The Lost Sailors (15 page)

“When does your boat leave?”

“I don't know. Maybe never.”

“Never?”

Diamantis shrugged, then took out his passport and handed it over. Doug opened it at the page with the photo on it. “Diamantis,” he said.

“That's what it says.”

Diamantis slipped Nedim's passport in his shirt pocket, put the bag on his back, and left. Without saying goodbye.

 

Nedim was almost in tears. “You're a champion. How did you do it?”

“I'll tell you. I'm thirsty.” Diamantis signaled to the waiter.

Nedim searched in his bag and took out a very large hand-stitched wallet of worn leather. He had a sly smile on his lips.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he said, triumphantly.

He put a hundred dollars down on the table, and laughed.

“You're not going to believe this, Diamantis, but I'd forgotten I had this money. I only remembered last night. I kept tossing and turning, and then it came back to me. That was when I really got worried! Nedim, I asked myself, did you already blow that money or not? I couldn't remember, Diamantis. I thought about it all night. Crazy, isn't it?”

“You're the one who's crazy.”

He laughed even louder, as happy as a little boy. “We screwed them in the end, the assholes!”

“Not exactly.” Diamantis explained the deal.

“Shit!”

He was silent for a moment, then decided that the money he owed wasn't his business anymore. He'd gotten everything back. With a hundred dollars thrown in.

“Do you want to see the photo of my parents?”

He handed Diamantis an old, yellowed photo.

“The dollars were stuck to the back of it. They're nice, my folks, aren't they?” he said, taking back the photo.

He looked at it tenderly, kissed it twice, put it back in his wallet and put the wallet in the bag.

Diamantis pushed the dollars toward Nedim. “Keep the money. Don't touch it, Nedim. O.K.? Find another truck driver and go home as soon as you can.”

“Yeah, but how am I going to buy cigarettes? And what if I want a few drinks?”

“We'll work out something. I'll talk to Abdul again.”

“O.K.,” he said, sounding like a child who'd been punished.

“Nedim, I swear to you, if you blow that money, I'll smash your face.”

He lowered his eyes. “By the way, did you see the girls?”

“No,” he lied. “Only Doug.”

“Fucking nigger!”

Diamantis stood up, paid for the drinks, and handed Nedim a pack of cigarettes he'd barely started.

“Are you going?”

“I still have things to do. We'll meet later.” He leaned over. “Don't forget what I said, Nedim. I'll smash your face, I mean it.”

Diamantis got to the harbor just as the sun was setting behind the bell tower of the Accoules church. He stood there, without moving. In the last red rays of the day. Marseilles was like that, he said to himself. She promised nothing, forecast nothing. All she did was give, in profusion. You just had to take. If you knew how.

A
lthough it was still early, Le Mas was full. A waiter approached Diamantis.

“Have you reserved a table?”

“No,” he replied. “Actually, I'm looking for someone.”

“Go ahead.”

Diamantis walked across the room. The smells rising from the various dishes were mouthwatering. There was a knot in his stomach. After leaving Nedim, to kill time, he had sat down on the terrace of the Bar de la Marine in the harbor. A meeting place for skippers. He liked the atmosphere. He'd had a few beers, four or five maybe, and eaten roasted peanuts. Now he was hungry.

Even after all these years, he was sure he'd recognize Amina. At least, he thought he would. She'd be thirty-nine or forty now. Or maybe forty-one. Suddenly, he didn't feel so sure. But what did it matter now? When you've really loved a woman, you should be able to recognize her anywhere, twenty years later. Amina's beauty, he was convinced, was beyond time.

People looked up as he passed, then down again at their plates. No one knew him and he knew no one. But the clientele here was interesting. It reeked of money. Businessmen, lawyers. Doctors. Maybe a few journalists, too. The women with them didn't buy their clothes from the ready-to-wear racks of department stores. All the same, there was something vulgar about them. Too showily dressed, too heavily made-up. But their men seemed to like them like that. He smiled, imagining them in red lace underwear.

“May I help you?” a man behind the cash desk asked. A well-preserved man of about sixty, in black pants and a white silk shirt wide open to reveal a thick gold chain. On his right wrist, a big chain bracelet with his name: Giovanni. The owner, probably, or the manager.

“Yes, maybe. I'm looking for a friend. Someone I . . . I haven't seen for some time. I was told she sometimes comes here. Amina. Amina Masetto. Masetto was her maiden name.”

The man looked closely at him, then into the distance. Diamantis turned, hoping to see Amina, hoping he would recognize her. But she wasn't there.

“One moment,” Giovanni said.

He walked to a table where three people were having dinner. A couple and a man on his own. The seat next to the man was empty, although a place had been set. The man had his back to Diamantis. Despite the heat, he was wearing a lightweight navy-blue cotton or linen jacket. His neatly cut hair was graying at the temples and the back of his neck. He looked to be on the short side, and stocky. Diamantis found it hard to judge his exact age.

“Excuse me,” a waitress said to Diamantis. She was carrying three plates of grilled fegatelli in her right hand and balanced on her left forearm.

Giovanni leaned over and whispered something to the man in the jacket. The couple looked up at Diamantis, but the man didn't turn in his direction.

Giovanni came back to Diamantis.

“Who is that man?”

“Not a friend of yours, that's for sure,” Giovanni replied, coldly. “We don't know if Amina will be in this evening. But you can leave her a message and I'll give it to her as soon as I see her.”

Giovanni's tone wasn't at all friendly.

Diamantis remembered what Masetto had told him. Amina was a whore, or something like it. The guy in the jacket might be her pimp, or her husband. Or even both. But Masetto could have told him that out of spite. People here had the usual Mediterranean contempt for young women who married older men rolling in money. Obviously, once they were married, they fell for the first traveling salesman who showed up on their doorstep. Money may arouse you but it doesn't give you an orgasm.

Diamantis couldn't get his head around the idea of Amina as a hooker. Even a high-class one. Or even a kept woman. The guy must be her husband. He stuck to that. It was what he wanted to believe. It was less painful than imagining other things. Like Amina giving a blow job to some disgusting old man for money, for example.

He retched. The mixture of food smells and these images suddenly going through his head made him feel nauseous. He shook his head to dismiss them from his mind.

Giovanni handed him a notepad and a pen, and he scribbled a few words.

I'm in Marseilles. I'd like to see you again. To beg forgiveness. Let's meet . . .
He hesitated.
. . . the day after tomorrow. About five in the afternoon. In the Bar Henri on Rue Saint-Saëns. Diamantis.
He added:
My ship is the
Aldebaran
. In case you can't make it. You can ask for me at the Gate 3A checkpoint.

He folded the note, wrote
Amina
on it, and gave it to Giovanni. They looked at each other.

“Thanks,” Diamantis said.

He wondered if the message would even get to Amina. The one thing he was sure of was that Giovanni would show it to the man in the jacket, who wouldn't hesitate to read it. He suddenly regretted writing the words
To beg forgiveness
. But it was too late now. It might also be too late to ask for Amina's forgiveness, of course. Never mind, he still wanted to find her. He would try anything. He had to explain.

Explain what? He had gone over the scene so many times. Hundreds of times, thousands even, over the years. He had written, then phoned from Barcelona, to tell her what day the
Stainless Glory
would be in Marseilles. Contrary to what he had thought, they would be putting in for only one night before the freighter left again for Genoa, empty. Every hour counted. She didn't want to waste a single one, she had said.

She had said she would come to the harbor, but he preferred to meet her at the Bar du Cap, on Quai de la Joliette. Between eight and nine. Because he still wasn't sure when exactly he'd be free. He'd gotten a ride to Pier 53, then he went the rest of the way on foot, within the dimly lit harbor. It was ten after eight, and he was the happiest man in the world.

Three men were waiting for him on a corner. Three big, strong-looking men. Two of them grabbed him by the arms and pulled him into a warehouse. Once inside, the third man hit him. Twice, in the stomach. He doubled up with the pain. Then a left-hander to the head, followed by another one. And two more blows in the stomach. He was gasping for breath. Fear loosened his bladder. He felt the hot piss wet his briefs and the material of his pants, then trickle all the way down his legs. He started crying. Tears of fear and anger. Humiliation.

The guy stopped punching and laughed. “The little asshole's pissing himself.”

He put a gun under Diamantis's nose. A big black revolver.

“You see this, loser? You see?” He grabbed Diamantis's hair in his left hand and pulled his head up. “If you even think of going anywhere near Amina again, I'll blow your fucking head off.”

He tugged on his hair, forcing him to lift his head even more.

“She and I are what you'd call engaged. You got that, asshole?”

On the phone, she'd said, “I love you.” And then, “I miss you.” And then, “I can't wait.” She'd said these last words in a breathy, almost husky voice, as warm and soft as her hands, her lips. By the time he put the phone down he had a hard-on. “I love you. I love you. I love you . . .” That was all he could hear in his head.

“Have you got that? You're not part of my plans.”

Amina. Who were these men? Who was this guy? Was she at the Bar du Cap, waiting for him? Had this guy hit her too? As soon as they let him go, he'd run to the bar. That was what he told himself, in spite of the overwhelming pain.

The guy cocked the gun and stuck the barrel in his mouth. The steel was cold. He shivered. He told himself he was going to shit himself now. He could feel his stomach churning. He mustn't. But he couldn't help himself. His ass filled with liquid shit.

“Suck on this,” the guy said. “Suck hard. That's death. Can you feel it? Remember that before you do anything. We knew where to find you, asshole. We'll know next time, too.”

He took out the gun and put the safety back on. The other men let go of Diamantis's arms. He found himself lying on the ground, full of shit.

“I think he's shit himself,” one of the men said to the guy with the gun.

“It wouldn't surprise me,” he replied. “Smells worse than a toilet here.”

“You can tell her,” he heard one of them say as they were walking away.

They laughed. Diamantis heard a car engine start up. He didn't move. He stayed there part of the night. His ass in shit, bathing in his own piss. Sobbing.

 

Yes, he'd have to explain it all to her. That fear of dying. In spite of love. His love for her. When you're twenty, love isn't stronger than death. The urge to live is a selfish one. Life itself was all you had in life. And the world was vast, and there were many pleasures in it. How many times in your life could you really fall in love? How many women were there on earth who looked like Amina? Who were just as beautiful?

He ought to tell her, too, that he had never doubted her. He'd been worried, of course, worried for her. Even afterwards, when the
Stainless Glory
had put to sea. The other sailors, who were all older than him, had made fun of him. Not because of what had happened to him, he hadn't told anybody about that. But because he'd stopped driving them crazy with his endless “Amina this, Amina that,” the way he'd done before, when they left Marseilles the first time.

He'd only been away two weeks, and already the girl had cheated on him. That was what they said among themselves. They laughed about that. Not at him, at her. They told stories about the sluts you met in every port. But at the same time they were worried about their own wives. After all, when you were at sea, you couldn't be sure about anything.

At first, Diamantis argued, protested, defended Amina, made up all kinds of stories, but they kept teasing. In the end, he dropped the subject, and seemed to come around to their way of thinking. Life on board went back to normal. He threw himself into it, but never stopped thinking about Amina. Day and night. While trying not to conjure up images of the beating he'd received, which tended increasingly to blot out the image of Amina's face. One night, he realized that thinking about her didn't give him a hard-on anymore. All that was left inside him was the humiliation. The piss and the shit.

Twelve days later, when the
Stainless Glory
returned to Marseilles, he ventured as far as Amina's building. In broad daylight. Although not very confidently. Her name had gone from the front door. He didn't try to ask after her. He hung around a few places. The bar where they'd met. The clubs where they'd gone together. But never alone. Always with one or two of his friends from the crew. He never saw her again.

Then his father had died. And the thing with Melina had happened. Melina's love. The dream of living in Agios Nikolaos. Melina helped him to forget. To forget Amina, to forget the humiliation. He had told her the whole story one night after she had woken him from a nightmare, alarmed by his screams.