The Lost Sailors

by Jean-Claude Izzo

  “And did they tie you up, too?”

  “One of them put an axe to my throat . . . An axe . . .”

  He mimed the action, and Lalla had a fit of the giggles. All the customers in the bar were looking at her, wanting to join in the joke.

  “It’s true,” Nedim kept saying.

  Lalla moved her face closer to Nedim’s and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you,” she said. “You crack me up.”

  “Am I disturbing you?” Diamantis asked.

  “Oh, you’re here!” Nedim said, so absorbed in his story that he didn’t show any surprise that Diamantis had suddenly appeared. “Tell her it’s true, about the pirates.”

  Nedim didn’t even notice the mustard-yellow blotch just under Diamantis’s eye. It wasn’t exactly easy to avoid, even though it was concealed by Mariette’s big sunglasses.

  Nedim turned to Lalla. “This is Diamantis, he’ll tell you.”

  Diamantis held out his hand to Lalla, who was still laughing. “Hello.”

  “I’m Lalla,” she said. “We saw each other yesterday at the Habana.” She didn’t say anything about his eye. Out of politeness.

  Diamantis sat down facing them.

  “You’re late, man. Gaby couldn’t stay. Shit! What’s that under your eye?”

  “I tripped on the stairs,” he joked.

  “Don’t piss me around!” Nedim turned to Lalla, conspiratorially. “Something to do with a woman, I bet.” Then he looked at Diamantis again. “I know. You were fucking the wife, and the husband came home earlier than expected. He was a big, strong guy, and he gave you a hammering.”

  “Spot on. Only without the wife, and without the husband. But I did get beaten up on the street, on my way back last night.”

  Nedim whistled through his teeth. But nothing was lost on him in this kind of story. “And where did you sleep after that?”

  Diamantis smiled. “At the pharmacist’s.”

  Nedim laughed and winked. “The pharmacist, huh? Was she pretty?”

  “So what about Amina?” Diamantis cut in, before Nedim could make any more dubious remarks.

  “Amina?” Nedim asked.

  “Gaby,” Lalla said. “Gaby’s her work name. I told you at the Habana.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah . . .” Nedim said. “You know, I prefer Amina. It suits her better. It’s prettier. Gaby . . .”

  “Amina had to go,” Lalla said to Diamantis. “I’ll tell you about it . . . Do you want a drink?”

  “Her treat,” Nedim said. “I haven’t touched my money at all.”

  “Yes, I’d like a drink,” Diamantis said to Lalla. “So what are we going to do?”

  “Shit, we’re going to have a party!” Nedim put his hand on Lalla’s. “I mean, we’re not going to say goodbye yet, are we? I promised to show her around the boat. She’s never seen one, can you imagine? We’ll buy some things to eat on board. Lots of things. How about it?”

  “We’re not working today,” Lalla said to Daimantis. “The club’s closed. So Amina . . . It hadn’t been planned, but . . . She’s going to have dinner with Ricardo. But . . .” She looked at Nedim. “As we’re going to see the boat, she . . . She’ll join us as soon as she can. That’s what she said.”

  “Yes, she’ll ask for us at the checkpoint, and you can go and fetch her. Is that O.K.? In the meantime, let’s take it easy and have an aperitif. Live like lords. It’s nice here, isn’t it?” With a sweeping movement of his arm, Nedim gestured out to sea.

  The sun was setting over L’Estaque, its last rays lighting up the fortress of the Château d’If. Amina. Diamantis suddenly remembered The Count of Monte Cristo. Amina’s favorite novel. She had taken him to visit the island, the dungeon where Dantès spent fourteen years of his life. She had read him the passage where Dantès is arrested just as he is about to marry the beautiful Mercedes.

  “It’s the great novel about injustice,” she had said. “Hatred and contempt, jealousy, cowardice.”

  How could he have forgotten that? She had given him the book. To read on the boat. He had devoured it, and loved it as much as she did. It could even be said that he’d learned to read French thanks to Alexandre Dumas. Page after page. Images from the first chapter came back to him. The three-master, the Pharaon, entering the port of Marseilles, on the way from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples.

  “I don’t know if Abdul will like it,” Diamantis said.

  “Is he your captain?”

  “Yes,” Nedim said. “He’s crazy but he’s O.K. He won’t refuse to have a party with us. This life is getting him down, too. Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes,” Diamantis replied, lost in thought.

  But it wasn’t Abdul he was worried about. There were a lot of unanswered questions. Had Amina seen his message or not? Who were the guys who’d beaten him up? Were they connected with this Ricardo? Was Ricardo the guy who’d been eating at Le Mas last night?

  “Who’s Ricardo?” he asked Lalla.

  “He’s . . . he’s the owner of the Habana. The guy we work for.”

  Lalla was embarrassed now. She didn’t know what she could say and what she had to keep quiet about. Amina hadn’t given her any instructions. What the hell, she thought, it didn’t commit her to anything if she talked about Ricardo. She wasn’t obliged to tell this guy that Ricardo paid for everything, and that he fucked Amina when the fancy took him. Maybe that was what he had in mind this evening. No. Amina had told her he’d only invited her to dinner. When he wanted to fuck her, he’d order dinner from a caterer and have it delivered to Amina’s villa. There was always champagne, those nights. Amina had told her about it. The good life, she would think.

  “I didn’t know that you knew Gaby . . .” Nedim said. “I mean, Amina.”

  “And I didn’t know you’d met her. I didn’t know she worked at the Habana, either. It’s a coincidence. You’re the link.”

  Diamantis refrained from mentioning that he’d been looking for Amina in Marseilles. Better not to say anything about that. Or about the fact that he’d been beaten up because of her.

  Lalla was looking closely at Diamantis. The guy Amina had known a long time ago. She must really have loved him a lot to have been so shaken when she saw him yesterday. Lalla could understood why she was so eager to see him again. He’d said only a few words, but she could tell he was a good man. “He’s my friend,” Nedim had said. And he’d said it with pride. She tried to imagine Diamantis when he was young. And Amina with him. In her head, they made a fine couple.

  Diamantis looked straight at Lalla. His eyes were gentle but determined. “What’s he like, this Ricardo?”

  “Ricardo . . .”

  The man she described recalled the man he had seen from the back at Le Mas. His face was the way he had imagined it. It was a good description. With just a tinge of hatred to indicate how much she disliked him. A gangster. The man, Diamantis told himself, who’d had him beaten up twice. Beaten up and humiliated. The man who’d forced him and Amina apart. Ricardo.

  “Do you know him?” Nedim interrupted.

  “Is he her husband?” Diamantis asked.

  “Her husband?” Lalla laughed softly. “No, no . . . They . . . they lived together a long time ago. But Ricardo isn’t exactly the faithful kind. Well, it’s a bit different now, he . . .”

  “Damn it, what should I tell him?” she wondered. “Why is he asking me all these questions? Why doesn’t he wait for Amina to tell him?” How could she be sure what Amina wanted Diamantis to know?

  “He took care of me when I was little. Him and Amina. And Amina’s mother. It was Amina’s mother who brought me up.”

  “Didn’t you have parents?” Nedim asked.

  Lalla was increasingly at sea. Why did she have to talk about all this? She felt Diamantis’s eyes on her. He wasn’t ogling her. He was looking at her as if he could see i
nto her heart.

  “No. Amina said . . .”

  Diamantis could sense how uncomfortable Lalla was. “We’re being indiscreet. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t ask these things.”

  Nedim looked at Diamantis. He was right. He turned to Lalla, and patted her hand. “Forgive us.”

  Nedim wanted to take her in his arms, to console her, cosset her, invent a family for her, lend her his. He wanted to love her, not fuck her, love her tenderly, yes, slowly and tenderly, he wouldn’t even start by sticking his cock inside her, no, he would caress her, cover her in kisses, afterwards, yes, afterwards he would come inside her, when he felt her desire embrace his, when she felt his desire become hers . . . “Shit, Nedim,” he told himself, “You’re in love!”

  Nedim and Lalla looked at each other at the same moment, and both smiled. Diamantis caught their complicity and also noticed that Lalla’s leg was up against Nedim’s.

  “Do you know, mademoiselle . . .” Diamantis resumed.

  “Hey, don’t be so formal,” Nedim cut in. “Haven’t you looked at her? She’s young enough to be your daughter!”

  His heat skipped a beat. His head started turning. He felt nauseous, dizzy. Lalla. No, it was impossible, impossible, impossible. Lalla, his daughter . . .

  “Hey, are you O.K.?” Nedim asked.

  His voice sounded very, very distant.

  “It’s my stomach,” he stammered. “Where they hit me . . . I’ll be all right . . .”

  “Diamantis!”

  Nedim was a long way, away.

  “Ne-dim . . .”

  Diamantis’s head swayed on his shoulders, from right to left.

  He was passing out.

  A long way away.

  23.

  YOU DON’T AVOID PROBLEMS

  IF YOU GO LOOKING FOR THEM

  Cockroaches, cockroaches. Abdul Aziz had walked all over the Aldebaran, with his eyes down, on the lookout for anything with a black shell foolish enough to scurry along the gangway. He had gone over the mess, the kitchen, his cabin, with a fine-tooth comb, but in vain. He hadn’t seen any cockroaches. Where the hell had Diamantis seen them? In his nightmares, he supposed. Cockroaches! What an idiot! Let them show themselves, if there were any! He’d exterminate them. Without pity. He was ready to spend the night doing it, if he had to. They didn’t scare him. He had grown up with them. They were part of his world.

  He returned to the mess and poured himself a large glass of whisky. He’d bought another bottle before coming back to the Aldebaran. A good one. Oban. A pure malt. Not like the crap Diamantis had brought back, which was just about drinkable mixed with Perrier or Coke. He had told himself a good whisky would help him to talk to Diamantis. A few glasses, without thinking too much about it, loosen the tongue. But the asshole had refused to talk to him. He took a large swig, then, with his glass in his hand, again examined the kitchen, but still didn’t see any cockroaches. He emptied his glass, put it down, grabbed the bottle, and went out to the gangway.

  At home, the back room of the family store had been infested with cockroaches. His mother was constantly using chemicals, but it was pointless. They would work for a month or two, and you’d see whole columns of the things, dead, their legs in the air. Then they’d reappear, as numerous as ever. When he was about seven or eight, he’d declared war on them. A Crusade against the black knights! He’d spent hours over it. He knew how to trap them. Whenever he spotted two or three of them, he would encircle them with four old bricks, spill a few drops of lighter fuel on them, and drop a match. You had to be quick. Their shells would crackle like dead wood, and then they would twist and curl up.

  The cockroaches had earned him his biggest beating. He could start a fire like that, his mother had cried. The back room of the shop was full of cardboard boxes, papers, cloths. She told him how risky it was. She also told him it was cruel to do that. You could kill cockroaches, but normally. With chemicals. She was afraid of cockroaches, that was why. Most people were afraid of them. Cockroaches, mice, rats. And spiders, ants, snakes, scorpions, salamanders, lizards. He wasn’t.

  He took a swig of whisky straight from the bottle, then went into the wheelhouse. The grime was spreading over the walls and windows. Spreading like the cockroaches and all the other unthinkable vermin. Like the rust. Human genius amounted to nothing. Just vanity. Man lacked determination, application, perseverance. All he had to do was lower his guard for a single day, and the next day the cockroaches and the rust had gained ground. There was no victory. The cockroaches and the rust. And the rats. They blighted life. Life and love. It was a losing battle.

  He took another swig of whisky.

  “20 to port!” he cried, staring straight ahead.

  Voices rose toward him.

  “Straight down the middle.”

  “Straight down the middle.”

  “Slow down.”

  They were entering the Panama Canal. His first command. The Eridan. Due south, then due east, and they’d reach the Pacific. From one lock to another, from beacon to beacon. Before they’d set off, he had studied the canal like a schoolboy. The names of the locks. Gatun Lake. Pedro Miguel. Miraflores. Length, width, depth. He was familiar with the risks, had read everything that had been written. And now here he was, with the Panama Canal in front of him.

  He presented himself proudly at the entrance, in a convoy of seventy ships. They had put him on his guard. “This isn’t a place for beginners. This isn’t a place for blunderers. You won’t get through it with an inexperienced crew . . . You can’t even rely on your first mate to cut the lights, switch them on again, check the water in the boilers, check the pressure of the instruments. All that takes experience . . .”

  He was wearing his uniform with the epaulettes. It was his way of asserting that he wouldn’t let anyone else take charge of the maneuver. But when he got to the wheelhouse, the pilots had already taken charge of the operation.

  Abdul had received the order from his company an hour earlier. The order to pick up the pilots who had been dispatched to see the ship through the Canal.

  He’d sent an answer. “I can do it myself.”

  No one doubted it. But the pilots had all been specially trained for the task in the United States. “There may be more problems than you’d be able to solve,” the company had said. “You don’t avoid problems if you go looking for them.”

  “20 to port,” the pilot said.

  “20 to port,” the helmsman repeated.

  “Hard to port.”

  “Hard to port.”

  At the helm, the leading seaman had repeated the order and Abdul, standing there, motionless and humiliated, behind the pilot, had also repeated it, silently, as if trying to participate at least a little. They crossed Gatun Lake under a full moon. The Eridan made its way through the endless maze of islands. The green stars whose light was constant were the line of beacons. The flashing green stars were the buoys.

  “The fact is, there’s no Canal anymore,” the pilot said. “Just shit.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Shit and garbage. They throw everything in it. Barrels, waste. The Canal will disappear. The jungle is spreading.”

  Abdul took two long swigs of whisky.

  He could have piloted the Eridan. He could have seen it though the Canal. He could have asserted his authority. Asserted himself. A captain without a command. Inexperienced sailors. Ships without owners. The jungle is spreading. The cockroaches and the rats. The rust.

  “Hard to port!” he cried.

  The voice wasn’t his.

  “Hard to port.”

  “Gently reverse.”

  He drank some more. Then he heard voices. Not the pilot’s. Or the helmsman’s. Voices he knew. Diamantis. Nedim. A woman’s voice too. A woman on board! Dammit, he had never authorized a woman on board.

  He did
remember one woman who’d managed to get herself on a boat. A half-breed. Where was that? In El Callao. She must have bribed someone working in the harbor. Or slept with one of them. The harbormaster, maybe. No, it wasn’t in El Callao. He sat down on a step in front of the entrance to the wheelhouse. The way she looked would have given a corpse a hard-on. Buenaventura. That was it. Buenaventura, the pearl of the Pacific.

  He laughed. Nedim had missed that. Buenaventura. The Bamboo Bar. Magnificent women. The sailors, their pockets stuffed with condoms, couldn’t wait to plunge into the narrow alleys. They had to see the Bamboo Bar. A paradise filled with women.

  She was wearing nothing but a pistachio-colored swimsuit. Thin and rather tall. Sexier than a special issue of Penthouse. She was strolling nonchalantly along the deck.

  “I’m here to satisfy you,” she said in bad English.

  She flashed him a fabulous smile, then let her eyes move down to his crotch. His cock popped up obediently at the invitation. He couldn’t stop himself having a hard-on. Around him, the crew was gathering. The news had spread like wildfire. The men formed a circle around them. Around her. No one said a word. Their cocks all stood to attention. All eager to fuck this woman, who was offering her services for the duration of their stay. For a few dollars, of course. Cash, naturally.

  He sent for the cops.

  No woman on board while they were in port. Those were the regulations.

  The following night, she was at the Bamboo Bar. Over her swimsuit bottom, she was wearing a pair of fluorescent-orange silk shorts. She was slipping like an eel from hand to hand, from drink to drink. Picking up ten dollars here, ten dollars there, in return for a hand on her ass or her breasts, or a furtive kiss. He wondered who’d offer the most dollars to fuck her.

  At a certain moment, she emerged from a cloud of smoke and there she was in front of him, a glass in her hand. The music was deafening. She put a hand on her hip, arched her body, raised her glass to him, and drank.

  “A pity,” she said, and turned her back on him.

  He grabbed her by the wrist. “What’s a pity?”