The Lost Sailors (25 page)

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?”

She looked him in the eyes, the way she had the previous day on the boat. He didn't let go of her wrist, and didn't lower his eyes.

“A hundred dollars,” he suggested.

Still holding her by the wrist, he dragged her out of the bar, ignoring his crew's glances and comments.

A hundred dollars. For a hundred dollars he'd fucked a cold, inert body. She hadn't even simulated pleasure, like any other hooker would have done, hadn't made a single tender gesture or spoken a single tender word, hadn't even cracked a real smile. She had put her swimsuit back on, and then her shorts, and given him a nasty look.

“A pity,” she'd said again.

He'd never forgotten her. Hélène, her name was.

 

“Abdul!”

Diamantis's voice, from the deck. He brought the neck of the bottle to his lips and let the whisky slide down his throat. Then he put the bottle down, near the wheelhouse door. That was when he saw them. Two cockroaches. Big ones. They weren't moving. They probably sensed him. He grabbed the bottle by the neck, lifted it slowly, moved it parallel to the floor until it was directly above the cockroaches. He brought the bottom of the bottle down on them. Their shells cracked.

“Fucking vermin,” he muttered.

He left the bottle on them and got to his feet, propping himself on one hand. The
Aldebaran
was listing badly. For a moment, he leaned against the door, then took a deep breath. He suddenly realized how hot it was.

“Abdul!”

He walked unsteadily in the direction of Diamantis's voice. “I'm here.”

He didn't recognize his own voice. It sounded as thick as his tongue was heavy.

Diamantis joined him on the bridge. Abdul was leaning on his elbows, looking out to sea, smoking a cigarillo.

“Ah, there you are.”

“We always end up loving our boat, don't we?” Abdul said, speaking slowly, articulating each word. “Any rusty old tub becomes an object of affection. Even the
Aldebaran
. Don't you think?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Is there a woman on board, Diamantis?”

“Yes,” he replied, embarrassed, although right now he didn't really care what Abdul thought.

“No women on board. It's forbidden in the regulations. You've forgotten the regulations.”

“Abdul . . .”

“Which of you picked her up? You or him? I mean, I assume she's a hooker.”

“Both of us. And we didn't bring her here to fuck her. It's a long story. We have to talk about it.”

Abdul laughed, a high, ringing, drunken laugh. “Ah, so now you want to talk. You want to talk when it suits you, Diamantis. I wanted to talk to you earlier, but you didn't have time. You were in a hurry. To join that hooker, I guess.”

“She's not a hooker.”

He couldn't let him say that. She wasn't a hooker. She might even be his daughter. He couldn't get that out of his head. And even if it wasn't true, nothing gave him the right to be vulgar and contemptuous toward Lalla.

“Abdul, listen to me—”

“I don't need to listen. I don't have anything to say to you.”

He rose to his full height. He still felt dizzy. The sweat was pouring off him. The damp air mingled with the fumes of alcohol inside him.

“Where is this girl now?”

“With Nedim. In the mess. We brought food and drink. We're having a little party. Then we're going to show her around the boat. She's never been on a boat.”

Diamantis didn't recognize himself. He was mouthing the selfsame words Nedim had used. A little party. What idiots they were, he and Nedim. He never should have let it happen, never should have agreed to it. It was against the regulations. Above all, it was against Abdul's principles. He should have known that, dammit!

“A little party, huh?” Abdul put his hand on Diamantis's shoulder. Not out of affection, but to lean on him. “A little party. Well, why not? Why not? It's so depressing, being on a boat that won't move. So why not, huh? A little party . . .”

“After that, she'll go,” Diamantis said.

“Yes, of course.” He still had his hand on Diamantis's shoulder. He leaned toward him. “I saw them,” he whispered. “The cockroaches.”

He laughed, and Diamantis could smell his alcohol-laden breath. Shit, Diamantis thought, he's really plastered. It was the first time he'd ever seen him like this, and it was a painful sight. This, he foresaw, was going to be the end of their friendship. But not only their friendship. Everything. Everything on the
Aldebaran
was coming to an end. He had to tell him.

“Abdul, I have to tell you why I'm leaving.”

Abdul laughed again, still clutching Diamantis's shoulder. “I know, I know. For the same reason I'm staying. We've lost everything we didn't need anymore.” He continued laughing. “That's the truth, my friend.” Then he became serious and looked at Diamantis. “Look,” he said, pointing to the open sea. “We've sailed all our lives, and for what? We didn't find anything. Not on this side of the horizon. Or on the other. Nothing. So?”

“There's nothing to find.
That's
the truth, Abdul. Nothing to look for. Nothing to find. And nothing to prove.”

“You're too much of a philosopher, Diamantis. No, we have to answer the questions of life. And solve them. Because they're asked of all of us, of all men. And we are men, aren't we?”

Diamantis felt an overwhelming need for alcohol, too. He wanted to drink. To drink and have a party. To sleep with a woman. He remembered Mariette's round face. Her smile. The plains and hills of her body. The peaceful atmosphere of her apartment. The sweetness of life . . . Life. Real life, maybe.

“That's crap, Abdul. Bullshit. What do you mean solve? Huh? There's no solution to anything, ever.”

“Right. Let's drink to that.”

He let go of Diamantis's shoulder. He didn't feel dizzy anymore. He looked at him again, with a feeling of pity this time. A man who's afraid of cockroaches, he thought.

“What's the girl's name?”

“Lalla.”

“Lalla. Arab, huh?”

“Moroccan.”

He left Diamantis and went to his cabin. A party, eh? He would show them. He took out his summer uniform and started dressing. In his mind, Lalla was looking more and more like Hélène. Only he could say if she was really like her. But he didn't say it. He only knew, as he shook her hand, that she had the same look about her.

I
f
. . .” Abdul Aziz cleared his throat, then resumed reading. “
If when you place your hand on the ship's rail
—” “What's the ship's rail?” Lalla asked.

“The guardrail,” Diamantis said.

She looked at Nedim.

“To stop you falling overboard.”

“Oh, right.”

“May I continue?” Abdul asked. “Good.
If when you put your hand on the ship's rail, you feel something like the contact of a living thing responding to your touch, something really tangible, then you are in the ideal frame of mind to become a genuine expert navigator.
” He raised his eyes from the book, looked at Lalla, and continued. “
If you have talent, sound judgment, an eye for distances, and a generally calm and unemotional nature
. . .”

He closed the book.
The Naval Officer's Manual
, by Captain H. A. V. Pflugk. A book he never let out of his sight. He had picked it up in a second-hand bookstore in London, about fifteen years ago. He guessed some of the observations might seem a little old-fashioned nowadays, but they suited him fine. They were sound.

“That's it,” he said. “That's what I felt when I sailed on my first ship. The
Hope
. I already told you about it, didn't I, Diamantis?”

On the table, they had spread all the things they'd bought before coming, from the food shops on Rue d'Aubagne, the most cosmopolitan street in Marseilles. Cod croquettes, red-pepper salad, meat
briquats
, calves' brain fritters,
chakchouka
, fish fritters, bean salad, eggplant caviar, cheese
feuillètes
,
tabouleh
, cucumbers with yoghurt, tomato-and-pepper omelette, stuffed vine leaves,
calamari
in Salonica sauce,
moussaka
. And, of course, green and black olives, almonds, cashew nuts, roasted pistachios, and chickpea purée. Several bottles of wine, too. A white from Cassis, a rosé from Bandol, and a few bottles of an Italian red called Lacrima-Christi, which Diamantis was particularly fond of.

When they sat down to eat, even though they weren't at home, they were on common ground. All from the same country. The Mediterranean. Forgetting who they were, why they were here, on this boat, on a summer night in Marseilles. They had been thrown together by chance, one of those chances by which exiles, constantly passing without meeting, at last converge on a place where happiness and unhappiness become one. The end of the world was here. On the
Aldebaran
.

Diamantis had done most of the talking at the beginning of the meal, although it was Nedim who had started.