Jupiters Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph Read Online Free PDF

were the pulp movie makers simply cashing in on an archetypal human instinct? 7s it possible, I asked myself indignantly, that all these years you've been palpitating because of some cheap Hollywood con trick....
    Something touches my foot, and I look down to see objects streaming on to the road surface. One of the canvas bags has stretched down to the right hand exhaust pipe and caught fire. Half my tools and spare parts are spread across the autostrada. They are undamaged, the bag is easily tied up with string, and I go on.
    There you are, you see. If you had imagined it, you would have had the screwdriver through your foot . . .
    At four o'clock, with an hour of daylight left, I turn off the autostrada to find a place to camp. The small road leads me through a hot and dusty land, horse and cart country still, Calabria on the instep of Italy, where the favourite colour for clothes in still black. Rising toward the mountains I come to Roggiano, a small town baked into the hillside, encrusted with age, inward-looking and shy of visitors. In the town square I halt, uncertain what to do but unconcerned. I have seen nowhere yet to put a tent, but my night under the umbrella has given me a strange confidence. I no longer care what happens to me. I stop the engine, pull off my helmet and, still sitting astride the bike, light up a cigarette and let peace settle about me. On the further pavement a small group of men is assembled, all wearing carefully pressed suits. Some children spot me and rush up shouting. Eventually I walk over to the men, who are dignified but curious, and at a slow and easy pace we exchange pleasantries until, at last, one of them suggests that if I go up the hill I will find an 'international centre'. They will give me a bed. A swarm of small boys bears me and the bike like a carnival float up the hill.
    The 'centre' is an assortment of low buildings set among trees and flowering bushes. In part it is devoted to the national campaign for literacy, but there is more to it.
    A handsomely bearded young man welcomes me without hesitation, as though such arrivals were commonplace. In a matter of moments I am standing in a communal hall drinking black coffee. It is served by a young woman in black, who stands by us gravely as we drink. A minute ago I saw her, with a vast bundle of laundry at least as tall as herself balanced on her head. She passed easily through a doorway with not an inch to spare anywhere. Such impressive poise. It should be an Olympic event.
    The young man explains that the buildings were erected by people from all the fourteen villages of the Esore Valley in their spare time. There are bedrooms for those who come from a long way off. It has a full-time staff of four, his father and himself, another teacher and a secretary.
    The father and founder, Guiseppe Zanfini, receives me in his study. He beams at me with such concentrated benevolence that I want immediately to vote him into office, any office. Then, without preamble, he launches directly and astonishingly into his story.
    'When I was eighteen I was a fascist from my eyes to my boots.'
    His hands describe the ample portions of himself which that includes.
    T volunteered for the army to go to war. I was in an officer school, then in Sicily, and four years after came my first real battle. I heard the toot toot on the bugle . . .', he goes toot toot into his fist, 'that means, "Prepare arms". I was in the tent to pick up my gun and clean it, and I thought "This time it is not for paper cut-out figures. This time you will have to kill real men", and I knew then I couldn't. Not to kill men with mothers like mine, with children - men who have come from homes like mine which will be in misery.'
    In a measured hush he speaks of love and brotherhood, his face flitting between solemnity and ecstasy. As the battle progresses he shows graphically how others lost a hand, an eye or a leg, and wipes imaginary blood - other men's blood - from his face.