The High Mountains of Portugal. Yann Martel

your fortune. Off we go,” he says. He climbs into the driver’s seat. “Let me show you how to start the engine.” He claps his hands and roars, “Sabio!”

      Sabio steps forward, his gaze fixed on the automobile, his hands at the ready.

      “Before starting the engine, the moto-naphtha tap has to be turned to open—good man, Sabio—the throttle handle, here under the steerage wheel, has to be placed at half-admission—so—and the change-speed lever set at the neutral point, like this. Next you flick the magneto switch—here on the dashboard—to on. Then you open the lid of the hood—there’s no need to open the whole hood, you see that small lid there at the front?—and you press down once or twice on the float of the carburetor to flood it. See how Sabio does it? You close the lid, and all that’s left after that is turning the starting handle. Then you sit in the driver’s seat, take the hand brake off, get into first gear, and away you go. It’s child’s play. Sabio, are you ready?”

      Sabio faces the engine squarely and sets his legs apart, feet solidly planted on the ground. He bends down and grips the starting handle, a thin rod protruding from the front of the automobile. His arms straight, his back straight, he suddenly snaps the handle upward with great force, pulling himself upright, then, upon the handle completing a half-turn, he shoves down on it, using the full weight of his body, before working the upswing as he did the first time. He performs this circular action with enormous energy, with the result that not only does the whole automobile shake but the handle spins round two, maybe three times. Tomás is about to comment on Sabio’s prowess but for the result attending this spinning of the handle: The automobile roars to life. It starts with a sputtering rumble from deep within its bowels, followed by a succession of piercing explosions. As it begins to judder and shudder, his uncle yells, “Come on, hop aboard. Let me show you what this remarkable invention can do!”

      Tomás unwillingly but speedily clambers up to sit next to his uncle on the padded seat that stretches across the driving compartment. His uncle does a manoeuvre with his hands and feet, pulling this and pressing that. Tomás sees Sabio straddling a motorcycle that is standing next to a wall, then kick-starting it. He will be a good man to have along.

      Then, with a jerk, the machine moves.

      Quickly it gathers speed and swerves out of the courtyard, throwing itself over the threshold of the opened gates of the Lobo estate onto Rua do Pau de Bandeira, where it does a sharp right turn. Tomás slides across the smooth leather of the seat and slams into his uncle.

      He cannot believe the bone-jarring, mind-unhinging quaking he is experiencing, directly related to the noise-making, because such trembling can come only from such noise. The machine will surely shake itself to pieces. He realizes he has misunderstood the point of the suspension springs his uncle mentioned. Clearly their purpose is not to protect the automobile from ruts, but ruts from the automobile.

      Even more upsetting is the extremely fast and independent forward motion of the device. He sticks his head out the side and casts a look backwards, thinking—hoping—that he will see the Lobo household, every family member and employee, pushing the machine and laughing at the joke they are pulling on him. (Would that Dora were among those pushers!) But there are no pushers. It seems unreal to him that no animal should be pulling or pushing the device. It’s an effect without a cause, and therefore disturbingly unnatural.

      Oh, the alpine summits of Lapa! The automobile—coughing, sputtering, rattling, clattering, jouncing, bouncing, chuffing, puffing, whining, roaring—dashes down to the end of Rua do Pau de Bandeira, the cobblestones underfoot making their presence known with a ceaseless, explosive rat-a-tat, then violently lurches leftwards and falls off the street as if from a cliff, such is the steepness of Rua do Prior. Tomás’s guts feel as if they are being squeezed into a funnel. The automobile reaches the bottom of the street with a flattening that sends him crashing to the floor of the driving compartment. The machine has barely stabilized itself—and he regained his seat, if not his composure—before it springs up the last upward part of Rua do Prior onto Rua da Santa Trindade, which in turn descends steeply. The automobile gaily starts to dance over the metallic jaws of Santa Trindade’s tram tracks, sending him sliding to and fro across the seat, alternately smashing into his uncle, who does not seem to notice, or practically falling out of the automobile at the other end of the seat. From balconies that fleet by, he sees people scowling down at them.

      His uncle takes the right turn at Rua de São João da Mata with ferocious conviction. Down the street they race. Tomás is blinded by the sun; his uncle seems unaffected. The automobile pounces across Rua de Santos-o-Velho and bolts down the curve of Calçada de Santos. Upon reaching the Largo de Santos, he looks wistfully—and briefly—at the walkers indulging in the slow activities of its pleasant park. His uncle drives around it until, with a savage left turn, he flings the automobile onto the wide Rua Vinte e Quatro de Julho. Lapa’s lapping waters, the breathtaking Tagus, open up to the right in a burst of light, but Tomás does not have time to appreciate the sight as they hurtle through the urban density of Lisbon in a blur of wind and noise. They spin so fast around the busy roundabout of Praça do Duque da Terceira that the vehicle is projected, slingshot-like, down Rua do Arsenal. The hurly-burly of the Praça do Comércio is no impediment, merely an amusing challenge. Tomás sees the statue of King Jose I standing in the middle of the square. Oh! If only his Secretary of State, the Marquis of Pomba knew what horrors his streets were being subjected to, he might not have rebuilt them. On they go, onward and forward, in a roar of rush, in a smear of colour. Throughout, traffic of every kind—horses, carts, carriages, drays, trams, hordes of people and dogs—bumble around them blindly. Tomás expects a collision at any moment with an animal or a human, but his uncle saves them at the last second from every certain-death encounter with a sudden swerve or a harsh stoppage. A number of times Tomás feels the urge to scream, but his face is too stiff with fright. Instead, he presses his feet against the floorboards with all his might. If he thought his uncle would accept being treated like a life buoy, he would gladly hold on to him.

      All along, his uncle—when he is not hurling insults at strangers—is lit up with joy, his red face radiating excitement, his mouth creased up in a smile, his eyes shining, and he laughs with insane abandon, or shouts a one-way conversation of acclamations and exclamations: “Amazing! . . . Glorious! . . . Fantastic! . . . Didn’t I tell you? . . . Now, that’s how you take a left turn! . . . Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary! . . . Look, look: We must be hitting fifty kilometres an hour!”

      Meanwhile, the Tagus flows, placid, unhurried, unperturbed, a gentle behemoth next to the outrageous flea that leaps along its bank.

      Next to a field, upon a fledgling rural road without any cobblestone finery, his uncle at last stops the automobile. Behind them, at some distance, Lisbon’s skyline stands, like the emerging teeth of a small child.

      “See how far we’ve come—and so fast!” His uncle’s voice booms in the refreshing silence. He is beaming like a boy on his birthday.

      Tomás looks at him for a few seconds, incapable of speech, then practically falls to the ground getting out of the driving compartment. He staggers to a nearby tree and supports himself against it. He bends forward and a heaving gush of vomit spews from his mouth.

      His uncle shows understanding. “Motion sickness,” he diagnoses breezily as he removes his driving gloves. “It’s a curious thing. Some passengers are subject to it, but never the driver. Must be something to do with controlling the vehicle, perhaps being able to anticipate the coming bumps and turns. That, or the mental effort of driving distracts the stomach from any malaise it might feel. You’ll be fine once you’re behind the wheel.”

      It takes a moment for Tomás to register the words. He cannot imagine holding the reins of this metallic stallion. “Sabio is coming with me, isn’t he?” he asks breathlessly as he wipes the sides of his mouth with his handkerchief.

      “I’m not lending you Sabio. Who will look after my other vehicles? Besides, he’s made sure the Renault is in tip-top running order. You won’t need him.”

      “But Sabio will drive the thing, Uncle.”

      “Drive it? Why would