The Lost Sailors (10 page)

The meal with his father didn't turn out the way he'd hoped. But what had he hoped for? He didn't know. A miracle, maybe. The man who had taught him so much, who had given him a taste for the sea, for travel, the man whose clothes he used to sniff, trying to smell Africa or Asia on them—those continents that fired his imagination—that man didn't exist. He wasn't his father anymore, he was a myth. A kind of Odysseus, who rewrote Homer for him in the language of freighters. They had too much in common, and nothing more to say to each other. They didn't talk much. They crossed the Vieux-Port on the ferry and separated in front of the town hall. The
D'Artagnan
was putting to sea that evening.

“I do this crossing every time I come to Marseilles. It's a ritual. I've never seen that anywhere else. Such a huge city, revealing itself totally in the few minutes it takes to cross its harbor . . . Look, it's beautiful.”

Diamantis had smiled. He, too, liked taking the ferry.

That was where he had started his journey this morning, after his coffee at Toinou's. On the ferry. Smoking a cigarette and looking toward the harbor entrance, he had let the memory of that day wash over him. In spite of time, in spite of life, Amina's smile hadn't aged at all.

 

The door was opened by a man of about sixty. Masetto. An archetypal southern Italian. Short, thin, nervous, with curly hair and dark skin. Diamantis had never met him, but once, coming out of a pizzeria on Rue d'Aubaigne, he and Amina had run into him by chance, and he'd crossed the street to avoid them. He wasn't a brave man. Nor was he the best of fathers, to judge by the little Amina had dared to tell him.

Diamantis did not introduce himself. All he said was, “I'm looking for Amina. I'd like to know where I can find her.”

“Who are you?” he asked. He didn't recognize Diamantis at all.

“A friend.”

“I don't know her friends. I don't have anything to do with them.”

Masetto tried to close the door, but Diamantis stopped it with his foot. If he didn't assert himself, he had no hope of finding Amina. Her father was the only lead he had. It was lucky that he hadn't moved home in the last twenty years. “People here don't move much,” Toinou had said, when Diamantis had started looking through the phone book. “We really have to be forced. So it's quite likely you'll find your man where you left him.”

From Quai de Rive Neuve, Diamantis had set off on foot for Place Saint-Eugène, in the old neighborhood of Endoume. A hill overlooking the cove of Malmousque. It was a tough climb, but it did him a world of good to stretch his legs. The cities he liked were those he could walk all over. That was the only way real cities, the ones that had a story to tell, revealed themselves. Cairo, Buenos Aires, Shanghai were that kind of city. And Naples and Algiers, of course. Maybe St. Petersburg and Prague. Rome, too, but for other reasons. It didn't really inspire you, but you felt inspired when you were there.

Marseilles, almost as old as Rome, was his favorite. Maybe because, more than any other city, it was simple but complex, a bit of a mess aesthetically, a place that made architects and town planners weep or laugh. To Diamantis, it was the most mysterious city in the world. The most human.

The three-storey building on Traverse Fouque probably hadn't changed since it had been built. There was no bell by the street door, which wasn't locked. Amina's father lived on the third floor on the left, according to the letter box.

“I want her address,” Diamantis said.

Masetto was scared. He was probably alone in the apartment, and he'd realized by now that he wouldn't get rid of his visitor that easily. He was one of those people who were only brave when they were with others, or armed, and with a few beers in his belly. As a minor official in the French civil service in Morocco, he had bought, rather than married, Amina's mother. Because she was beautiful and he wanted to fuck her, and it was less expensive than going with a different hooker every night.

When he was obliged to return to France, he felt ashamed to be seen with an Arab woman on his arm. His neighbors, the local merchants, thought he was an Arab, too. In the sixties, it wasn't yet an insult. He started beating his wife every evening when he got home from work.

“Maybe he really loved her,” Diamantis had said to Amina, the day she had told him all this.

“Oh, sure,” she had replied. “That must be it . . . And do you think he loved me, too, when he stuck his big paws on my ass? To him, all women are whores. He doesn't think any farther than his dick. I tell you, if he'd had money, he'd have bought several women! I heard him say that one evening, to some buddies he'd invited over for couscous. ‘The more women you have in the house, the stronger you are.' Yes, that's my father.”

“A real fundamentalist!” Diamantis had joked.

“You're telling me! That evening, he was even ready to sell me to one of his pals. For the night, I mean. The guy was a fucking ex-paratrooper who was selling boats now, and he'd put five hundred francs on the table. It didn't happen, because my mother threatened to throw herself out the window. She was screaming so much, they were scared the neighbors would call the cops.”

The more Diamantis looked at this guy, he more he felt like hitting him. But he wouldn't do it. Years had passed, and he didn't have the right to judge Amina's father. Hadn't he himself acted like a bastard, leaving the way he had?

“I don't know where she's living.”

“You don't know?”

“I swear it.” Masetto seemed to be telling the truth.

“Is she married? Doe she have a job?”

He smiled contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe you sold her to your buddy the ex-paratrooper?”

In his surprise, Masetto let go of the door. Diamantis took advantage of the opportunity to push him inside the room and close the door behind him. Masetto looked around, as if searching for help that was unlikely to come.

“Who are you?”

The room wasn't very big. It was furnished in rustic style, and had a musty smell, a smell of dirty washing. Even though the window was open.

“I told you,” Diamantis said. “A friend.”

“I don't know you,” he sniveled. “You come in here, you insult me, you push me around—”

“Shut up, Masetto.” He took a step toward him. “Tell me where I can find her, and I'll leave you alone. I don't really want to hurt you to find out.”

Masetto shrugged. “I don't know anything. I'm telling the truth. I've heard from friends that she's sometimes at Le Mas.”

“Le Mas? What's that?”

“A restaurant. On Rue Lulli. Behind the Opéra. It stays open late. You're not from around here, are you?”

“What of it?”

“She's a whore, or something like it. That's why I don't want to see her anymore. She's not my daughter.”

Daimantis grabbed Masetto by his shirt collar. “Maybe you pointed the way. You beat her, didn't you, Masetto? As revenge, because you couldn't fuck her. Your own daughter!”

“Let go of me, or—”

“Or what, asshole?”

Diamantis was getting carried away. He wanted to yell at him that whores, hoboes, beggars, and thieves weren't necessarily any worse as people than minor officials, junior managers, small traders. Everything was in the eye of the beholder.

But he didn't raise his voice. He let go of Masetto. He was ashamed. Ashamed for Amina, and ashamed of himself. Masetto sensed how weary Diamantis was, and that he had nothing more to fear from him. He was like a vulture, cowardly but vicious.

“O.K., but I wasn't the one who made her end up on the streets. That was some other asshole. The guy who fucked her the first time by promising her the earth and then packed his bags, as soon as he'd gotten what he wanted.” He looked at Diamantis, quite pleased with this tirade. “Maybe that was you.”

Diamantis slapped him, hard. Masetto lost his balance. As he fell, his nose hit the corner of the table and started to gush blood. “Shit,” he said.

 

Outside, the sunlight was so strong, it blinded Diamantis and made him sway on his feet. He stood for a few minutes outside Masetto's building, not knowing what to do.

He had gone back to the Cintra the next day at the same time. Amina was there, with the same group of friends. The table next to theirs was free. He made his way to it and sat down. He started a conversation in the simplest way possible, the way anyone would anywhere in the world: he asked them to pass the salt and pepper. They questioned him about his accent. He couldn't remember now what he'd said. He did recall that when Amina's friends stood up to leave she'd said to them, “I'm coming” and ordered another coffee.

They had found themselves alone together. They couldn't think of anything else to say. They had stayed there, looking at each other. Then Amina had stood up and said, “Shall we meet here at seven-thirty?”

“Seven-thirty,” he had replied.

When she had returned, she had found him sitting at the same table, as if he hadn't moved.

“Haven't you moved?”

He laughed. “Yes. I went to the movie theater.”

“Oh? What did you see?”

“An old Italian movie called
Stromboli.
”

He had told her all about Rossellini's movie. The finest movie ever made about cynicism.

“Cynicism is what threatens all of us,” he had said, a little pompously.

Amina had smiled. “Shall we go somewhere else?” she had asked.

After that, they met every evening. For the past six months, Amina had been working as a sales assistant at a big store on Rue Saint-Ferréol called Dames de France. She had left home, because she couldn't live at home anymore, she had told him that first night. That was all she'd said. And Diamantis hadn't insisted. The job brought in enough to live on and pay the rent, and she didn't have to owe anything to anyone. She had dreamed of something better, but she couldn't complain. She had her whole future in front of her.

At night, they would go from one bar to another, alone or with Amina's friends, and then he would see her home. She lived on Rue Barbaroux, at the top of the Canebière. Their lips barely touched when they parted. Their desire for each other was so great, it scared them. They would smile, gaze longingly at each other, touch just a little.

“I'm leaving tomorrow night,” he told her.

He'd been in Marseilles for six days. The
Stainless Glory
was setting off again.

He felt a shudder go through her.

“And . . . are you planning to come back?”

“In two weeks,” he replied, cheerfully.

She stared at him in such a strange, intense way, he didn't know what to say.

“What?” he stammered.

“Do you want to come up?” she said, and took his hand. “Come.”

Diamantis couldn't remember that night. But he remembered the morning. The sunlight streaming into the room. The way Amina's brown skin glowed. She was as beautiful as an ocean wave. He had watched her sleeping, and had told himself he would never forget her naked body lying next to him. He'd felt curiously lonely. He couldn't bear the thought that they'd soon be separated. Then she had said good morning, and they had made love again. The love they had discovered during the night. Just for themselves.

“How do you say ‘my love' in Greek?”

“
Agapi mou
.”

“
Agapi mou
,” she had repeated, slowly, as if savoring the words. “
Agapi mou
.”

Amina.

Happiness.

 

It was the heat that forced Diamantis to move. The sweat was pouring down his neck. His shirt was sticking to him. The light struck him as harsh.

He lit a cigarette and walked down Rue d'Endoume, toward the sea. Resolute, but walking hesitantly. He felt disoriented.

He entered the first bistro he found on the street, and asked for a
pastis
. He hadn't thought that things would happen like this. He didn't know how they should have happened. But not like this. He had imagined Amina as a happily married woman, maybe a mother. He had no intention of disrupting her life. All he wanted was for her to forgive him for the way he'd abandoned her, the hurt he'd caused her. Now, everything was different. He absolutely had to make amends for the harm he had done her.

T
he light was crushing the city. A harsh, almost cruel light. It drove people back toward the darker, cooler streets, the avenues, the shaded squares, and the café terraces. It was the hour when people drew the blinds to keep some of the coolness in. Abdul was walking.

He had been walking for hours. As if walking aimlessly could help clear his head of all the confused, contradictory thoughts inside it. Walking did him a lot of good. But it had been far too long since he'd last done it, and there were stabbing pains in his calves, in his stomach, too, and his shoulders. He could have been happy, like anyone roaming the streets of Marseilles, if there hadn't been so much sadness, resentment, anxiety, anger in him. He found himself in front of the entrance to the Pharo gardens. He smiled. You could walk all over this city, and never get lost.

He climbed one of the alleys. At the top of the hill, he walked around to the other side of the Empress Josephine's former palace. He had no idea what the building was used for nowadays. Not that he really gave a shit. He had come here for the view over the harbor and the city. It was sublime.

He walked back down a few yards, sat down on the grass, in the shade of a clump of bay trees, and let the hot, fragrant air waft over him.

Straight ahead, he could see the Fort Saint-Jean, once the residence of the commander of the Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem. The light seemed to be savouring its pink stone, licking its sharp edges with as much passion and pleasure as if it were a raspberry ice.