The Water Hole at Gomismta

Susi has 283,175 kilometres on her. The engine is perfect. The clutch is fine. Entirely reliable, this car — thanks to Jorge Martins and his workshop, who went over the whole thing before I left.

What Jorge can't do anything about is stupidity.

Last summer I wanted to impress a woman. We were in the mountains at Gomismta.

„There — let's drive up there,“ she said, pointing at a path that would be an event on foot.

„Let's not. That isn't a road you take a car up.“

She wanted to. I didn't. We went back and forth about it, and in the end I let myself be talked round and took the damned track.

After two hundred metres there was a water hole in front of the bonnet.

By then my pride was in the game. Now I wanted through. Run-up, engine howling, and KRAWOMS — I put the car down on its belly, beautifully, with real commitment.

For weeks afterwards I was underneath it: bent brackets, a flat tyre, the exhaust pressed up into the floor, the torque mount finished.

I have thought about that sentence a good deal since. She wanted to. I didn't.

The car was the cheap part.