Continent

THREE. Cross-country

HOW HAD they reacted, these people, when the young teacher came to the valley, earnest and eager? Old Loti brought him down to the village on horseback on his second day and took him round to shake grave hands at the mayor’s house and informal ones at the village store. People smiled at him smiling and waited until they got to know his particular ways before they showed any warmth to the newcomer, the ‘volunteer’ from Canada. His pupils due back at school within a week, kept away but watched. The men who had met foreigners before, while working in the mines or in the markets and warehouses of the city, stayed close but silent. Those that shook his hand saw that his horse did not like him and that he sat awkwardly on it and pulled too closely on the reins. The horse was reserving judgement, looking for something to trust, and so would they. Horses knew a lot. Did not the white horse escape the flood which drowned the shepherdess?

They did not see him on a horse again, though all the young men of the mountains rode horses, for on the fourth day, at dusk, Eddy Rivette took his shorts and running shoes from their bag and set off at a soft pace across the compound of the school. He tested the ground and the stones and the thorns until he was sure of them, and then, lengthening his step, turned to the steep ridge which separated his half-valley from that of the village and the store. Alone on the tracks worn by animals and borrowed by men, he encountered everything which he had expected: sunset, warm earth, a sense of liberation amongst a landscape and a people equally dispossessed. He picked his way, running all the time but choosing, heading for landmarks and favouring distance to the hard work of gradients. By the time he was in sight of the store and was surprising those who sat outside, Eddy Rivette had followed for the first time the track which he was to run every day for the fifteen months he stayed in the hills.

‘What’s that teacher doing, running half-dressed across the hard ground of the hills?’

Old Loti could not give the answer. Men walked or rode in the village but perhaps in Canada they ran in white shorts. He did not know.

‘Perhaps in Canada they don’t have horses,’ he said, and the men nodded that this was so because they remembered how the teacher had sat on his horse two days before.

‘Children run,’ said the storekeeper. ‘They run just for the pleasure of it.’

‘Yes, but not alone,’ said Loti. ‘And anyway, watch him. He doesn’t run like a child. He runs as if he has some purpose … but without any urgency. That’s Canada for you.’

But they got used to it and after a while began to look forward to it, like anything reliable and harmless. Within an hour of the children from the school slowly picking their way down the hillside towards the village at the end of their day, the slim, tense figure of their teacher would appear briefly at the summit of the ridge above the village, disappear into the slip of an erosion gulley and then come in view again lower down the hill where the track was quite flat. There, the teacher came forward on his toes, head down and fists clenched, and ran the last two hundred metres in a sprint, not slowing and stopping until he had passed the smiles and grins of the men who sat at the store. Then he turned, cool and with breath to spare, and smiled himself and said hello to all who had been watching.

He got to be quite famous. But fame is something different from popularity. It is less demanding for a start and has more to do with talent than virtue. But not even much to do with talent. The fame which Eddy Rivette enjoyed was just that of someone behaving strangely but purposefully in a place where there were enough old men with the leisure to watch. When they smiled and clapped at his daily approach at the store it was not with affection or welcome but at what he was providing for their day If they had genuinely known and liked him, the running would have embarrassed them. It was strange. It was quirky. It separated them from him. Not to be wished of a friend.

’Isra-kone, however, was a friend of the village. He was a young man, uneducated in school ways but knowing and intelligent and, best of all, a fine talker and a great horseman. These two things mattered to the men of the village who were too old to be judged by the recent talents which were taught at the school. ’Isra was one of the last initiates of the valley, having spent twelve days, two of them drugged unconscious, at the circumcision lodge in the mountains. He knew the secret songs in the old Siddilic, drummed endlessly at him and his fellows at the lodge. They had repeated the words, their stomachs pressed to the walls to ease the pains of hunger. After ’Isra’s lodge the old mayor had died and the new mayor, old Loti’s brother, discontinued circumcision of the young villagers and the lodges and the secret alliances which sprang from them, not because he was modern but because he feared the new directives of the government officers in the city more than he feared the criticism of the old gossips in the village.

And so ’Isra and the young poor men of his age were the last ‘brotherhood’ and the old gossips whom the mayor didn’t fear put their hopes on them. It was foolish, for the younger, uncircumcised brothers and sons of the ‘brotherhood’ were better for the village. They read and wrote and spoke English with the runner at the school as if it were their own language. But still the old men preferred ’Isra and his friends. And secretly they mistrusted the ponderous troupe of pupils who left with their pens and books for the school at eight each day.

Of the brotherhood ’Isra was their favourite, more popular than their own mayor’s son who had gone away to colleges in England and Italy and got new wild ideas. They didn’t need much excuse to like ’Isra. He was so easy. But when they retold how he had ridden his white mare that night of the rains across the hills to bring help for the mayor’s chest, where his heart was beating and flapping like a trapped bird, they found all the excuse to like him thoroughly. The helicopter had come from the town on to the flat edge of the village and taken the mayor away to hospital. Four foreign doctors had slaved to quiet his heart and keep the mayorship with this old fearful man and away from the wild ideas of his wild college son. And ’Isra had returned to tell of his ride and that the chief would be well. Even the smallest children will say it. ’Isra-kone is the finest horseman in the valley.

’Isra was a quiet man, though a great talker when he chose, who had few certainties. He did not trust the weather or his cattle or the life of his horse whom he loved. When the weather was fine and his stock was healthy and he woke in the morning to find the horse bright-eyed and vigorous, then he let himself enjoy that day. But he did not expect it to hold for the next day. He expected only what he could see approaching with his own eye, and (since the night darkness blocked his vision) his anticipations ended each day at sunset.

He had known, since the first swollen stomach of his boyhood, what it was to sit watchful at night beneath the stars. That was the extent of his mysticism. For the rest, he was happy while he had maize and fulfilled while he was popular in the village. In the two years since his ride across the mountains to bring the helicopter, he had allowed a small certainty into his life, that his comings and goings were commented on. That as he rode down from the lands the old men at the store nodded and smiled with affection and said, ‘There’s young ’Isra with his horse. What’s he up to?’ and called, ‘Go well, ’Isra. Where are you riding?’ Or, ‘From where are you come?’

When the old men stopped calling and nodding and commenting they did not like him any less. It was just that their interests were elsewhere, fixed a little to the right of the wide erosion gulley on the ridge above the village where the teacher appeared each evening for an instant before disappearing and appearing again, jogging doggedly towards them and their gossip at the store.

’Isra watched his rival with the old men for a season until his own fame had eroded away and not even the men of his brotherhood turned to admire him and his white mare or whisper his name. Their eyes were not for one of their own whom they loved and trusted and understood but for the foreigner for whom they cared nothing, but who came faster and faster each day from the ridge below the sunset and who seemed to tell them something about man and their mountains which they had never guessed — that men were like hares who could bounce across the black-studded basalt earth around which they had stumbled for centuries until the horse had come.

’Isra missed his fame for a season until he saw how he and his horse could regain it, bringing the attention of the villagers once again back to his entries and exits and his fine horsemanship and storytelling. Not planning ahead further than that day, ’Isra timed the meeting with his rival for the evening.

He told old Loti. ‘Me and the teacher are going to race tonight from the school to the store. Will you be there? Don’t let anybody miss the race.’

Neither he nor old Loti nor the other gossips at the store doubted for an instant that ’Isra and his mare would beat the teacher. The horse was born to the mountains. But they looked forward to the contest. It would be interesting to see what the foreigner and his bony legs could do against the mountain and the horse.

The word soon spread through the village that ’Isra would race the teacher. But the last man to hear was the teacher himself. It was Sunday and the school was closed. He sat at the door of his house and ran his fingers across the ripple soles of his shoes. Still good. Good perhaps for another month or so … and then it wouldn’t matter. His ‘term’ would be over and he would be back in Canada and running on track again. He’d need harder soles there. These ripples were good for the dry sloping hills which surrounded the school, for turning sharply on the thorny goat-ways and the rubble of the yearly erosion — but not for ‘track’. Another month or so … and he’d have needed new running shoes, the thatch on the staff house would have to be replaced, new boys would be coming to the school. And he’d be in Montreal with his colour slides and a lifelong commitment to this seventh and shabby continent, to the village in the next valley. Melvyn John Murphy was coming. His replacement. From Detroit, Michigan — motor city. He’d already written to the American and told him about the place, the school, the trick the sunlight had of flecking the aloes long after the light in the valleys had gone. He hoped that Melvyn John Murphy would respect the place like he had, would give what he had (though not quite as much) and take what was offered. They had their own ways, these people. Brashness would not be welcome.

He thought all this and decided that he would miss his running across the hills into the village. He decided, too, that he would preserve his sense of loss, even when his memory was faint and when his body and pace had got used once again to the flat white-lined cinder tracks and the soft spring-time training runs across the campus of Joliette College and along the lip of the river where girls sat with their bicycles on the grass. Somehow it was more noble and more worldly amongst the slipping soils and half-chewed thorns to pad pad pad along, nearly always dry, nearly always warm, always alone and with no competition, no other runners but yourself to run against.

He would preserve the loss of that.

The wind was dropping now as it did the hour before dusk. He pulled the ripples on and tied them tight and double so they would not loosen or snag on the low dry bushes. He turned his socks close down over his shoes so that his shins were exposed and could be cut on the sharp twigs and coarse grass of the track. It was good to scratch and draw blood in that safe place.

When he stood he saw ’Isra-kone standing next to his tough white mare at the edge of the school compound. Eddy Rivette walked over and greeted his visitor.

‘Did you come to see me?’

’Isra nodded.

‘What is it? To do with the school?’

‘No, running. I want to race with you to the store.’

Eddy Rivette was half-pleased. It was good that one of the villagers should want to run with him, but this man was not dressed for running nor built for it. It was strange, that — for the man’s decision to come to him at the school seemed firm and old but his appearance was that of a man who wanted to run on impulse, whatever he wore and despite his build.

‘I go fast,’ said Eddy discouragingly

‘My horse goes faster!’

‘Your horse? You want to race me on your horse? Not running?’

‘No, riding on my horse!’

They both laughed at the thought of ’Isra running. This was to be more of a contest because ’Isra was a fine rider and his horse was strong and used to the hills and the ways across them.

‘Why do you want to run against me? Must the loser give something?’

‘No,’ said ’Isra. ‘It is for the race only.’

‘Okay. When?’ asked Eddy.

‘Now,’ said ’Isra.

AND THAT WAS how the Great Race between the schoolteacher and the horseman began — a simple challenge brought to the school compound by a small uneasy man with a horse to another small man, a runner from Canada. Not a brother. Not a man from the villages amongst the hills, but a stranger with a stranger’s ways. ‘When?’ asked the one. ‘Now,’ answered the other. And so the race waited a few moments to begin, for the two men to understand the race, that it was two different strengths that were being matched.

‘When you kick your horse I will start running,’ said Eddy Rivette. ’Isra nodded. ‘It’s the first to the store, is that it?’ ’Isra nodded again. ‘We can go any way we want, just get there first?’

‘That’s right,’ said ’Isra.

‘Let’s go then!’

’Isra kicked his horse and turned the rein towards the foot of the steep ridge which stood between him and the crowd of villagers, his villagers, who waited at the ground by the store. The horse speeded from a trot to a canter and cut firmly and confidently into the slow gradient away from the school. Eddy Rivette set off in pursuit, surprised at the speed with which the horse was gaining ground. He saw ’Isra choose the same cattle track which he himself had used nightly for visits to the store. ’Isra had been watching him, he realized. Any advantage that Eddy had from knowing the most economical route across the ridge was lost now that ’Isra had chosen it for himself. It would be impossible to pass, too, on that track. It was too narrow and its borders too treacherous for the delicate ankles of a man. Used to adapting his tactics to the dictates of the pack in the point-to-points and marathons that he had run in Canada, Eddy Rivette saw that the race was lost by his usual route. The horse had the advantage of speed on the flat and the advantage of being first and unpassable on the steep track. He would not be able to pass ’Isra until they reached the gentle gradient at the tree before the store and, by then, the horse’s speed would make her the winner. He had to beat them on the hill or lose the race.

He made his mind up quickly, full-heartedly. When he reached the spot where the flatness of the school’s half-valley turned abruptly upwards away from the loose stones and thorns into the erosions and cattle paths of the ridge, instead of following the horse and ’Isra, now sixty metres ahead and twenty metres above, Eddy Rivette turned at right angles. He paced out along the wide dry track, which rounded the foot of the ridge with scarcely a change of height before it reached the next valley, the valley of the village and the store. There it joined the broad sandy stream bed, the dead river of the valley, and climbed imperceptibly towards the single tree, the store and the waiting villagers. It was the long way round, perhaps twice the distance of the ridge route, but there wasn’t an obstacle nor even a difficult stretch in the whole track. The obstacle was just one of distance. Eddy opened out his pace. It developed easily and his wind was with him. This was easy, plain sailing, after the difficulties that he had tamed daily on the cattle tracks of the ridge, the constant watching and skipping and allowing for hazards and the jarring of hard heels into an aching stomach, the creeping heartbeats waiting to pain him to a standstill. No, this was easy. He could forget those problems and just let his speed stretch with his step, his mind free to calculate the distance and tell himself again and again that it could not be done.

’Isra did not turn to look behind, to see the schoolteacher running along the flat floor of the valley. It was bad luck to look behind. He fixed his eye on the summit of the ridge and rode happily, knowing that he was leading and that the schoolteacher, wherever he was, was behind. But he was careful not to tire his horse. She must be fresh enough to finish strongly, like a victor. ‘Let the horse be slow enough to step firmly,’ he told himself, ‘but fast enough to arrive in time, like when I rode across the mountains to bring the helicopter to the mayor.’ ’Isra reached the flat ledge of soily stone a few yards below the summit of the ridge where he had to turn the horse through a tight passage of rock to take the track to the top. The horse paused for a footing and ’Isra let himself glance at the track below. No sign of the teacher. Perhaps he was running in one of the deep gulleys and would appear in a moment. He listened. No, not a sound. He would have heard the slapping soles of the foreigner’s shoes if he had been moving on that hillside, but not a sound and not a sign.

’Isra looked along the ridge to either side, fearing that the teacher had taken a new, quicker route. Still no movement. ’Isra laughed. ‘He is resting,’ he said aloud, to the horse and the hills. ‘He is tired and he is resting. We have won this race.’ He spurred the horse up the last few metres of track and let himself enjoy both the pleasure of reaching the top and of having won midway through the race.

‘He is resting,’ he thought. ‘Or perhaps he has fallen and is lying in the stones with his ankles twisted. We will send a horse to bring him down. I myself will ride to bring him down on the back of my horse.’

And when ’Isra, the rider of the village, reached the summit of the ridge he was laughing to himself.

At the village store old Loti and the villagers were waiting, their eyes crannied against the evening light silhouetting the hills before them. Loti and the old men knew which spot on the ridge to watch, the spot where the teacher had crossed each evening. They knew where the leader of the race would appear briefly before disappearing into the slip of an erosion gulley and then come in view again, lower down the hill where the track flattened. And though the villagers were watching the ridge too, it was their ears which were nervous, waiting for the old men to cry out ‘Here he comes. It is…’ and then the name of the man who led. They formed the two possible shapes on the still ridge, the runner or the horse, its tail frisky with victory.

And then Loti called, just one word, ’Isra, and they saw him there, the man of their village, winning on the ridge. A cry went up from the villagers, carrying across the evening to ’Isra. They saw him spur his horse and start to descend the track into the deep gulley, ferociously. ‘He should stay calm,’ the old men thought. ‘He is in the lead.’ But they did not know what ’Isra had seen jogging along the dry valley floor firmly and resolutely towards the village and the store. The schoolteacher had taken the long valley route and was running strongly on the obstacle-free road while he, ’Isra-kone, had still to take care amongst the treacherous descents, though he and his horse were nearer, much nearer, to the store.

’Isra’s descent brought him to the valley track twenty metres ahead of the schoolteacher. He lost a metre only turning the horse onto it and urging her to the new course. But the last scrambled descent from the ridge after ’Isra had spotted the schoolteacher had unnerved her and she settled badly. Eddy Rivette, however, had not changed his pace. He had kept his steady step from the moment that he had decided not to challenge ’Isra on the ridge route but follow the contours of the valley. His steadiness kept him behind the horse and he knew from experience that the race depended on the sprint. But when and how? A fast one now to take the lead and keep it with stamina? Or leave it till the end and take it at the post? Or split it in two? Two half sprints — the first to worry the horse and the rider, the second to pass them. Yes, by far the best tactic and the safest one, not taking things too early or leaving them too late. Eddy Rivette went forward on his toes and opened his pace. He closed the gap between him and the horse but it had tired him and he was glad to tuck in behind ’Isra and let the animal do the work for the fifty metres before the final bend at the single tree towards the store. He had meant it as half his sprint but he realized that he had no more race in him, that that sprint was all that was left and that now, at best, he could hang on behind the horse, drawn in to her flanks, and come in level at least with the horse’s tail though a saddle’s length behind ’Isra. Eddy Rivette knew the race for him was lost, but ’Isra did not know it was won. The sight of the schoolteacher easing across the flat valley had worried him but he had thought he was safe when he reached the track, ahead. But the schoolteacher had closed that gap in moments and with the speed of a young dog and was pressing him close, running at the horse’s speed and drawing tighter and tighter into the movement of the mare. They must go faster, faster, before the teacher ran like that again and ate up the metres and ’Isra’s fame in the village. His knees were sharp in the horse’s side and his toes were fierce. Go, horse, he said, go go. And he was fierce with the white mare, nagging her across those last few metres. The schoolteacher, with hardly a breath finding space in his lungs, hung on in the wake of warm air between the animal and its dust.

And then Eddy Rivette heard something new: a rasp in the horse’s lungs that told him ’Isra was driving her too harshly and that, maybe, if only he could stay the pace of that gallop, the horse would have to slow sometime.

Both men heard both lungs racking, the runner and the horse both wanting the race over so that they could halt the pounding and gasp in air and air and normalize their hearts and lungs and shocked legs. No distance now. Just the turn and the few metres to the villagers at the store.

Eddy Rivette’s lungs gave. He slowed and stooped a little, his hand on his chest below his heart, the pain building up, the horse moving ahead. He would finish. He was professional enough to finish and he was strong enough to recover quickly. But he would finish last, second to ’Isra and his horse, and that good race would be run.

Horse and ’Isra were at the last bend, taking it with panic and joy, not sure but sure enough that in a moment there would be cheers and the cheers would be theirs. ’Isra glimpsed the flagging schoolteacher a metre and a half behind, half caught up in the hoof dust. He leant with his horse into the bend at the tree and urged her into it, leaning far out like a yachtsman as pivot to the bend. The white mare was upright and tired, taking the turn as best she could. She felt her rider’s weight shift towards the tree and went with it, too tired to resist. Her body came down. Her feet went away. She hit the dust of the track with her shoulder, the rest of her body bunched behind, hoofing the air, and sliding for a moment, doing the real damage to her tired white shoulder and to the man’s thin leg on which she had fallen.

Not a whinny from her, too tired and breathless. Not a cry from ’Isra, too shamed already. One small gasp from the teacher, a cry of victory suppressed through experience until the line was crossed. A great whoop from the villagers, from the cackle of Loti to the yelp of the schoolchildren, as the winner of the race crossed the line of shadow marked at the side of the store by a low and sinking sun.