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.
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