The Lost Sailors (6 page)

“He told me the captain stayed on the bridge for fifty-two hours, trying to save the ship. He would put on speed in the troughs, and slow down when the waves were high in order not to put too much pressure on the hull. A really good guy.”

“So, what happened?”

“Colm was on watch that night, on the bridge. That was where he wanted to be, he'd insisted on it, and no one had tried to take his place.”

“Hell, I can believe that.”

“Right. But that was when he started shitting himself. Because the bridge was submerged, even though it was about a hundred feet above sea level. The waves had torn down the mast, and a forty-five-ton crane was lying on the deck and ramming against the wheelhouse of the second deck, which had been completely destroyed.”

“He panicked.”

“I guess so. What's for sure is that he suddenly found himself with his ass on the floor. He'd slipped on his back in the gangway and gone flying against the ship's rail. He grabbed hold of it for dear life. By now, the waves were huge. The sea was going up and down. His mouth was full of water. ‘I was praying,' he told me. It was the captain who saved him.”

“That must have calmed him down!”

“Can you imagine? He was always headstrong, whatever the weather.”

“A real madman.”

“Not mad, no. I think the sea terrified him. I think it had scared the pants off him the first time he ever set foot on a ship. So he charged right into it, to overcome the fear.” Abdul paused for thought, and took a swig of beer. Then he resumed, “We're like that in life, aren't we? Something scares us and we put our heads down and charge right into it. Into the fear, I mean. Don't you think so?”

Diamantis didn't answer the question, but asked, “Did you ever see him again?”

“Yes. Five or six years later. I ran into him in Dakar. Talking about ‘his' storm in a greasy spoon down by the harbor. Just before setting sail for El Callao in Peru. He was playing down what he'd been through. You know the kind of thing. ‘Yes, guys, it was just like I'm telling you. I was forty feet above the water. The wave broke over the deck. At my feet. It swept away the radar mast. But believe me, it wasn't the big one, I'm still waiting for that.'”

“And is he still at sea?”

“No, he's retired now. Apparently he lives near Galway. He has his little patch of land. And don't laugh, but he's never again set foot on a boat. Not even a fishing boat!”

For a while, they drank in silence. The rain was still pounding the deck. From time to time, there was a crash of thunder, as loud as ever. They were united by the storm. In the same way that a storm at sea brings a crew closer together. No sailor ever tells his family about times like that. Never writes about it, never mentions it when he comes home. Because he doesn't want to worry them. And, anyway, it's not something you can talk about. Storms don't exist. Any more than sailors do, when they're at sea. Men are only real when they're on land. No one knows anything about sailors until they come ashore. No one who hasn't been to sea himself, that is.

Diamantis remembered watching the TV news a few months after the
Maris Stella
went down, and being struck by some words spoken by a reporter. They were showing pictures of the damage caused by bad weather in England. Six people had died. “The danger is now past,” the reporter had reassured viewers. “The storm has moved away from the coast and is now out at sea.”

Out at sea, away from the coasts, there were thousands of men who didn't exist. Even for their wives. They had no reality until they were home and in their beds.

Diamantis looked up. “How about you? Have you ever been scared like that?”

Yes, of course. Abdul Aziz had known storms. He could talk about them, too. But the memory that came into his mind had nothing to do with being scared. It was to do with being ashamed. It was to do with a shipwreck that hadn't been the work of nature but human greed. It had happened twenty years ago.

He was only a first mate in those days. On the
Cygnus
, an oil tanker sailing under a Liberian flag. The international embargo was still in force against South Africa, and the country was desperately short of oil. The
Cygnus
, full to bursting with Iranian crude, had unloaded its cargo at Port Elizabeth during the night. Then they'd filled their tanks with water and had set off again, via the Cape of Good Hope. There, they'd waited for a wind, a swell, the slightest hint of a storm.

On the sixth day, they got what the captain wanted. The ship was rolling six degrees. Not much for a ship like that. The
Cygnus
was an oceangoing vessel, built to withstand bad weather. The captain ordered them to sail with the hatches open, then, at daybreak, to open the floodgates. The crew members were told to pack their bags. Distress signals were sent off. The lifeboats were lowered, and they all got into them.

The
Cygnus
sank majestically. Almost reluctantly. “A pity.” That was the only comment the captain allowed himself. They didn't drift for long. Three ships were heading in their direction. They hadn't even waited for the SOS. The exact position of the
Cygnus
had been communicated to them hour by hour. All three were sailing under Liberian flags. On behalf of the Tex Oil fleet, as Abdul had learned later. They were picked up as heroes. Apart from the ship's boy, a twenty-year-old named Lucio. It was his first voyage. He had panicked and ended up in the water. The winds had pushed the lifeboats in the opposite direction, and no one could save him.

It was the insurance company that had put the ball in Abdul's court. All he had to do was back up the captain's testimony about the shipwreck. He would get a big bonus, and promotion. There were also bonuses for the rest of the crew. For some—he discovered later—it was the third ship they'd been on that had sunk.

“If I refused, I'd be outlawed by the merchant-navy community worldwide. Everyone seemed to know that kind of thing went on.”

“But how did you explain that there was no oil slick, nothing?”

“It didn't matter. The insurance company was in on the scam. No one would have listened to me. And I'll tell you something, Diamantis, the insurance didn't just pay for the boat, but also the whole of the cargo of Iranian crude!”

“So you signed?” Diamantis asked, but not in any nasty way.

“I threw up, then I signed, then I threw up again. I threw up every day, for more than a month. Every evening, I'd feel nauseous.”

He looked at Diamantis in despair. He was still sickened by this business, even now.

“The bonus helped Cephea and me to settle in Dakar. Quite comfortably, too. I'd have had to work ten years to get to that point. And you know how hard it is to save money.”

“And you became a captain.”

“Yes, I became a captain. Under the same flag, for the same fleet, Tex Oil. Then, as soon as I could, I quit.”

Diamantis recalled that the first time he had sailed under Abdul's command, one of the crew—the chief engineer—had said to him, “He's a good captain. He's very experienced at maneuvers. He treats the crew well, and he doesn't wet his pants when he has to deal with the owner.” Since that fake shipwreck, he had learned to stand up for himself. He wasn't the kind of person who'd agree to sink a boat now. He'd never abandon ship. If necessary, he'd stay on it and rot, the way he was doing now in Marseilles.

“I'll tell you something else, Diamantis, nothing I've done since has wiped out the shame of it. The dirty money I pocketed, my promotion, all that. There comes a time when you have to pay for the bad things you've done in your life.”

“You pay only if you want to, Abdul. That's what I think. The world is full of corrupt people. That's all you read about in the papers. The higher up you are, the more corrupt you're likely to be. Look at the owner of this ship, the bastard. And what do you think? That all these people are lining up at the cash desk to pay their debts? Bullshit, Abdul! Bullshit!”

“You don't understand, Diamantis,” Abdul said, getting to his feet. “You don't understand a thing!” He was on the verge of tears. “Cephea is leaving me. My life's collapsing around my ears. Everything's collapsing, fuck it! That's how I'm paying! Stuck here on this fucking heap of old metal!”

He left without finishing his beer. Shoulders drooping, as if crushed by a heavy burden. He was no longer the same man who had addressed the crew. By arranging for his men to leave, he had limited the damage for each of them. He had gone as far as he could in what he considered his duty as a captain. Now the
Aldebaran
could sink. And himself with her. But Diamantis had stayed. And neither of them knew yet if that was a good thing. For either of them.

The rain had stopped. It was five-ten. On Place de l'Opéra, the door of the Habana opened and Nedim was thrown out onto the sidewalk by a huge, muscular black guy. The door closed again. Nedim didn't have the strength—or the guts—to go back in and ask for his bag.

N
edim had known as soon as he set foot in the Habana that he'd been screwed. The place was cramped. A bar counter to the left. Two girls were sitting on high stools, chatting with the barman, a big bald-headed guy with a moustache. In front of them, a small dance floor, where three couples were wriggling their hips. A dozen booths around the walls. He noticed a couple embracing. Lalla had said it was intimate, and you certainly couldn't get more intimate than this. But he had to admit that the music wasn't bad at all. He thought he recognized the warm voice of Ruben Blades. When it came to rhythm, Marseilles had a good ear.

Nedim let himself be led to one of the booths by Lalla and Gaby. He wondered how he was going to get out of this. Or rather, he did know. He was expected to buy drinks. He'd been in a few bars like this, cocktail bars, in his time. Never alone. Always with two or three other sailors. At the end of a night in a port, after a good fuck. The last drink before going to sea again. The girls never bothered them.

“Will you buy us a drink?” Lalla asked.

“A gin and tonic for me.”

He needed it. To come back to his senses. “Have a drink and then get out of here,” he said to himself. Lalla went off to the bar. He couldn't help watching her as she walked. He loved the way she swung her hips. He remembered how they'd embraced at the Perroquet Bleu. His body longed for more.

“Pretty, isn't she?”

Gaby was sitting opposite him, smiling.

“You're hookers, right?”

“Hookers?” Gaby said. “Have you looked at us, Nedim? Huh? Is that what you thought, that you could just flash your money and we'd open our legs for you. Huh, Nedim?”

She had leaned toward him. She had a strong, musky smell. A smell that seeped into him. Into his blood. Like a glass of rum, downed in one go. It made him feel hot under the skin. She must be good in bed, he told himself. But without looking at her, for fear she'd see what he was thinking in his eyes. He imagined her offering herself to him.

“What are you, then?”

He'd lit a cigarette, and as he breathed out the smoke he looked up at her. Again, he noticed her scar. A star-shaped scar, near her eye. He'd have liked to know how she'd got it. And why. He couldn't take his eyes off it. Her scar, far from making her ugly, made her face look even more beautiful. Nedim was enthralled by it.

She let him stare at her in that insistent way. Then she passed her hand through her hair, which she wore very short, and smiled.

“Friends, Nedim,” she murmured, her lips almost on his. “We're just friends. Don't go thinking anything else, all right? We're out enjoying ourselves. A night on the town. And you're paying, handsome.”

She stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. They were cold. She smiled at him again, and her smile was as cold as her touch. He'd lost any desire to be in bed with her. Or anywhere else.

Lalla slid in next to him, and put her arm around his shoulders. She pressed her thigh against his and Nedim felt his body temperature rise by several degrees.

“It's cool here, isn't it? Do you like it?”

He wanted to say something nasty in reply. But he didn't say anything because just then the barman appeared. On the tray, there was a gin and tonic, but also a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

“Did you two order this?”

“We felt a little thirsty,” Lalla replied, letting her head drop against his. She barely dipped her lips in the glass. “Do you want to dance?”

Nedim's good resolutions flew out the window as soon as she was in his arms. She clung to him, stroking the back of his neck with her fingertips. He felt happy with this girl. He'd never felt this way before. But he kept telling himself that she was working. She could have gone with anyone.

“You've lost your hard-on,” she whispered in his ear.

“It's because of the champagne. It's too expensive.”

“It's the only thing we're allowed to order when we bring friends.”

“Suckers, you mean.”

“Well, for the money you're paying, you ought to take advantage.”

“And what do I get for the money I'm paying?”

She laughed, her head thrown back slightly. He wanted her lips.

“Nothing! You can dance with me. And get a hard-on. It doesn't bother me.”

“Doesn't it have any effect on you?”

“There are girls fucking men all night long just around the corner. I like this better. Just drinking with guys and giving them a hard-on.”

“There's a little hotel not far from here. We could have some more champagne there.”

“I never go to a hotel. It's a rule.”

“Even if I had money? A lot of money?”

“Guys with money don't hang around here.”