.

He hears the voice just before a hand touches his shoulder.

“My friend, you are hurt.”

He looks up, startled. A peasant has materialized out of the air. Such a bright white shirt he is wearing. Tomás chokes on his last sob and wipes his face with the back of his hand.

“You've been thrown so far!” says the man.

“Yes,” replies Tomás.

The man is looking at the automobile and the tree. Tomás understood him to mean how far he was projected from the tree (which, in fact, he hasn't been at all; he's
in
the tree, like a bird in its nest). But the peasant meant from the
automobile
. He must think that Tomás crashed into the tree and was projected from the vehicle into its branches.

“My hands and feet hurt. And I'm so thirsty!” Tomás says.

The peasant wraps one of his arms around his waist. Though short, he's a powerful man and he lifts Tomás off the ground. He half-carries him to the automobile, setting him down on the footboard. Tomás massages his ankles.

“Anything broken?” the man asks.

“No. Just bruised.”

“Have some water.”

The man produces a gourd. Tomás drinks from it greedily.

“Thank you. For the water and for your help. I'm most grateful. My name is Tomás.”

“My name is Simão.”

Simão gazes at the fallen tree and the automobile's broken windows, burned-out cabin, and many dents and scratches. “What a terrible accident! Such a powerful machine!” he exclaims.

Tomás hopes Simão doesn't notice the axe on the ground.

“Pity about the tree,” Simão adds.

“Is it yours?”

“No. This is Casimiro's grove.”

For the first time Tomás looks at the tree not as an obstacle in his way but as a being in its own right. “How old was it?”

“By the looks of it, two to three hundred years old. A good one, producing plenty of olives.”

Tomás is aghast. “I'm so sorry. Casimiro will be very angry.”

“No, he'll understand. Accidents happen to all of us.”

“Tell me, is Casimiro somewhat older, with a round face and greying hair?”

“Yes, that would describe Casimiro.”

As it would the peasant from last night, the one who watched Tomás's vermin dance. Tomás suspects that Casimiro will see the events in his olive grove in a different, less forgiving light.

“Do you think the machine will still work?” asks Simão.

“I'm sure it will,” replies Tomás. “It's a solid thing. But I need to move it backwards. That's my problem.”

“Put it in neutral and we'll push it.”

That word again. Tomás is not sure why the machine's neutrality will allow it to move backwards, but Simão seems to know what he's talking about.

“It's already in neutral. Only the hand brake needs to be released,” Tomás says.

He puts his shoes back on and climbs into the driving compartment. With a sore hand, he releases the hand brake. Nothing happens. He doubts Simão's quick fix will yield anything more fruitful than his own tree-chopping solution.

“Come,” says Simão.

Tomás joins him at the front of the automobile. This notion of pushing the automobile is preposterous. Still, to be polite to the man who has so obligingly helped him and is now ready beside him to push, he places a shoulder against the automobile.

“One—two—three!” cries Simão, and he pushes, and Tomás too, though not very hard.

To his amazement, the automobile moves. He's so amazed, in fact, that he forgets to move with it and he falls flat on his face. In a matter of seconds, the vehicle stands three lengths from the tree.

Simão is beaming. “What an astonishing machine!”

“Yes, it is,” says Tomás, incredulous.

As he picks himself up off the ground, he discreetly takes hold of the axe. Placing it close to his leg, he returns it to the cabin. Simão is still gazing at the automobile with unbounded admiration.

Tomás would like nothing better than to stay where he is for the night, but the prospect of Casimiro arriving on the scene, and having to explain the attack on his quarter-millennium olive tree, strongly advises against the option. Besides, he's lost. If he stays the night, he will still be lost in the morning.

“Simão, I was wondering if you might help me find my way out of here. I seem to have got lost.”

“Where do you want to go? To Nisa?”

“No, I've just come from there. I'm heading for Vila Velha de Ródão.”

“Vila Velha? You have got very lost. But it's no problem. I know the way.”

“That's wonderful. Might you help me start the automobile?”

With the condition his hands are in, the idea of having to turn the starting handle makes Tomás feel faint. He supposes Simão will take pleasure in it. He's right. The peasant's face breaks into a wide grin.

“Yes, of course. What do you want me to do?”

Tomás shows him the starting handle and the direction in which to turn it. As the machine explodes to life, Simão might as well be struck by lightning—the effect is the same. Tomás waves at him to get into the driving compartment and Simão scampers aboard. Tomás puts the vehicle into first gear, and as it moves forward he glances at his passenger. His face confirms what Tomás already suspected from watching his uncle: The machine turns grown men into little boys. Simão's weathered features are transformed by delight. If he shrieked and giggled, Tomás would not be surprised.

“Which way should I go?” he asks.

Simão points. Every few minutes Simão corrects his course and soon the trace of a track appears. Then a proper track, smoother and verged. The driving becomes easier and faster. Simão's delight continues undiminished.

After a good half hour of driving, they reach a true, blessed road. Tomás stops the automobile.

“I never thought I'd be so happy to see a road. So which way is Vila Velha de Ródão?” he asks.

Simão indicates to the right.

“Thank you very much, Simão. You've been of invaluable help. I must reward you.” Tomás reaches into the pocket of his charred jacket.

Simão shakes his head. With a struggle, as if his tongue has been lost deep inside his body, he speaks. “My reward is having been in this amazing carriage. It is I who thank you.”

“It's nothing. I'm sorry I've taken you so far out of your way.”

“It's not so far on foot.”

Simão reluctantly vacates the passenger seat, and Tomás prods the machine onward. “Thank you, thank you again,” he shouts.

Simão waves until he disappears from view in the side mirror.

Shortly thereafter, with a dragging to one side and a
fluf-fluf-fluf-fluf
sound, Tomás realizes that something is wrong. He presses on one pedal, then another.

It takes a few walkabouts around the vehicle before he sees that the front right tire is—he searches for the word—
flat
. The roundness of the wheel is no longer so round. There were some pages in the manual about this eventuality. He skipped them when it became apparent that the wheels, in their roundness, at least, did not require lubrication. He retrieves the manual and finds the appropriate section. He blanches. This is serious engineering work. He can see that even before he has translated the details from the French.