Continent by Jim Crace Read Free Book Online Page A

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 thenext 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 downover 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