![\"gimli\"](\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/gimli.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nI had a car in Wales.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I know what you\u2019ll say. Really? A car? That\u2019s amazing!<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0Don\u2019t be snide. You\u2019ve had cars too, I realize that. But when I lived in Wales as a graduate student, in the early 1980s, a creature came into my life for which the term \u201ccar\u201d is unsatisfactory. Calling Gimli a car would be like calling your mother a mammal. Which is true, but in most cases insufficient.<\/p>\n
On the outside, Gimli was the color of a week-old mushroom. His interior was bright red. He was a 1967 Morris Mini, and his relation to the Mini Coopers of today\u2014those flashy, sturdy, burly bugs that tool confidently across our highways\u2014is semantic at best. The ancestral Minis of the 1960s and seventies looked like starved versions of today\u2019s cars. They were smaller, skinnier, frailer in every way; if they\u2019d had lungs they would\u2019ve been consumptive. I\u2019m not tall, but I could look down on Gimli\u2019s roof. Driving him on the motorway, my line of vision corresponded to the top of a tractor-trailer\u2019s tires.<\/p>\n
Even within the breed, Gimli was the runt of an automotive litter. He was rickety with rust. Every now and then he\u2019d sputter, and I\u2019d have to get out, crawl underneath, and bang his petrol pump with my shoe. The driver\u2019s door didn\u2019t close properly, which meant that in rain he took on water. And it rains a lot in Wales. Going uphill, backseat passengers\u2019 feet got wet; going down, the tide shifted to the front. And yet Gimli and I undertook trips that other Mini owners never dared dream of, let alone embark upon (this may have been a function of my foolhardiness and na\u00efvet\u00e9, but it reflected well on Gimli). He served many; he flew like a wayward wind along the ringletted roads of West Wales. <\/p>\n
I was enrolled at the smallest university in Britain, in the grey, rain-soaked town of Lampeter, the epicenter of endless sheep pastures fenced, to the west, by the Irish Sea. I was utterly marooned there, and spent my first days weeping quietly in the rain. Within three months\u2019 time I had a car. During that interval, though, I\u2019d begun to develop a case of what the Welsh call hiraeth<\/em>. Jan Morris says hiraeth<\/em> \u201c\u2026 means a longing for something indefinable, perhaps unattainable; a longing for beginnings maybe, or for conclusions.\u201d In my case, what had begun as a feeling of being stranded in Lampeter had evolved into a deep curiosity as to what I was stranded in<\/i>. I had a longing for beginnings; I wanted to explore the vast green hills whose peaks offered a horizon of even vaster, greener hills. I sensed love waiting for me in the Welsh landscape. But in order to find it, to fall into it, I needed a car.<\/p>\n I had \u00a3300 to spend, which at the time amounted to about $450. I was already learning that Wales was Britain\u2019s junkyard. Every mechanical thing that had lived a useful life in England eventually found its way across the border to be repaired, touched-up, taped, and jury-rigged into dubious resurrection. I figured my money would go pretty far.<\/p>\n My first step was to call Maureen, a fellow postgrad also from America, who\u2019d mentioned she had a car for sale. She and her boyfriend had a flat about two hours away, which meant that twice a week she drove clear across Wales to attend classes. One day she arrived in an old French Citroen with tailfins. \u201cWhere\u2019d you get the cool car?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe bought it so I could come to class,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The following week she had a different car. It hadn\u2019t occurred to me they\u2019d bought the Citroen for last week\u2019s <\/i>class. I found their car-swapping dashing, and hoped she could help. So I called and told her I was looking for a car and had \u00a3300 to spend.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a coincidence!\u201d she remarked. \u201cJohn\u2019s selling his little Mini and he\u2019s asking \u00a3300.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFantastic,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you want to see it first?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d I said, smiling into the receiver. \u201cI trust you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cYou know you should\u2019ve asked,\u201d said my friend Phil (short for Philippa), a fiery, good-hearted young woman from Southeast England. \u201cBut then only an American wouldn\u2019t know how to drive a stick.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0The still-unseen car I\u2019d bought over the phone was a manual shift. It never occurred to me to ask\u2014but then most British cars were sticks, so I really shouldn\u2019t have been surprised. I only knew how to drive automatics. But I was in Wales, where geography and poverty made people resourceful: you found a way around, just as you found a way around the hills. My way was to ask Phil to drive with Maureen and me to pick up the car one night after class, and then drive it\u2014and me\u2014back home to Lampeter. After that, in her spare time, she could teach me how to work the shift. With my left hand.<\/p>\n It took about two and a half hours to cross the Cambrian Mountains to Maureen\u2019s flat, and was already after nine P.M.<\/small> when we arrived: too dark to take a good look at the Mini.<\/p>\n Phil kicked the tires\u2014Retreads? she demanded. No, brand new, we were assured\u2014and she pointed out rust spots that glowed like bruises in the moonlight. Phil was built like a cross between a rugby player and a Barbie doll: short, stocky, muscular, with a sweet face and a crop of bright blonde hair. I\u2019d want to be on her side in a fight. Maureen\u2019s boyfriend told us it ran like a dream.<\/p>\n \u201cHow long have you had it?\u201d Phil asked.<\/p>\n Before he could reply\u2014I was certain the answer would come in somewhere under two weeks, and already felt protective of the little car\u2014I handed over my check. SUK 976F was mine.<\/p>\n The wailing began just before we reached Devil\u2019s Bridge. By that time I\u2019d already fallen in love. There is nothing luxurious about a 1967 Mini. Just as cars were beginning to sprout all manner of gadgets\u2014clocks, state-of-the-art tape decks, computerized air and temperature controls\u2014the Mini clung to simplicity. Smack in the center of the dashboard was a single large circle: the speedometer. Below it was a rudimentary heat lever that read \u201cCool\u201d at one end and \u201cWarm\u201d at the other, and a choke. And that\u2019s all that was there. I\u2019d heard the word choke<\/em> mentioned by elderly people, but I didn\u2019t know what it was. I ignored it.<\/p>\n I instantly grasped that the Mini was a Platonic car. It represented something older, truer, more essential than the instrument-laden cockpits cars had become. Were a child to draw a picture to illustrate the concept of car, it would look exactly like my Mini, inside and out. The little car was heroic, in the archaic sense of the word.<\/p>\n Phil and I expected to get home to Lampeter around 1 A.M.<\/small>. Welshpool; Newtown; Llanidloes: all passed without incident, and I settled into the sleepy complacency of a nighttime passenger in the hands of a good driver. Steering in Wales is a muscular exercise. The roads wriggle like live worms, following each fold and curvature of the land. There are no streetlights in the countryside, so that utter darkness adds trickery\u2014you can\u2019t see the curves coming. You have to intuit that one bend will be followed by its equal and opposite partner, and pray that your lane won\u2019t be booby-trapped by stray sheep. Despite these hazards, Phil had a firm hand and exuded confidence. I half-dozed with my head against the window.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019ll take the Devil\u2019s Bridge shortcut,\u201d she announced, as we drew close to Aberystwyth. \u201cIt\u2019s a B road but it\u2019ll save time by cutting off the right angle at the coast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGreat,\u201d I murmured. In Britain, superhighways are designated by the letter M, for motorway; secondary highways are A roads; and the smallest thoroughfares worthy of numbering are B roads, like the B4343, onto which Phil had just turned. B roads often swell to the width of a common driveway.<\/p>\n Devil\u2019s Bridge is a tiny town, the principal feature of which is a deep gorge razor-cut into the bottom of a jungly valley, its sides overgrown with all things dripping and green, thanks to the mists that overhang the place. In Welsh the name is Pontarfynach, which means, simply, \u201cbridge over the River Mynach.\u201d I\u2019d heard of Devil\u2019s Bridge but had never been there. Already, I thought, the Mini was extending my horizons.<\/p>\n The \u201cbridge\u201d in question actually refers to three bridges on top of one another: the current iron bridge, built in the early twentieth century; a stone bridge built in the eighteenth century; and the original wooden bridge, constructed between 1075 and 1200 (I hate to think why it took so long). The story goes that building the initial bridge was too difficult and dangerous for mere mortals; it would take a super-human being to accomplish it. So the devil stepped in and offered to do the job in exchange for the first soul to cross. He built the locals a spanking bridge, but they tricked him by sending a dog across first. I\u2019d have thought that a devil capable of so great a feat of engineering might have been less gullible, but never mind.<\/p>\n As Phil and I plunged down out of the high country of Mid Wales into the river valley, mist settled like a fallen ceiling. It turned the darkness milky, softening its hard edges, but making it more difficult for Phil to see. I sensed her concentration ratchet up a notch or two.<\/p>\n \u201cWhoa! Did you see that?\u201d she asked suddenly.<\/p>\n \u201cSee what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe lights brightened for a second.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cMaybe you hit the high beams by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cMy hand was nowhere near the high beams.\u201d<\/p>\n I mused on this but could think of no other reply, and so politely stared hard ahead. Just then the road in front of us lit up like a stage\u2014bright, blinding white glare, bouncing off the mist\u2014then quickly dimmed down again.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, I saw it that time.\u201d<\/p>\n We looked at each other. \u201cIt must be a short in the electrical system,\u201d Phil said, matter of factly.<\/p>\n I was opening my mouth to propose something to do with the devil when a God almighty shriek interrupted me.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly cow,\u201d I cried, forgetting Phil considered the expression mildly blasphemous.<\/p>\n \u00a0The shriek fell away, but the headlights began to pulse again, flashing BRIGHT-dim-BRIGHT-dim all by themselves.<\/p>\n Phil was concentrating fiercely; the disco effect of the headlights was making it all but impossible to see. A moment later, just as we passed a sign that read \u201cDevil\u2019s Bridge\/Pontarfynach,\u201d the shrieking began again. This time it rose to a screaming banshee cry, rising and falling as if something large and very nearby were keening for the dead. I put my hands to my ears and Phil gritted her teeth. The sound was torturous.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t think we hit an animal, do you, and are dragging it along?\u201d Phil shouted, panic entering her voice.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would have to have been a dinosaur, to make this noise,\u201d I yelled back. \u201cBesides, we\u2019d have felt the impact. Do you think it\u2019s the car?\u201d<\/p>\n Phil slowed and the noise lessened; when she eased the Mini to a halt it stopped completely.<\/p>\n We\u2019d come to a standstill in the middle of the road. It was so narrow that there was nowhere to pull over. \u201cWe can\u2019t stop here!\u201d I insisted. \u201cSomeone\u2019ll hit us for sure.\u201d It seemed like the right thing to say, though at Devil\u2019s Bridge at midnight, in West Wales, I doubt there was anyone else awake, not to mention behind the wheel, for miles in any direction.<\/p>\n Phil winced, and edged forward. The car started screaming again.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a hotel up at the top of the gorge,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ll make for the car park.\u201d<\/p>\n Before we could climb out of the valley we had to finish our descent into it. The car screeched louder and louder, a high, wavering, piercing wail of agony that I would never until that moment have believed could have come from a machine. It sounded like a living creature face to face with its own extinction<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re killing it!\u201d I cried, writhing in my seat.<\/p>\n By now the dashboard lights had begun to pulse as well. I looked over at Phil, whose face was illuminated by a bright, throbbing green light. She looked as if she were in a science fiction movie that wouldn\u2019t end well. I couldn\u2019t hear her over the car\u2019s piercing howl.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat? What did you say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI SAID THIS CAR IS POSSESSED!\u201d<\/p>\n The pitch of the shriek kept rising until it reached an eardrum-shattering high note as we approached the Devil\u2019s Bridge itself. Just as we rolled out over the gorge there was a sudden spasm of the brightest light yet and a shocking yelp\u2014one final convulsion of sound\u2014and then it was over. The speedometer needle fell to zero with an audible clunk, although we were still going about 35 mph. The dashboard lights went out entirely; the headlights returned to normal. There was utter silence in and outside the car.<\/p>\n Phil drove out of the gorge and we stopped in the empty hotel car, both of us shaking.<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d began Phil, choosing her words slowly, \u201cmy guess is that the speedometer cable wrapped itself around some wiring, then snapped.\u201d<\/p>\n That seemed very ho-hum. I\u2019d secretly liked the idea that my Mini was possessed.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s a coincidence, of course, that the speedometer cable set up a banshee wail just as we entered Devil\u2019s Bridge \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Phil gave me a look that said, Don\u2019t go there\u2014at least not until tomorrow morning, when we\u2019re safely back in Lampet.<\/p>\n After a cursory look at the engine and under the car\u2014we found nothing\u2014we set off again, reaching my cottage about forty-five minutes later. The speedometer needle never worked again.<\/p>\n Read part 2 here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n