"Batista--meu...avo," he confesses. He points to Ben, but he doesn't know the Portuguese word for "great-grandfather".
"A crianca dourada!" Dona Amelia 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 Amelia 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 Amelia opens the photo album. "E ele! E 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 Amelia 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, ja 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 Amelia 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. "Braganca, 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 Amelia 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 cafe.
"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 Amelia 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 e dourado deve ser substituido pelo que e 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 Amelia 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 Amelia--and she never even met him."
"And how is this boy related to us again, exactly?"
"He was my mother's cousin--and therefore my second cousin, or maybe my first cousin once removed, I'm not sure. At any rate, he's family. Rafael and his wife, Maria, had their son very late, which means my mother was older than her cousin. She'd have been a teenager when he was born--as was Dad. So my parents both knew him. That's what got Dona Amelia so excited. And I vaguely remember a story my parents told me when I was young, about the death of a child in the family. They would start it but never finish it--like a terrible war story. They always shut up at a particular point. I think they left the village before he was revived, so to speak. I suspect they never knew about that."
>
"Or they didn't care to believe it."
"Could be that. Like the boy's mother. It seems the boy's father and mother stood on different sides of the story, the father believing in the boy's powers, the mother not."
"That's a sad story," Ben says. "And what was the deal about the chimpanzee in the body?"
"I don't know. They didn't bring that up."
Odo is sitting on a chair next to them, holding a coffee in his hands, looking out the window.
"Well, there's yours, sipping his cappuccino like a real European."
When they return to the house, Peter goes from room to room, wondering if he feels differently about it. Will the walls now exude memories? Will he hear the pitter-patter of small bare feet on the floor? Will young parents appear, holding a small child in their arms, his future still shrouded in mystery?
No. This isn't home. Home is his story with Odo.
That evening, over a simple meal, he and Ben go through the photo album again together and try to make sense of Dr. Lozora's curious autopsy report on Rafael Miguel Santos Castro. Ben shakes his head in confusion.
The next afternoon they walk across the cobbled square to the little church. The day is as soft as a caress. They return to the candlelit shrine and the picture of the clear-eyed child. Ben mutters something about being related to "religious royalty". They move to a pew near the front of the church to sit together.
Suddenly Ben looks startled. "Dad!" he says, pointing to the crucifix.
"What?"
"The cross there--it looks like a chimpanzee! I'm not kidding. Look at the face, the arms, the legs."
Peter studies the crucifix. "You're right. It does look like one."
"This is crazy. What's with all the apes?" Ben looks around nervously. "Where's yours, by the way?"
"Over there," Peter replies. "Stop fretting about him."
As they leave the church Peter turns to his son. "Ben, you asked me a question. I don't know what's with all the apes. All I know is that Odo fills my life. He brings me joy."
Odo grins and then lifts his hands and claps a few times, producing a muffled sound, as if quietly calling them to attention. Father and son both watch, transfixed.
"That's a hell of a state of grace," Ben says.
They wander home but right away Odo makes to strike out on a walk. Ben decides not to come. "I'll wander around the village, continue reconnecting with my ancestors," he says. It takes Peter a moment to realize that there is no irony in Ben's statement. He would gladly join his son, but he is loyal to Odo, so he waves at Ben, grabs the backpack, and follows Odo out.
Odo sets off for the boulders. They walk silently, as usual, across the savannah. Peter trails behind without paying much attention. Abruptly Odo stops in his tracks. He rises on his legs and sniffs, his eyes trained on a boulder just ahead. A bird is standing on top of it, eyeing them. The hairs on Odo's body rise till they are straight up on end. He sways from side to side. When he returns to all fours, he jerks himself up and down on his arms with great excitement, though he is strangely quiet. The next moment he takes off at a full run for the boulder. In the blink of an eye he has skipped to the top of it. The bird has long since fluttered away. Peter is perplexed. What was it about the bird that so excited him?
He thinks of staying put and letting Odo have his play on the boulder. He would like nothing more than to lie down and have a nap. But Odo turns and waves at him from his high perch. Clearly Peter is expected to follow. He makes his way to the boulder. At its base, he composes himself for the climb, taking a few deep breaths. When he feels ready, he looks up.
He is startled to see Odo directly above him, clinging to the rock fully upside down. Odo is staring at him furiously with his reddish-brown eyes while he beckons him with a hand, the long dark fingers curling and uncurling rhythmically in a manner that Peter finds mesmerizing. At the same time, Odo's funnel-shaped lips are putting out a silent but urgent hoo, hoo, hoo. Odo has never done anything like this, neither in the boulder fields nor anywhere else. To be so imperatively summoned by the ape, and therefore so forcefully acknowledged--he is shocked. He feels as if he's just been birthed out of nonexistence. He is an individual being, a unique being, one who has been asked to climb. Energized, he reaches for the first handhold. Though riddled with holes and bulges, the side of the boulder is quite vertical and he strains to pull his weary body up. As he climbs, the ape retreats. When they reach the top, Peter sits down heavily, panting and sweating. He doesn't feel well. His heart is jumping about his chest.
He and Odo are side by side, their bodies touching. He looks at the way he has come. It is a sheer drop. He looks the other way, in the direction Odo is facing. The view is the same as always, though losing nothing for its familiarity: a great sweep of savannah all the way to the horizon, covered in golden-yellow grass, punctuated by dark boulders, a vista of spare beauty except for the sky, which is in full late-afternoon bloom. The volume of air above them is tremendous. Within it, the sun and the white clouds are playing off each other. The abundant light is unspeakably gorgeous.
He turns to Odo. The ape will be gazing up and away, he thinks. He is not. Odo is looking down and close-by. He is in a frenzy of excitement, but oddly contained, with no riotous pant-hooting or wild gestures, only a bobbing up and down of the head. Odo leans forward to look at the foot of the boulder. Peter cannot see what he is looking at. He nearly cannot be bothered to find out--he needs to rest. Nonetheless he lies on his front and inches forward, making sure his hands have a good grip. A fall from such a height would cause grievous injury. He peeks over the edge of the boulder's summit to see what is drawing Odo's attention down below.
What he sees does not make him gasp, because he doesn't dare make a sound. But his eyes stay fixed and unblinking and his breath is stilled. He now understands Odo's strategy in navigating the boulder fields, why the ape goes from boulder to boulder in a straight line rather than wandering in the open, why he climbs and observes, why he asks his clumsy human companion to stay close.
Odo has been seeking, and now Odo has found.
Peter stares at the Iberian rhinoceros standing at the foot of the boulder. He feels he is looking at a galleon from the air, the body massive and curved, the two horns rising like masts, the tail fluttering like a flag. The animal is not aware that it is being observed.
Peter and Odo look at each other. They acknowledge their mutual amazement, he with a stunned smile, Odo with a funnelling of the lips, then a wide grin of the lower teeth.
The rhinoceros flicks its tail and occasionally gives its head a little roll.
Peter tries to estimate its size. It is perhaps ten feet in length. A well-built, big-boned beast. The hide grey and tough-looking. The head large, with a long, sloping forehead. The horns as unmistakable as a shark's fin. The moist eyes surprisingly delicate, with long eyelashes.
The rhinoceros scratches itself against the rock. It lowers its head and sniffs at the grass but does not eat. It twitches its ears. Then, with a grunt, it sets off. The ground shakes. Despite its heft, the animal moves swiftly, heading straight for another boulder, then another, then another, until it has disappeared.
Peter and Odo don't move for the longest time, not for fear of the rhinoceros, but because they don't want to lose anything of what they've just seen, and to move might bring on forgetfulness. The sky is a blaze of blues and reds and oranges. Peter finds himself weeping silently.
Finally he pushes himself back onto the top of the boulder. It is an effort to sit up. His heart is battering within him. He sits with his eyes closed, his head hung low, trying to breathe evenly. It's the worst heartburn he's ever had. He groans.
Odo, to his hazy surprise, turns and hugs him, one long arm wrapping around his back, supporting him, the other enveloping his raised knees, on which his arms are resting. It's a firm full-circle embrace. Peter finds it comforting and relaxes into it. The ape's body is warm. He places a trembling hand on Odo's hairy forearm. He feels Odo's b
reathing against the side of his face. He raises his head and opens his eyes to cast a sideways glance at his friend. Odo is looking straight at him. Puff, puff, puff, softly, go the ape's breaths against his face. Peter struggles a little, but not to get away, more an involuntary action.
He stops moving, lifeless, his heart clogged to stillness. Odo does nothing for several minutes, then moves back, gently laying him flat on the boulder. Odo stares at Peter's body and coughs mournfully. He stays next to him for a half hour or so.
The ape rises and drops off the rock, barely breaking his fall with his hands and feet. On the ground he moves out into the open. He stops and looks back at the boulder.
Then he turns and runs off in the direction of the Iberian rhinoceros.
To Alice, and to Theo, Lola, Felix, and Jasper: the story of my life
BY YANN MARTEL
Fiction
The High Mountains of Portugal
Beatrice and Virgil
Life of Pi
Self
The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
Nonfiction
101 Letters to a Prime Minister: The Complete Letters to Stephen Harper
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
YANN MARTEL is the author of Life of Pi, the global bestseller that won the 2002 Man Booker Prize (among other honours) and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. He is also the award-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, the novels Self and Beatrice and Virgil, and the nonfiction work 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. Born in Spain in 1963, he studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs--tree planter, dishwasher, security guard--and travelled widely before turning to writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.
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