Free The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel

this hothouse weather “that makes a green leaf sing & a man die.” And then there are the supplementary, incidental miseries: the stench of a sugar mill, bad food, infestations of ants, ticks as large as cherry pips, a cut to his left thumb that becomes infected.
    He speaks of a “mulatto silence,” a miscegenation between the heat and humidity of the island and the unhappy people on it. This mulatto silence creeps into all the senses. The slaves are sullen, have to be pushed to do anything, which they do in silence. As for the Europeans who live out their lives on São Tomé, their words, usually curt and annoyed, are spoken, perhaps are heard, less likely are obeyed promptly, then are muffled by the silence. Work for the slaves on the plantations carries on from sunrise to sunset, with no singing or even conversation, with a one-hour break at noon to eat, rest, and become further aware of the silence. The working day ends with a speechless meal, solitude, and restless sleep. The nights are louder than the days on São Tomé, because of the lively insects. Then the sun rises and it all starts over, in silence.
    Nourishing this silence are two emotions: despair and rage. Or, as Father Ulisses puts it, “the black pit & the red fire.
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(How well Tomás knows that pair!) His relations with the island clergy become fraught with tension. He never gives the precise nature of his grievances. Whatever the cause, the result is clear: He becomes increasingly cut off from everyone. As his diary progresses, there are fewer and fewer mentions of interactions with fellow Europeans. Who else is there? The barriers of social status, language, and culture preclude any amicable dealings between a white man, even a priest, and slaves. Slaves come and go, communicating with Europeans mostly with their wide-open eyes. As for the locals, freed slaves and mulattos, what they have to gain from Europeans is precarious. To trade with them, to work for them, to leave their sight—that is the best policy. Father Ulisses laments:
The shacks of natives disappear overnight & rings of emptiness form around isolated white men & I am that. I am an isolated white man in Africa.
    Tomás stops the machine and decides, after poking his face up at the sky, that the afternoon has turned cool and cloudy, unsuited to further motoring. Better to settle down for the day under the mink coat.
    The next day the road continues nearly villagelessly until Couço, where there is a bridge across the River Sorraia. Under the narrow bridge, alarmed egrets and herons, until then peaceably standing in the water, flutter away. He is pleased to see orange trees, the only splash of colour in an otherwise grey day. He wishes the sun would come out. It’s the sun that makes a landscape, drawing out its colour, defining its contours, giving it its spirit.
    On the outskirts of a town named Ponte de Sor, he halts the automobile. He sets out on foot for the town. It’s good to walk. He kicks his feet back vigorously. He’s practically skipping backwards. But what is this itch that is bothering him? He scratches his scalp, his face, and his chest. It is his body crying to be washed. His armpits are starting to smell, as are his nether regions.
    He enters the town. People stare at him, at his manner of walking. He finds an apothecary to buy moto-naphtha, following his uncle’s advice of resupplying himself as often as he can. He asks the man at the counter if he has the product. He has to use a few names before the implacably serious man nods and produces from a shelf a small glass bottle, barely half a litre.
    “Do you have any more?” Tomás asks.
    The apothecary turns and brings down another two bottles.
    “I’ll have still more, please.”
    “I don’t have any more. That’s my whole stock.”
    Tomás is disheartened. At this rate, he will have to ransack every apothecary between Ponte de Sor and the High Mountains of Portugal.
    “I’ll take these three bottles,