Cloud Road by John Harrison

Author:John Harrison
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-04-18T23:00:00+00:00

Dapple

Dawn brought the World Cup Final. I pulled on clothes, and took out a chair to join heavily muffled locals glued to a black and white television set up in the middle of the courtyard. They were cool towards me until Brazil went close and I cheered.

‘We thought, as a European, you would be supporting Germany.’ Before the goal kick, I filled them in on a century of footballing prejudice, and we settled down amicably to watch Brazil win.

Elaine’s foot and ankle did not bruise as badly as we had feared. She strapped it up and hobbled round the town. We were running out of ideas on how a donkey might enter our lives. Huddled in a freezing café, we watched four men agree a price to travel in the back of an empty garbage-crusher truck. Would that be our fate? Elaine drank coca tea; I risked milk coffee, although there was seldom fresh milk.

She nodded at my coffee, ‘What’s it like?’

‘It’s made with paralysed milk.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I meant sterilised. There should be tourist signs at the edge of town, Huari, a cheap place to grow old and die.’

A four-wheel drive drew up, braked and rammed a lamppost. The driver stepped out, red-faced drunk. At his side was a smart, young woman in a figure-hugging grey wool dress. Her locks swung loosely in long ringlets. She saw us and waved, and, with a big smile, ran to embrace me. I had no idea who she was. ‘I am Lari, we danced together at the bullfight yesterday!’ The ‘student’ I had danced with was a businesswoman.

We began talking, and explained our donkey difficulties.

‘You should ask in the meat market,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to eat one!’

She laughed, ‘The butchers know all the livestock traders.’

On the butcher’s head sat a familiar hat with a spot of blood on the rim. He was Ricardo, the knife-man at the bullfight. He patted two horned skulls. ‘These are the two animals you saw killed yesterday.’

I asked about donkeys. He stroked his jaw. ‘You need to see Victor Jarra, he has animals to sell. He lives in a village called Huamantanga.’ Finding transport took an hour, the journey took half an hour. Finding Victor Jarra, a ghost of a man with a cold handshake, and discovering the animals had all been sold, took thirty seconds. Elaine was getting desperate. Her chance to walk the full hundred-mile stage had long gone. She sat outside our room, studying the guidebook. ‘There is only one small town along our route, La Union, with a bus service to Lima. I have to complete the first fifty miles in time to meet it, so we have to leave in two days.’

We went in the bar we had promised ourselves we would not go in. It was full of character, if character means most customers falling asleep in their drinks before sunset. There were three men at the table in the shadows behind the door. Another was buying more beer. The large woman behind the bar was refusing to let go of the bottles until they told her who was paying.

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