“Place des Moulins.”
“It’s just over there,” he said, pointing to a street on his left. “I’ll help you.”
“Thanks.”
He put two chains on his moped, one on the front wheel, one on the rear wheel, and padlocked both of them. “Don’t wanna get it stolen.”
He put Diamantis’s arm around his shoulder.
“That’s it, lean on me. It’s only fifty yards, man. Nearly there.”
Diamantis wasn’t so much walking as dragging his feet.
“What number?”
They just had to climb some steps, and there was the square, with its magnificent plane trees.
“Number four.”
They were up against the handrail. Diamantis grabbed it for support. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. All he could feel was the pain.
“Do you live here?”
“A friend of mine. She lives here.”
“You’re gonna get lucky tonight. You’ll see.”
It was a small three-storey building. Mariette lived on the third floor.
“Here,” she said, holding out the glass.
He took a big swig of whisky, then another. He started sweating. Mariette handed him a glass of water and two Dolipran.
“Drink this.”
The water was cold.
“More,” he said.
“Whisky?”
“Water.”
She poured him some more.
Then she helped him to stand and led him to the bedroom. It was bathed in a soft blue light. She laid him on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered, weakly.
His eyes closed.
“Shhh,” she whispered in his ear.
She undressed him tenderly, trying to move him as little as possible, then came back with a bowl and a wash cloth, and wiped the blood away from under his nose and around his lips. He let himself slide in between the sheets. They felt cool, which did him a world of good.
“Mariette . . .”
She kissed him on the forehead.
Everything went black.
Abdul Aziz and Nedim were sitting opposite each other, eating in silence. More rice and mackerel, washed down with the same cheap wine. But Nedim made no comment. Abdul Aziz was looking glum, because Diamantis hadn’t returned, but that was no reason to take it out on him.
All the same, he couldn’t stop himself talking. He really couldn’t stand mackerel.
“He’s found himself a woman, that’s for sure. Did you see how he was all dressed up this morning? You did, didn’t you? Fuck, he was dressed to kill!”
Abdul looked daggers at him. “So what?”
“So he won’t come back, that’s what. Wherever he’s stuck his nose, I bet it doesn’t smell of mackerel!”
“He always tells me in advance. I’m the captain, and . . . it’s the regulations.”
“You’re the captain, O.K. Nobody’s disputing that. But don’t get all worked up about it. What does it matter if there are two of us or three of us here, huh? The Aldebaran isn’t going without him. Am I right?”
Nedim stood up, and cleared his plate, his glass, and his flatware. He whistled as he washed them, pleased with himself. He turned to Abdul. “How about a game of dominoes?”
“You’re crap at dominoes.”
“Crap? That’s what you think.”
“O.K.,” Abdul said.
Nedim was right. There was no point in getting worked up about it. He didn’t give a fuck about Diamantis’s love life. He was complaining on principle. Principles were all he had left now.
Nedim wasn’t playing well. He found it impossible to concentrate. He was thinking about Diamantis. What a secretive person he was, fuck him! Shit, he could have told him he wasn’t coming back tonight. Didn’t he trust him or what? Did he think he was too stupid? Yes, that must be it. Diamantis thought he was too stupid. God, the guy had helped him a lot, had been a real pal to him, but as far as trust went, forget it. He didn’t see him as part of his life. A pity. Yes, a fucking pity. He respected Diamantis. Diamantis could be a real friend. Even after they got out of here. He smiled.
Abdul Aziz noticed Nedim’s little smile. What underhand move was he planning? He had four turns left, and according to his calculations Nedim was almost beaten. He had only one chance left.
“Why are you smiling?”
Forcing Nedim to talk would make him lose his concentration. Abdul didn’t contemplate getting beaten by Nedim. It wasn’t that he didn’t like him, but, all the same, getting beaten by him, at such a simple game, would be pretty unbearable. Especially as he’d almost certainly laugh at him. He’d laugh in his face, worse than an Italian.
“Diamantis,” Nedim said.
“What about Diamantis?”
“Can you imagine their faces at home, if I told them my best friend’s a Greek?”
“Is he your best friend?” Abdul asked, with a touch of jealousy.
“No, no . . . Just talking. To us, Greeks are just assholes. Not that I give a shit about that . . . Turks, Greeks. We all eat stuffed vine leaves . . . It’s like we all sucked from the same teat. No, the difference is—”
“Look, are you playing?”
Without thinking, Nedim played a three-two. It was Abdul’s turn. Abdul put down a double two. Nedim was finally stuck.
“Shit! I pass.”
“You’re crap at this game, I told you.”
“Yeah . . . But maybe we should have something to drink. Any idea where he put his bottle?”
“In his cabin, I guess.”
Nedim looked at him. “You’re the captain, you could do it, couldn’t you? Go in his cabin. You can explain it to him when he gets back.”
Abdul didn’t need to be asked twice. He wasn’t sleepy, and he could certainly use a drink. Nedim’s company was pleasant enough, even though conversations with him were often limited to fairly basic subjects. But this evening, that suited him just fine.
He’d been bored to death all day. He hadn’t even managed to read ten pages of the book Walid had given him as a gift. Lebanon: Aftermath of War, by a sociologist named Ahmed Beydoun.
What we must ask ourselves is whether we have finally exorcized the demons of ethnic cleansing, and whether there is a real chance of a lasting peace, which in this country is inseparable from harmony and interaction between the communities.
In Abdul’s head, everything was jumbled together. Cephea, Lebanon, Constantin Takis, the Aldebaran, the women he had loved, the ports he had known, Diamantis, old age, his brother’s investment plans, the children who were growing up without him, the money he would need to settle in Lebanon, the ruins of Byblos, Cephea again, Cephea always. He had closed the book. He’d started down a slippery slope.
The truth was, he’d started to think about the future. That was his problem. Cephea had drawn him into that trap. The future. Thinking of the days to come. Giving them a meaning. Organizing them. Cephea had been like a time bomb in his life. She had exploded, and his existence had been blown to smithereens. Now he had to collect the scattered pieces.
That afternoon, on deck, he had realized that the horizon didn’t excite him the way it used to. There were no more dreams for him on the other side, no more adventures. You always come back from beyond the horizon. Just as you always come back from your dreams. Thoughts like these shook his morale, but he couldn’t stop them. One morning, you woke up to find you’d settled down with your wife and children in a nice little house, with a certain number of habits, repeated gestures, conventional smiles, hasty kisses in the morning, worries about the children, monthly bills to pay . . .
The years accumulated, and that was called life. By forcing him to choose, Cephea had brought him back to that reality. And he had suddenly discovered that he had lost his passion. When he had left f
or Sydney, the first time, he hadn’t asked himself any questions. The future didn’t exist. He had no hopes, no expectations. He was free. He was betting his whole life on that journey. He was an adventurer. These days, he was little more than a bureaucrat. The sea was just his bread and butter now. He could just as well be a merchant, like his brother Walid. Or run a hotel, or a restaurant.
He could imagine himself as someone like Pepe Abed, the owner of the Fishing Club in Byblos. Silvery hair under a naval captain’s cap, tight-fitting blue blazer, white pants. Eighty-five years old now, Pepe Abed had amassed his fortune during the frivolous pre-war years in Lebanon. He had lived through the dark years in a carefree fashion, and was now to Byblos what Eddie Barclay was to Saint-Tropez.
His club had become a kind of museum of marine antiques, where people gathered to listen to his stories. Ava Gardner had been there. Raquel Welch, Anita Ekberg. Marlon Brando, too. Abed was sometimes Pepe the Pirate, sometimes Pepe the Caballero. And no one gave a damn if his stories were true. Abdul had taken Cephea there, because the food—meze or grilled fish—was excellent. “I hope you won’t end up like him,” Cephea had joked when they were in their room. They had laughed. That was a long time ago. Fifteen years. Maybe she saw him now as Abdul the Wanderer of the Seven Seas. Telling his stories, a margarita in his hand, as convincingly as he did on the terrace, in the evening, in Dakar.
He grimaced. A ball was forming in the pit of his stomach. Cephea was leaving him, but he was abandoning her, too. She wasn’t his good star anymore, guiding him to happiness.
At one point during the afternoon, crushed by the heat, he had put up his hammock on the main deck, in the shade. Lying with his eyes closed, he had tried to find images of Cephea to arouse him. He wanted to jerk off. To tire himself out in a spasm. Eyes closed. The damp air fills the house. There’s a storm brewing. Cephea is in the shower, and he watches the water flowing over her sepia body. She likes him to watch her. She takes her time.
Without drying herself, she comes and joins him in the bedroom, puts her wet hands on his shoulders, and pushes him back on the bed. Her breasts are slippery, still slightly damp, cool. She presses herself to him like a cupping glass. His cock . . . His cock had drooped, limply. He realized he had no desire. No desire for Cephea.
This is it, he had said to himself. He knew now why he couldn’t write to her. Their story was coming to an end. Even desire didn’t unite them anymore. He had fallen asleep, telling himself he’d find a hooker tomorrow, and resume his true life.
Abdul took a swig of whisky, straight from the bottle.
“Shit!” Nedim exclaimed. “You’re a mean bastard, drinking by yourself!”
He hadn’t heard him come in.
“I was getting worried.”
Abdul was in the middle of Diamantis’s cabin. He had grabbed the bottle of whisky with a mechanical gesture and was still standing there, the alcohol burning his stomach, where the ball was. He started sweating.
“Are you O.K.? You’re all white.”
He was gazing into the distance. Toward the open sea. Where at night the world abandons us, as he’d written to Cephea the other day. His last letter. He could remember every word thrown out to her like distress signals. All we have left is the little we can make out . . . He remembered that feeling, on the ocean. The Pacific merged with the sky on a moonless, starless night. He couldn’t see anything around him, not even the myriads of waves breaking on the hull. Our field of vision shrinks until it focuses on what the universe boils down to: our own selves. Despair . . .
“Hey, you all right?”
Nedim touched his shoulder lightly. He was afraid Abdul was about to collapse. “That’s all we need,” he thought.
Abdul looked at Nedim. He was coming back to himself. To reality. Marseilles. The Aldebaran.
“If we don’t find what we want in the future,” Diouf the fortune-teller had said, “it’s because we don’t know how to look. We must always hope for something.”
“I don’t believe in fortune-telling,” he had replied.
Diouf had smiled at him, sadly. “What do you believe in, then?”
“Nothing.”
“I pity you.”
“I’m not to be pitied.”
“You’ll understand one day.”
“Maybe.”
Abdul Aziz had put ten dollars down in front of the old man. He was angry with himself for agreeing to see a fortune-teller. He’d only done it to please Cephea. It was only a game to start with. What kind of person am I? Will I have good health? Will I be lucky? Will I earn more money? Cephea had consulted him first. She had never told him what Diouf had predicted for her.
The fortune-teller had seen him to the door.
“Remember, however strong a man may be, he isn’t strong in all circumstances.”
Abdul turned to Nedim, who stood there, anxious, not knowing what to do. “You know, Nedim, you and Diamantis should tidy up the main deck tomorrow. It’s a real shambles.”
Nedim looked at him aghast. “But tomorrow . . . I have to find a truck driver.”
“Tomorrow, you’re on duty. Period. Work out a rota with Diamantis. I have a lot of things to do in town.”
Nedim was completely knocked for six by what Abdul had said. “Can you lend me the bottle? Just a quick one wouldn’t come amiss.”
Abdul handed him the bottle. “O.K., you want a revenge match?”
“You mean we’re still playing?”
“Why not?”
Nedim put the top back on the bottle, and smiled. “I’ll show you if I’m crap or not! Just let me show you!”
But his heart wasn’t really in it. Abdul Aziz scared him a little. As far as he was concerned, the guy was off his head. He’d be better off in bed. Hundreds of women were waiting for him tonight. Beautiful girls. Sexy as anything. A lot more exciting than sitting here with a madman, playing dominoes. Oh, Aysel! Nedim sighed.
16.
TI SENTO ADDOSSO E NON CI SEI
The pain woke Diamantis. A pain he couldn’t localize. He was lying on his back, his eyes wide open. The room was bathed in a gentle half-light. Behind the shutters, he could sense the heat. The daylight. He was alone in the bed, and he couldn’t hear any noise. Mariette and Laure must have left. It was probably late.
He turned his head to the left to look at the alarm clock. It was eight-fifty. Not as late as all that. He could still sleep a little. It would do him good. But the pain was too strong. His mouth felt dry and furry. Beside the alarm clock, in a conspicuous position, a glass of water. He smiled at this thoughtfulness. But he didn’t want water, he wanted coffee. Yes, a coffee wouldn’t go amiss.
He rolled onto his side, and it was as if the blows were raining down again on his back, his shoulders, his legs, his arms, just as hard as last night, on the street. Fuck! It took his breath away. He started to panic, the way he had last night. The fear rising in him made him want to pee. To pee and have a coffee.
“Come on, now, make an effort,” he said to himself. His body didn’t want to listen. His battered body refused to move, because it hurt. It was better to stay where he was, in bed. “But even in bed it hurts!” he argued with himself. “So if you get up . . .”
“Get up, take a leak, have a Dolipran.” He repeated it aloud, slowly, moving first one leg, then the other. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Maybe even two Dolipran. Yes. And then go back to bed. All right?”
No, it wasn’t all right. Every movement was like a dagger being thrust into him. He really had to take a leak. All that beer he’d drunk last night. He was glad, though, that he hadn’t peed himself while they were beating him. No, that wouldn’t happen again. He’d been to the toilet before leaving the bar. It had become a reflex. However much in a hurry he was, he always peed before he went anywhere. Especially if he had to go on foot. Especially if it was night.
&n
bsp; He managed to stand. For a fraction of a second. Then he bent double. His stomach was screaming. It was the fucking kicks. He looked for his underpants, but couldn’t find them. In fact, he couldn’t find any of his clothes. What did that matter right now? He moved forward like that, bent double. The toilet smelled of lavender. The smell was pleasant and sickening at the same time.
He dragged himself to the kitchen. The shutters were half closed. Everything was clean and tidy. Beside the cooker, a little Italian coffeemaker, a pack of coffee, a sugar bowl, a cup, a spoon. The box of Dolipran. His pack of cigarettes and his lighter. And a note from Mariette. Nice handwriting, large and round. Stay here and rest. See you later. Then Love, and the name and phone number of her doctor. Just in case . . .
The apartment exuded peace and gentleness. Happiness. He made the coffee. On the square, children were playing. Soccer, to judge by their shouts. He took two Dolipran with a mouthful of water, then refilled the glass and watered the basil on the window sill. The smell immediately spread. He loved that smell. It belonged to a calm, unhurried life.
He switched on the radio and sat down at the table. The news. With its share of violence and hate and death. Bosnia reminded him of Lebanon. And Rwanda was like Bosnia and Lebanon combined. Only worse. Much worse. Hitler had contaminated the world. At Hiroshima, the Americans had tested out horror on a mass scale. Yes, but even before that, the First World War had plunged mankind into a nightmare. And before and after were as alike as two peas in a pod.
That was the only thing men knew how to do: tear each other apart. You needed more money, so you robbed your neighbor. He called the cops. Or got out his rifle. Men killed each other over a woman, a car, a fence built in the wrong place, a piece of land trespassed on, a religion, a country. There was always someone who thought he was better than other people. Purer. More just. And beheaded, murdered, massacred. In the name of reason . . .
Diamantis changed stations. The same news, but with a commentary. In a part of Marseilles he didn’t know, a school had been ransacked by some of its pupils. People asked why. The principal. The teachers. The pupils’ parents . . . He switched off the radio. It was exhausting.
The Lost Sailors Page 13
