The Lost Sailors

by Jean-Claude Izzo

  Vasil had had his revenge that day. On poverty. On the Communists. And especially on her. He could do it. He had nothing to fear. He had the power now, not her father.

  She had packed her bags and left for Bucharest. She felt no shame or remorse there. No one knew her. Ceaus¸escu was gone, but nothing had changed. The people who had money still had it, and the people who didn’t have any had even less.

  She had become a hooker, of course. It was a good way to make a lot of money fast. Now she was here. In Marseilles. For six months. She still made a lot of money, but she spent twice as much on rent, food, clothes . . . That was why she never haggled over prices. It was a thousand francs for a fuck. O.K., she might take her time. She didn’t believe in doing everything by the clock.

  Abdul had stopped by the American Express office on the Canebière and withdrawn five thousand francs from his savings account. Money he’d put aside for a rainy day. He hadn’t touched it in all the time the Aldebaran had been stuck in Marseilles. He offered Stella two thousand five hundred, for the whole afternoon.

  “O.K.,” she’d said. “But first buy me a meal. I’m starving.”

  They ate grilled rib steak, fries, and salad. Beer for her. A half-liter bottle of chilled rosé for him. She talked as much as Nedim, and listening to her he forgot all his problems. By the time they left the café, he knew everything about her. And he was desperate to fuck her.

  He could hear the sounds of the city now, rushing in through the open windows of the bedroom. Cars hooting. Tires screeching. Police sirens. Voices. Pigeons beating their wings from time to time. The same noise you hear in every port in the world after sleeping with a girl you don’t know and will never see again. The noise of homesickness. The noise that reminds you you’re not from these parts. Just a foreigner, passing through.

  A lost sailor.

  Stella had turned to him and was stroking his cock, with more skill than tenderness.

  “Thinking doesn’t get you anywhere. We’re here and the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Don’t you think so?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  His cock was swelling beneath Stella’s fingers.

  “I think we’re here to forget.”

  He remembered Diouf again. “I don’t think it’s necessary to forget in our lives,” he had said. “In fact, I don’t think we can.”

  “So what do you advise me to do?”

  “I don’t have any advice for you. And I can’t predict your fate.”

  “So I’m paying you for nothing?”

  “When you pay, it’s never for nothing.”

  The same as with Stella.

  He didn’t know if he could forget. But he felt as though a certain number of things lodged deep inside him, things he had never dared put into words, things that had been part of him for years, were gradually detaching themselves from him, and slipping away.

  He looked at Stella. Her fingers were still on his cock, moving with a slowness that aroused him.

  “Do you like it?”

  He hadn’t waited for Stella to wake up. Though she might not even have been asleep. What did it matter? He had paid her. He had listened to her. He had fucked her. He didn’t owe her anything. Not even a goodbye.

  He had dressed in silence. He had looked one last time at her body. The way you look at a dead person before the coffin is closed. That was it. He was closing the lid on his past life. There beside Stella, on the sheets still damp with his sweat, he was leaving his old skin, his corpse.

  Anything could happen to him now, it didn’t matter anymore. He walked along Cours Julien as far as the Canebière. He remembered something else Diouf had said to him. “We mustn’t despair. The future is a world that contains everything.”

  19.

  THE MAIN THING IS TO GET OUT OF HERE UNHARMED

  The cockroaches were outside the door of his cabin. Three huge, hideous black cockroaches. Diamantis felt a knot in his stomach. He hated cockroaches more than anything in the world. “That’s it,” he told himself, “here they are . . .” The Aldebaran must be infested with them. They’d soon be everywhere. These vermin were always where you least expected them. Under your plate. In a sack of rice. Between your sheets. It was disgusting.

  He kicked angrily in their direction. He didn’t try to squash them. That was something he couldn’t do. Especially ones as big as these. The crunch of their shells under his feet gave him the shivers, made him want to vomit.

  He opened the door cautiously. As if thousands of cockroaches might leap onto his face, or rain down on his head and shoulders. He had goosebumps just thinking about it. But he didn’t see any. He took the sheet that was on his bunk and shook it, looked under the mattress and the pillow, then undressed and lay down. He was exhausted.

  Maybe if Mariette hadn’t left straight away, he’d have asked her to give him a ride to the bar where he was supposed to be meeting Amina. But maybe it was better this way. He needed rest. There was an insistent pain throughout his body, spreading outward from his bruised muscles. The pain was the only way he could still feel his body, and he was groggy with fatigue and Dolipran.

  All thought seemed to have vanished from his head. He was curiously empty. But he didn’t feel any desire to sleep, and his eyes were open and fixed. It was a feeling he’d known only once before in his life. One day when he’d had a fist fight with an Irishman in a bar in Hanover. Fueled by Guinness, the asshole was holding forth about the state of the merchant navy around the world.

  “And if we have to make a distinction,” he was bellowing, “I’d say the Haitians have the worst boats and the Greeks the worst sailors.”

  His remarks had been greeted with applause, laughter, and cheers. Diamantis, who was completely plastered, had gotten unsteadily to his feet, a glass of beer in his hand. He had gone up to the Irishman and tapped him on the shoulder. The man had looked at him with yellowish, protruding eyes. Diamantis had thrust his face into his.

  “I’m a Greek, and to hell with you. And to hell with the asshole of the world that gave birth to you.”

  And he had emptied the contents of his glass over the guy’s head.

  He’d only had the upper hand for a few minutes. The first two minutes. After that, he’d taken a hammering. Then the Irishman had landed a punch on his left temple, and he’d collapsed onto the bar counter. And there he’d stayed, eyes open, not wanting to move. The quartermaster and the radio operator had taken him back to the ship. Early the next morning, he was still staring up at the ceiling, unable to move.

  Last night’s beating up was confused in his mind now with the one he’d received twenty years ago. He remembered the cold barrel of the gun in his mouth. The threats they had made. Even though there hadn’t been a gun this time, last night’s threats seemed to him more serious than those of twenty years ago. More serious because more recent. It was still as dangerous as ever to go near Amina. Why? She was the only one who could tell him that.

  He wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting himself killed but he had decided to see this thing through. He had accepted it. It was something he had to do. He had to ask forgiveness. Maybe it was childish. But if he didn’t do it, he’d never be able to envisage a different life, and he’d be obliged to continue sailing the seas. All this time he’d been running away—that was all he’d ever done, run away—from the thing that grew once you’d gotten past the fucking. Love. Love, and everything it led to. Building a future. Fidelity. Trust. How could you build a future of trust if you couldn’t ask forgiveness for all the stupid things you’d done in the past? Forgiveness from those you’ve loved. Forgiveness from those you commit yourselves to love.

  That was why things had fallen apart with Melina. He hadn’t asked forgiveness. And so she hadn’t forgiven him. And their love had foundered. He was more than ever convinced that Melina and he could have been happy. The sea wasn’t an obsta
cle to their love. The lack of trust was, and that endless escape he called his profession. Or his vocation, the nights when they quarreled.

  He always had excuses for his infidelities. And he always used Odysseus as a clinching argument. Just like his father. How many times had he heard his mother and father arguing? And his father saying that polygamy was part of Mediterranean culture, and then slamming the door and going off on a spree, for a night or a week? Mediterranean man, Diamantis had read somewhere, believes that men can act like sailors even when they’re not sailing.

  Melina didn’t want to play the part of Penelope. Or rather, she did, but she wanted to be Circe and Calypso, too! In a way, she was even more Greek than Diamantis. It wasn’t marriage that interested her, but the pleasure of loving. Her kind of love had nothing to do with all that Anglo-Saxon romanticism. It was the kind of love you die for. The kind of love you kill for. She loved because it was her life. Amina had come before Melina, but Melina, whom he’d known forever, was already there in Amina. They were two facets of the same love, a love he had wrecked. After twenty years of wandering, Diamantis was trying to get back to home base. He wanted to love. More than anything, he needed Amina to forgive him.

  He turned over, making as little movement as he could, and peered into those corners of the cabin that were within his field of vision. He didn’t see any cockroaches. He closed his eyes. In her note, Amina didn’t mention the message he had left her the day before. Who was the girl who had left the envelope for him? How did Nedim know her? From where? Where had the asshole been hanging out? The Perroquet Bleu. The Habana. Shit, the Habana! Amina worked at the Habana. She was one of the two girls who had hustled Nedim. Amina wasn’t a hooker, she was a hostess. Amina. Nedim hadn’t mentioned anyone called Amina. What were their names? Lalla. Lalla was the one who was leading him by his dick. The other one was an older woman, he’d said. Gaby. Gaby? Gaby.

  Was Amina at the Habana when he had gone there to try to get Nedim’s bag back? Why hadn’t she showed herself to him? Maybe she couldn’t. But who had suggested that deal to Doug—Diamantis’s passport for Nedim’s things? And why? Lalla? Why would Lalla have done that? Did Lalla have the authority? No. Too young. Amina? Gaby? Gaby. Maybe she was the owner. Or Amina. What did Nedim mean by “an older woman”? Fifty? Forty? Forty. Gaby. Was Gaby Amina?

  That was it, wasn’t it? Yes, that was it.

  He heard a noise in the gangway. He looked at his watch. Five-ten. Shit, he had fallen asleep. He sat up, and almost screamed with the pain. He didn’t stand.

  Abdul Aziz came in. “What happened to you?” he said when he saw Diamantis’s bruised face.

  “Someone didn’t like the look of me,” Diamantis joked.

  Abdul laughed. “Nedim was sure you’d gotten laid.”

  “For Nedim, everything comes down to fucking.”

  “Yes . . . It would be simpler if it did. Are you O.K.?”

  “Could be worse. How about you?”

  “Could be worse, too.”

  Diamantis managed to stand up. “I need to drink something hot.”

  “Tea?”

  “Yeah, tea would be good.”

  “I’ll make some.”

  Abdul broke the silence. Diamantis was lost in thought again. The tea was doing him good. His stomach felt more settled. He had to go over there now. To see Amina. And Nedim, and Lalla. How long would it take him to get to the bar she’d mentioned? By bus, at least an hour. He could take a taxi. He wasn’t sure exactly where the Prophète Beach was. On the Corniche. But the Corniche covered quite an area.

  “You and I have to talk.”

  Diamantis raised his eyes. Abdul looked sick. His dark eyes were curiously shiny. “Something’s wrong with him,” Diamantis thought.

  “About what?”

  “Diamantis . . .” he began.

  “Wait, Abdul. I don’t know what you want to talk about. But I don’t have too much time. I have an appointment. And it’s going to take me more than an hour to get there.”

  Abdul’s face clouded over. “I thought you and I could talk.”

  Diamantis was starting to get irritated with Abdul. He had to see Amina as soon as possible. He wanted to bring everything out in the open. He needed to draw a line under the past, before it took over his life. He wanted to get beyond this, live differently.

  “Abdul, what the hell do you want to talk about?”

  Abdul was starting to panic. He had clarified his thoughts and prepared a long confession. And now Diamantis didn’t want to listen. Why did he need to go running around town? What did he have to do that was so important? Was it more important than listening to him? He was at the end of his tether. Couldn’t Diamantis see, didn’t he understand, that he was at the end of his tether?

  “I . . .” he stammered, staring down at his tea.

  He looked up. “Go fuck yourself, Diamantis,” he thought.

  But what he said was “There’s no rush. When you come back. But . . . I want to ask you a question, Diamantis. Then I’ll let you go. Why have you stayed? Why didn’t you get out with the others?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes.”

  “If only I knew.”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “I’d run out of cigarettes that morning, so I went out to buy some. By the time I got back, I think everything had already been arranged. That’s right . . . The weather was nice. I wandered around the streets and . . . that was it. I completely forgot . . .”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “And don’t piss me off! You’re always looking for reasons. I don’t have one. I stayed because I stayed. Period. Is that clear? Or would you rather I told you I didn’t give a fuck that day whether I was here or somewhere else?”

  “And now?”

  “No change. Except that now I’d have more of a preference. Because right now, I’m sick to the back teeth of this fucking old tub full of cockroaches and—”

  “Cockroaches?”

  “That’s right, my friend, cockroaches. They’re everywhere. In my cabin, in my head, too. So I think maybe it’s time you and I got out of here.”

  Abdul stood up. “So that’s it, Diamantis. You want to go.”

  “When I’ve sorted out a few things, yes. I want to go.”

  Diamantis also stood up. Slowly, so as not to reawaken the pain. The Dolipran he’d just taken seemed to be having an effect. “We’ll talk later, if you like.” His tone was softer now.

  “We’ll see.”

  Diamantis shrugged. Abdul put his hand on his arm. Their eyes met.

  “I’ll tell you this, Abdul. I stayed because you were stupid. A guy like you, getting caught by a crook like Constantin Takis, I can’t get my head around that.”

  Abdul took his hand away. “That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

  Diamantis smiled. “Consider it done. I don’t need to know the whys and the wherefores. I don’t give a damn. We like each other, I think. So forget it, Abdul. The main thing . . .” He perched on the edge of the table. It was too exhausting to stand. “Do you remember the time we entered Guayaquil?”

  How could he forget? The place was swarming with pirates. They were surrounded by a dozen motor canoes. A hundred men ready to board them.

  “You remember what you said when you handed out weapons to the crew? ‘To these guys, this boat is like a chicken. When they’re ready, they’ll pluck it.’”

  “Yes,” Abdul said, not quite sure where Diamantis was going with this.

  “You also said that if the army didn’t come to our rescue soon, we could well be killed, whether we were armed or not. ‘So what are we doing with these?’ Rosario asked, pointing to his rifle. ‘Nothing,’ you replied. ‘Absolutely nothing. It’s just regulations. In half an hour you can drop your rifle, and we’ll all get out of here. We don’t deserve t
o die for six thousand TVs in kit form, do we?’”

  “The army came. And we got out. Unharmed.”

  “Yes. That’s the main thing, Abdul. To get out of here unharmed. I’m not going to ask you to explain anything. Like why you were ready to abandon this freighter yesterday to stay alive, and why today you’re prepared to stay on this tub even if it kills you. O.K.?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, you sort out your business, and I’ll sort out mine. Then we’ll have a party. O.K.?”

  “I’ve already sorted out mine.”

  Diamantis looked at him, and smiled sadly. “I don’t think so, Abdul. I don’t think so, or you wouldn’t be sulking the way you are. I’m sure that deep down, Abdul, you still haven’t admitted that Cephea has dumped you.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I’ll tell you what I know about it. Not once have you talked about the kids, not once have you talked about Cephea and the kids, not once have you talked about you, her, and the kids as a family. You’ve only talked about yourself.”

  “Go to hell, Diamantis.”

  “You see, Abdul? You said you had to talk to me. But you don’t have anything to say. See you later.”

  It was after seven by the time he got to the Prophète Beach. Nedim had had a couple of beers, and then had started on the gin. He’d long since given up the idea of stealing Lalla’s car and hotfooting it to Turkey. The two of them were laughing like old friends. And Amina had gone.

  20.

  AN APPOINTMENT WITH A DEEP, ENDLESS FEAR

  Yes, the scar was a whole other story.

  Amina looked at Nedim. He was smiling at her, pleased with himself, cruel in the way people sometimes are when they’ve been humiliated. Lalla and she hadn’t spared him the other night. They were still playing with him now. That was life. Amina didn’t have any feelings of justice or pity. She didn’t feel self-pity either. That was life. She hadn’t chosen hers. She’d simply decided not to put up with it, the day that bastard Bruno Schmidt had slashed her with a knife.