Planus (16 page)

'This is exactly why, alas!' said John solemnly. 'And it is I who am guilty. I had got into the habit of drinking a bottle every year, on, my birthday, and today I was horrified to find that it had all gone. I had forgotten that I have been in Monsieur's service for fifty-one years. How time passes!'

We all burst out laughing.

'Well now, I hope you will accept my apologies, Blaise,' said Max, smiling, 'Let's have coffee in the drawing-room, and I can give you some very fine Napoleon ... if there's any left.'

'But, of course, Monsieur,' said John, ceremoniously throwing open the doors of the drawing-room. 'I have a magnum of the Tuileries, and it is not the last.'

For three or four days now, Papadakis had been taking the midnight watch. He was nervous. He approached the land more closely to sight landmarks and take bearings. During the daytime we passed more and more shipping; we were approaching our destination. But at night we always sailed without lights. The skipper was irritable, he wanted everybody on deck keeping a look-out. It was fortunate, for, since the Bulgar had told me his bizarre tale, I was somewhat distracted. I kept thinking of the old leper in Naples, whom I had killed.

Today I will not try to excuse myself from blame. And even were it proved to me that a jug of milk is not necessarily fatal to a leper (and I have seen lepers in South America drinking cow's milk, ass's milk, mare's milk, goat's milk, ewe's milk and even vicuna's milk without any adverse effect), this demonstration would in no way alter the fact that, at the time, I had heard it was fatal and I believed it, and I served milk to the King of la Salita with evil intent and malice aforethought, in order to rid myself forever of this revolting leper who made me shiver. Therefore I committed a crime. And I was convinced of it, and it was this secret feeling of guilt that disturbed my whole childhood, tying my character into a Gordian knot that I could not have undone without someone's help, and which I could only have cut by committing suicide. This idea made me familiar at a very early age with the notion of death as a deliverance, and this idea of a voluntary death, which is always available, has forged my character, which is savage, proud, E

And this is how I killed my first man :

The bell on the little postern-gate giving on to la Salita di San Martino tinkled earlier than usual one morning.

'It's Pasquale!' I said to the cook, who was hurrying with her milk jug.

It was Beppino, with Caroline the cow and only a dozen goats.

'Pasquale is ill, he's got the colic, he's not coming this morning,' said Beppino, 'there's not enough milk for everybody. But there'll be cheeses tomorrow, shall I put one aside for you? Carminella is making them.'

'Beppino,
do
let me come with you,' I said to him when he had served our cook. 'I've been wanting to make the rounds of the quarter for ages. Let's take advantage of this opportunity!'

I wedged the gate open with a stone so that I could get in again without ringing, and no one would even know I had gone. And thus it was that I suddenly found myself in the heart of enemy territory, leading the cow, with Beppino and his herd of whimsical and cavorting goats, whereas I had always pictured myself on a war footing, armed to the teeth, with my father's revolver, my catapult, a pocket full of marbles and a good flick-knife up my sleeve on the day I ventured forth upon this daring adventure !

As I said above, it was early morning, there were not yet too many people about in the notorious alley and I passed unnoticed, although I was easily recognizable in my English schoolboy cap, striped blue, black and orange. But all went well, we went from door to door and Beppino announced everywhere to the people who came carrying a cup, a glass, a bottle, a carafe, a jug, a bowl, a porringer, a little pot, a baby's bottle or a sauce-boat: 'Pasquale is ill, he's got the colic, he's not coming this morning. There's not enough milk for everybody, but there'll be cheeses tomorrow, shall' I put one aside for you? Carminella is making them.'

And he milked Caroline in front of each door or pulled the udders of the goats, half-filling the diverse assortment of containers held out to him, and carefully collecting the money: twenty sous for cow's milk, three for goats'. The good people grumbled because none received his full portion of milk.

'There's not enough for everyone today,' Beppino repeated. 'But Carminella is making cheeses for tomorrow. Shall I put one aside for you?'

Slowly we descended the long steps of la Salita, I leading the cow an,d Beppino his twelve goats, and everything went off all right, without incident, but, when we emerged on the broad landing half-way down, the leper was there! And I started to shake.

The old man was in his habitual place at the foot of the statue of the Madonna, with his begging-bowl in full view on a balustrade; surrounded by his vassals, the King sat huddled in, his wraps, the horrible cavity twitching in the middle of his face and his eyes wide open. Flies buzzed all round his head.

'Beppino,' I whispered, 'he's there! Do you see him? I'm scared. . . . I'll never have the courage to walk past him. Listen, you must take him a jug of milk, then I'll dash past with the herd while he's drinking it. .. do you understand?'

'Right,' said Beppino. 'Here, take my whip. But I haven't got a

'Take my cap,' I said to him, 'and carry it to him in that.'

Beppino milked Caroline and, with measured and careful tread, carried a foaming capful of milk to the King of la Salita, while I clutched hold of Caroline's halter, cracked the whip and tapped the cow's flank with the stout handle to make her move. As we scampered across the landing, the goats causing panic, capering around us with their diabolical bells, I just had time to catch a glimpse of the leper falling backwards, his face splashed with milk, and the dignitaries of his court moving towards him in horror. When Beppino caught me up near the bottom of the alley, out of breath and with a racing heart, his first words were: 'You know you've killed him!'

Then he added with that good Neapolitan sense which is never lacking in affairs of this sort: 'I'm going up to fetch your cap, it's evidence enough to hang you! Then you will go home via the Corso and Ernest will open the gate. Meantime, look after the herd, eh?'

'Oh, no, I'll come back up with you. Now I'm not afraid any more.'

And indeed I was not afraid, now that I knew the old sorcerer was vulnerable.

So we climbed up together, without hurrying, as if nothing had happened, except that Beppino refused to serve his customers.

'There's no milk left,' he announced to the late-comers. 'But tomorrow we'll have cheeses, shall I put one aside for you?'

And we turned on to the main landing. The leper had disappeared, and so had his council of beggars. The place was as empty as if the Court of Miracles had never been held there. In front of the Oratory of the Madonna there was a pool of spilled milk, but we could not find my cap.

I went home satisfied and made Beppino a present of a magnificent Eskimo whip, with a sturdy handle made of whalebone and a long, plaited lash of varicoloured leather; he had had his eye on it for a long time.

The anguish was not to come until later, much later, when it began to grow, little by little, expanding and working in me insidiously, secretly, dragging me into a world of crazy dreams, conspiracies, unreasonable reasoning, gratuitous acts, vain trials of strength, futile daredevil voyages, unsettling my spirits and shattering my nerves to arm me with an imperturbable sang-froid which enabled me to savour the absurd or humorous essence of whatever drama I was involved in, and to sharpen my sensibilities to such a fine point that, on a certain night, I saw the old Neapolitan marquis at the bow of the ship, giving his hand to Elena, who was holding out her other hand to Lenotchka, the gentle schoolgirl from Viborg who had been hanged in the preceding year, and the young student made a sign to me . . . and I saw myself going to join them, a red flower at my temple and a smoking revolver in my hand . . . joining hands with them . . . among the waves. ...

'Skipper, the Alps!'

It was a quarter of an hour before dawn. High up in the sky I could see a snowy crest detaching itself from the horizon, white as a pool of milk, rapidly tinged with pink and then disappearing with the birth of the day.

'You're absolutely crazy, man!' said Papadakis, who had seen nothing.

'But I assure you, skipper, I couldn't have been mistaken. It's what the Swiss call
alpengluhn.
It was Mont Blanc or Mont Rose.5

'That's what you think! It was the dawn coming up, or a bank of clouds.'

'I tell you it was the Alps, skipper!'

'Well, man, if you saw aright, we'll be in dock tomorrow evening,' said Papadakis.

I had seen, aright, and Papadakis was right too : next evening, we sailed into the port of Genoa, with its two rounded, kidney-shaped basins.

We were berthed at the far end of the basin among the old tubs, floating sieves, derelict hulks and other scrapyard junk which had once been seaworthy, between the
Confundulum
, a Panamanian tramp which, with its rust and red lead metal plating, was redder than a scalded lobster, and the
Pathless,
out of Londonderry, a large three-master with an auxiliary boiler on deck, a tall, narrow black funnel reaching as high as the dirty yards, and a curiously corbelled poop that hung right over us. We were at the end of a quay that was either being demolished or reconstructed, cluttered with concrete and other building materials.

Hardly had we docked than Papadakis vanished at the double, to reach the offices before they closed, so he said, stuffing the ship's papers into his belt. But in spite of his haste to put everything in order, he turned back twice, the first time as he was clambering up the iron rungs in the wall of the quay, the second as he was actually running along the quay; the first time, it was as if he had left something behind on board, the second, as if he were planning some dirty trick and wanted to make sure the whole crew were definitely remaining on the ship. As I already had my doubts about him, these two hesitations made me very suspicious.

'Hey, coachman,' I said to the Bulgar, 'are you staying aboard? If I were you, I'd bugger off quick.'

'What for,
iebi?'
said the Bulgar.

'Suppose the skipper comes back with the police?'

'Huh?'

'Yes indeed, you fool, you hadn't thought of that! Gome on, get dressed, put your boots on. I'm ready to go. You never know . . .' I said to him.

And to the ship's boy : 'Is Mademoiselle coming with us ? We're off.'

'How do you mean?' said the boy.

'The Bulgar and I are going to scarper. Look at this godforsaken quay, there's no equipment here at all. We'll have to hoist the cargo up on the hand-winch and hump the barrels on our backs for days and days, what a sweat! We're not slaves. The Bulgar and I are going to do a bunk. Come on, come with us. Long Live Freedom! Papadakis can manage without us. Papadakis . .

And while the boy was arguing, defending his uncle's interests, accusing us of dropping him in the shit, a voice dropped down on us from the height of the balcony-like poop of the
Pathless,
towering above us: 'Hey, ahoy there! When you've finished squabbling, how about a drop of the old vino?'

And a petrol-drum, of at least five gallons' capacity, was lowered down to us on the end of a cord.

'Fill it right up!' shouted the voice, 'An4 I'll give you the hot news from town. I've got it straight from the horse's mouth . .

With his naked, shining torso hanging half through the rails of the three-master, a carrot-topped Irishman, skinny, bushy-haired and lively as a squirrel, grinned at us and made encouraging grimaces as he held the other end of the cord, ready to haul up.

'Come on, lads!' he said. 'It's thirsty work on board and that wine of yours must be good. You've come from Greece, haven't you ? So you don't know the latest news: there's a women's orchestra in Genoa! What do you think of that? And, if you're generous, I'll take you there. Just give me time to get spruced up, like Daddy Longlegs there, putting on his shirt. ..'

I filled his drum with wine. The Bulgar, who had slipped his boots on, was in fact knotting his embroidered shirt over his trousers, Russian-style.

'Come with us,' I said to the ship's boy, 'we're escaping. Deserting. . .'

'You go first,' I said to the Bulgar, 'and get a move on.'

With my foot on the first rung of the ladder, I said again : 'Aren't you coming with us, young 'un?'

'You might have sewn up the seat of your pants, you louse!' I shouted to the Bulgar as we climbed the iron rungs that led sheer up to the quay, 'I can see everything you've got!'

From the top, I leaned down once more towards the boat. The ship's boy was clinging to the mast. His face was wet with tears. Word of honour, the kid was crying.

'Kallinecta
, Mademoiselle!' I shouted to him, brandishing my Isfahan cane by way of a farewell salute.

And we set off at the double, the Bulgar and I.

'Wait for me, I'm coming with you ! Don't run so fast, for Christ's sake, the women won't fly away!' yelled Ginger from the
Pathless,
who was running like the devil to catch up with us an,d pulling a sleeveless sweater over his head at the same time.

'Wait,' he said, when he had caught up with us, 'let me lead the way. It's at the Gambrinus, and you don't even know where that is! There's no hurry, you two. You'll see, I shan't let you down. . . . Now then, women for the sailors . . .'

And, slipping between us, he took us each by one arm and started to sing: 'Dandle, dandle, dandle . . .'

'That's a lovely cane you've got there,' he said to me, 'beat time with it. We'll have some fun !'

And he sang his native song again and danced a little jig:

: balanced on his head, while the Bulgar, as mute as an ox and with the other women huddling round him, sat at the far end of the table we had commandeered beside the orchestra, gulping down glass after glass of spirits.