Chariots of Fire

Augustine and his Ambassador

We veer out around the side of the tour bus we have been stuck behind for the past kilometer or so.  From my spot in the back seat I can see what lies ahead: the concrete-arched entryway to a narrow bridge which apparently spans a steep mountain canyon.  What’s more, down the center of said bridge—perhaps four hundred meters distant-- rumbles the familiar steel box of a public bus on what appears to be a collision course with our car.  The width of the bridge is such that any evasive action on the buses’ part—were it so inclined—is impossible.  Our driver—Augustine-- has his thumb pressed firmly against the horn button of his vintage Ambassador Classic automobile, his gaze fixed in trance-like (dare I say fatalistic?) contemplation of the city bus.  A hot wind buffets my face, carrying with it the unmistakable smell of a rotting carcass.  Something large, no doubt.  The boulder–filled landscape through which we are travelling seems to have entirely given up any hope of ever supporting the tender-green shoots of new life.  Just before the bridge, I see a lean, foxlike dog watching the drama through wide-set eyes; the gap between us and the city bus having closed to no more than two hundred meters.  And for the one-hundredth time since we left our mountain idyll some six hours before I ask myself, how can this possibly end in anything but carnage and pain?

Some thirty-odd hours earlier we were picked up at our guest house by a tall, distinguished man with thinning hair and intelligent eyes.  “My name is Augustine,” he said.  “I will be your driver to Munnar.”  His car—a clear source of pride—was a spotless, well-cared-for white Ambassador Classic.  We had, of course, seen these relics from a different time plying the streets of India, their loaf-like profile suggesting nothing so much as a derby perched confidently upon a gentleman’s crown, cane held firmly in hand.  They are often used as the chariots of dignitaries, an official flag mounted in the hood to denote an even-higher status. 

Augustine placed our bags squarely into the cavernous trunk and, with a sure click of the shifter, we gently made our way through the early-morning streets of Fort Cochin, our host proving himself knowledgeable in the ways of all things botanical, architectural, and politic. 

                “The house you see there is owned by a man your country prosecuted for his monetary support of Bin Laden,” he said, indicating an opulent colonial structure set well back from the street and hidden behind wall and gate.  “He was killed in an accident, and according to Muslim tradition mourners should have been given a last look of his face.  But this was not allowed.  Some have speculated that he may have staged his death, and with plastic surgery has changed his identity, choosing to live elsewhere.”

“You mean, he is in hiding someplace like Saudi Arabia?”  I asked.  Augustine considered.

“Yah,” he said, “Some place like that.”

 We peered out the windows of the Ambassador, nibbling at the box breakfast Augustus provided at journey’s start, wondering over the secret lives and honey-like intrigue of this mysterious country.

The day passed in pleasant exploration of the exotic: Elephants bathed beneath the crumbling banks of a sweeping river, workers harvesting sweet pineapple from their pointed nests—and later, in higher terrain, the smiles of tea-pickers as they clipped the gentle new shoots of leaves which go into the making of the chai we’ve come to count on for our morning courage.

One can—if not mindful—fall into something like a false sense of life-as-theater on such an outing.  In which, through the glass (or open window, as was the case with our vehicle) the freshness and beauty of it all sweeps by like so many channel options on cable TV.  We are in the care of a professional, which allows us the freedom of the observer, somehow suspended in an ether of timelessness and impermeability, floating within--yet somehow without-- life as it sweeps lazily by our amused gaze.  Which is, of course, folly. 

The next day, having said goodbye to our new-found friends and fellow travelers in Munnar, we again loaded up the Ambassador while Augustine performed a bit of last minute maintenance on his beloved steed.  I found him bent under the hood, and was rather shocked at the size of the motor.

                “Not much to it, is there?”  Take away the bulk of the air cleaner cover and the seemingly too-large battery, and it was about the size of a beagle dog.  Augustine focused on his task of filling the engine coolant reservoir, but it was clear he was thinking about my comment. 

                “The young people want to go fast, but this is sufficient, I think.”  I had in no way meant to sully the integrity of his ride with my comment, and thought it best to remedy any hurt feelings. (As it turns out, I would soon learn just how that particular dog could hunt, given the call to do so!)

                “Diesel, is it?  Good mileage?  Reliable?”  I tried to find a foothold-an easy one-on which Augustine might again find purchase of pride. 

                “In seven years I have driven almost four lakh kilometers (close to 240,000 miles) and in that time I have only completed routine repairs.”  He paused to consider, “I did need to replace the gear box…”

                “Wow.  Well.  I mean…that’s great.”  Feeling we were once again of right mind, we set off on our journey west out of the mountains.  Homeward (Kochi) bound.

                 St. Augustine, of the Christian faith, wasn’t always a saint.  Word has it he was a tippler of momentous proportions (with, one assumes, the attendant ills of lechery, gambling, vice, flatulence…) He has been dubbed the brewer’s saint not for anything he did following his crossover to sainthood, but for his legendary vigor as a pisshead.  Mind, I’m no scholar, but I do know this:  No one is all good and no one is all bad.  And while I’m sure he led a sober and reflective life post-debauchery, I’m thinking there must have been the occasional pause in his duties ecclesiastic to contemplate his other life.  Surely just one can’t fuzz one’s focus too greatly, can it?  Which is all to say, we are a weak animal.  Given to errs of the flesh and pricked by the pins of pride.  But back to our journey home.

                We were given a glimpse of the myriad rules of the road which, while not explicitly posted, are nevertheless understood, especially by those who make their living behind the wheel.  For example, the uphill-travelling vehicle will be given the right of way on a curve which only allows the passage of one.  With a toot of the horn, he alerts the downhill-travelling vehicle of his presence (since rock walls often render line of sight impossible) and the latter is expected to wait for the former to complete his turn before passing on.  On our journey up the previous day just such a circumstance occurred, in which a bus heading down launched into the curve even though Augustine had clearly marked his territory with a toot of his horn.  By rights, the bus should have backed up (once it was clear it could not complete its turn due to the Ambassador’s having launched into the turn as well.)  Both vehicles screeched to a stop to avoid collision, and there we sat, neither giving ground.  Clearly, the easier solution was for Augustine to give ground, being the smaller of the two, and only needing to give up a few feet in order for the bus to make clearance.  But darnit, that’s just not the way the game is played.  And so we sat, two beasts at bay.  The cabin of the Ambassador became eerily quiet, and I caught Rebecca’s sideways glance, to which I responded with a slight shrug.  Finally, Augustine rolled down his window, extended his arm, and made a gesture indicating the bus should sit tight, that he would in fact back down.  (The sort of act sainthood is based on in the world of professional drivers, with every inch a hard-fought victory.)

                “This driver is careless.  He knows the rules but chooses to ignore them.”  Augustine went on to describe a circumstance in which a small town through which just such a driver sped on a regular basis—and in fact caused an accident—was beaten by the townspeople.

                “They asked me if I would like to hit him also.” 

                “Did you?”  Here Augustine pauses, and I take him in fully for the first time.  Broad shoulders, straight back, the easy walk of an athlete.  He is, of course, of a certain age, but has also clearly enjoyed expressing himself physically.

                “No.  I did not.”  Was that a smile?  A harkening back to younger days?  No matter.  He shared a second story, in which a driver caused a child’s death.  In that case, the driver simply fled the scene—a circumstance we’ve heard of in other contexts as well—while the townspeople set about torching his bus.  After, one assumes, clearing it of its various passengers.  Clearly, a fall from grace on the roads of India comes with a harsh and sudden stop at its terminus.

                This is all to say I cannot possibly understand the ways of crime and punishment in a strange (foreign) land, and am at best a poor judge of propriety when it comes to road etiquette.  But I do know fear.  Something I felt sharply on more than one occasion as we worked our way seaward out of the Western Ghats.  Augustine wielded the Ambassador as a gladiator might wield a mace.  Slicing around logjams of traffic, pulling out into the ever-present onslaught of opposing traffic, before cutting back into his lane again, narrowly pinching off the nose of his fallen conquest, forcing it to brake.  All the time, the near-constant tooting of the horn.  Not as an act of aggression, but of communication.

                “Do you ever need to replace your horn?”  This from Rebecca, though I admit to wondering the same.

                “Yah.  One is broken now, I must replace it.”  Indeed, the one lone horn was doing yeomen’s duty, but I was hard-pressed to see how it would deliver us from the meat-eating jaws of tyrannosaurus bus which currently loomed a mere one hundred yards hence.

                I felt Rebecca’s hand tighten on my arm.  There was no time for a parting word.  No exchange of thanks for having raised two lovely children and put up with my many flaws and inadequacies.  Last words, it would seem, are a thing of movies and country music.   All the while, the scream of Augustine’s lone, brave horn, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere far beyond the reaches of time and space. .   And then a miracle, though I didn’t recognize it for its subtlety.  The tour bus with which we were racing paused—maybe even braked—ever so slightly, but enough!  Enough for Augustine to wrench the tender Ambassador into a slot of pavement just long enough and wide enough to allow the public bus to thunder past before shifting again to the right and securing a spot on the narrow bridge. 

                I’m not sure just when my breath returned, but I remember feeling dizzy.  Light-headed.  After enough time passed to not make it seem I was a pansy, I ventured a question.

                “Have you ever been in an accident?  Seems like people come awfully close…”  Augustine was quiet, and I checked his face in the mirror to make sure he hadn’t dozed off. 

                “No.  Nothing bad…”  Hmmm.  It should be noted I have the utmost respect for any and all who ply their skills in the transportation game in India.  We arrived home safe and sound, well ahead of schedule.  But this, too:  Not ten minutes after Augustus shared with us his clean (kind of) driving record, we were working through a rather tight spot in one of the many towns between the Ghats and Kochi.  At one point we came impossibly close to an opposing automobile.  Following an unmistakable click, Augustus reached out to adjust his side rear-view mirror, which was oddly tilted inward.  In his center rear-view, our eyes met.  Nothing bad.