Old Man on a Bike - Simon Gandolfi

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Her daughter, Patti, is learning English at high school. Patti is shouted for. Patti has fled. She is captured and returned to a table in the shade at the side of the shack. She is a shy girl with a sweet smile and a few last remnants of puppy fat.

      The mother waits expectantly for her daughter to speak English. Patti looks glum. I imagine doing the same with Jed if a Spaniard passed by. Jed would kill both me and the Spaniard. Patti, thank God, is a pacifist.

      A car stops and Mum leaves to serve the driver and passengers. Patti and I speak in Spanish. Patti says that she has learnt a few English words and can write a little but has no practice in speaking.

      Jed and his friends would say the same of school French – although, as with Patti, they would probably succeed in conversing if left alone with someone of their own age.

      Mum returns and I assure her that we have been speaking English.

      Mum beams.

      Patti looks grateful. I give her one of my visiting cards: El Viejo y Su Moto. The old man and his bike.

      A further fifty kilometres to the coastal plain: the Honda kicks up its heels. We speed at ninety kilometres an hour. Ha! to Jed and his friends who mock that I even delay other oldies when driving our ancient Honda Accord back home.

      Tehuantepec is a small town, peaceful after Oaxaca. Most houses are single-storey. Good signposting leads me directly to the central square. A heavily built townsman is parking a big Nissan. I ask directions to an economical hotel and find myself a block away at the Doraji. The hotel has a welcoming central patio and a large café. I take a spotless single room with fan and functional bathroom on the top floor.

      It is late and most restaurants are closed. Fortunately the café around the corner at the Hotel Oasis is open. I eat devilled prawns (yes, once again). And so to bed.

       Tehuantepec, Wednesday 24 May

      Tehuantepec is home to a tribe of Boadiceas. For the ignorant, Boadicea was a Brit queen reputed to have minced invading Roman soldiers beneath scythes attached to the wheels of her chariot. Tehuantepec’s Boadiceas stand in the back of moto-caros – small three-wheeled trucks based on a motorcycle and always driven by men. I haven’t seen these elsewhere in Mexico. The women wear long dresses and appear imposingly fierce. I avoid being minced and discover the Caféteria Pearl on the street opposite the Hotel Oasis: excellent breakfast – eggs, ham, juice.

      I return to the hotel and brush my false teeth. Idiot! I drop them on the tiled floor. The upper plate snaps in three places.

      The concierge at the Doraji directs me across the church square to an orthodontist. The orthodontist, Fernando, is dark-skinned and medium rotund. He has ambitions to be a writer. I sit at his desk and read a polemic. Here is deep anger at the PAN (Conservatives), the oligarchy and their servants in the media. Fernando has no expectations that the candidate of the PRD (centre left), Obrador, can cure the ills of Mexico. But at least Obrador would try.

      So much for politics. We progress to Fernando’s first novel, almost complete. We discuss personal loves. Fernando recommends the Mexican realists (Jose Emilio Pacheco: Las Batallas en el Desierto).

      My teeth are fixed. Fernando drives me to his home. We drink beer. Fernando’s wife Elena serves us enough nibbles to feed an army. Their sons arrive: Juan Pablo, eighteen, and young Fernando, almost sixteen. The boys have a band. They won a national youth competition with their rendition of ‘Californication’ by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers – my son Josh’s favourite group. Josh has seen them live twice.

      The sitting room is uninhabitable, every chair and sofa covered with assembled and disassembled and partially assembled pieces of sound and recording equipment. We sit in the dining room. Out come electric guitars. Juan Pablo sings Pink floyd – Josh’s other favourite. We drink more beer. Elena places more food on the table. Young Fernando fails to connect to my website: while downloading music, they have infected their computer with a splendid array of viruses. Their father keeps his laptop locked in his office. The sons protest that they need a new computer. This computer is six months old and already an antique. Where have I heard this conversation? Guess. We are in Old Home Week!

      Fernando insists that I must see a side to Tehuantepec no foreigner visits. Juan Pablo accompanies us. Young Fernando has school in the afternoon. Elena owns a mobile phone store and must attend to business.

      I should have guessed from Fernando’s girth that he wishes to show me a restaurant. The restaurant is on the banks of a canal ten kilometres out of town. The family swim in the canal on Sundays before and after eating. Today Fernando orders monster shellfish cocktails of shrimp, baby octopus, oysters and crab in a hot sauce. A dish of grilled crayfish follows. And we talk.

      Young Juan Fernando is off to university in Mexico City this year to read history and intends to be a research historian. We discuss Bush and Blair and an ignorance of history that has led them into the Iraq war. We discuss the border that is not a border. They refer, as do most Mexicans, to ‘El Norte’ rather than ‘the United States’.

      Fernando has brought a bottle of Terry brandy. We discuss the European Union. Then racism.

      My doctor friend from Oaxaca suffered from racism at medical school and while working as an intern. So has Fernando. Fernando wonders at the Islamic ghettos created in English cities. He asks how he would be treated in an English taverna – a pub. Would he be mistaken for a Muslim and be in danger?

      More probably a West Indian, I answer, and no, he wouldn’t be in danger.

      I am seated across the table from Fernando and his son. Beyond them are the canal and a line of great trees shading the water. This is one of the most pleasurable meals of my life, both in food and in conversation. I am incredibly fortunate and deeply grateful.

      Back in town I duck into Elena’s shop to offer thanks for such hospitality. Elena gives me a medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe to watch over my travels. I leave her store. The steel security shutter isn’t fully raised. My forehead crashes into its edge. Blood flows down my face. Rather than display the Virgin’s failure, I stride off across the square. Elena must think me exceedingly rude for not turning back to wave goodbye.

      The concierge at the hotel finds disinfectant and a plaster. She and a maid and I sit in the lobby and watch a Mexican TV soap. All the characters are white or whitish. Certainly none is indigenous. The maid and the concierge are medium dark. Wine and Terry brandy have made me mischievous. I ask the concierge whether the soap is Mexican.

      The maid giggles at my stupidity. ‘Of course it is Mexican.’

      ‘But the characters: are they Mexican?’

      ‘Of course they are Mexican.’

      I admit to being confused. ‘From which part of Mexico do they come? Is there a province where all Mexicans are white?’

      How could I believe such nonsense?

      ‘But look at the soap,’ I say. ‘Even the servants are white. Everyone I see on television is white – except on the news programmes. Although the presenters are always white.’

      The concierge says, ‘It’s true.’ And to the maid, ‘Yes, it’s true.’

      They were content watching the soap. I have made them uncomfortable. The job of a writer is to provoke thought – particularly uncomfortable thought. I wish that I were a better writer. What is worthy in a good writer is merely arrogance in the mediocre.

       The Monk and Mister Big

       An idyllic beach, Thursday 25 May

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