The Lost Sailors (3 page)

He'd visited Venetsanou once.

Soon after he'd learned that the
Aldebaran
wouldn't be putting to sea again in a hurry. He hadn't seen him for ten years. He'd married a Greek girl born in Marseilles, they'd had three kids, and along with his brother-in-law he'd taken over his uncle's small construction business and made it a big success. Since then, they'd been living in a little villa on Vallon Montebello, on the heights above the city, behind Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde.

“It's nice here.”

“Yes, it's a good neighborhood. And there's a school around the corner that's one of the best in the city. You can't imagine how Marseilles has changed. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's full of foreigners.”

Diamantis thought he'd misheard. “Foreigners?”

“Downtown is crawling with them. It's true the mayor's starting to clean things up, but in the meantime . . . For us, it's quite simple, we just don't go to the Canebière anymore. We don't go any further than Place Castellane. We have everything we need here. There's a market, shops, movie theatres . . .”

“What do you mean by foreigners?” Diamantis asked, a little confused.

Venetsanou smiled conspiratorially. “Arabs!”

They had only gotten as far as the aperitif. The meal wasn't shaping up to be particularly pleasant.

“Hold on, Dimitri, what are you? I don't mean Nena and the kids, they were born here. But you, dammit!”

“Look, I'm French, O.K.? I did my military service. But it's not just that, it's their culture. Their attitude. They're different. You just have to look at them. They'll always be Arabs. Foreigners.”

On the
Aldebaran
, there were two Burmese, an Ivorian, a Comorian, a Turk, a Moroccan, and a Hungarian. Abdul Aziz was Lebanese, and he was Greek. Who was the foreigner, when you were at sea? For nearly thirty years, he had sailed with all the races in the world, on all the seas in the world, and the question of race had never come up. That was how he answered Dimitri.

“Not everyone gets along, sure. Some people try to lord it over others. Some people are good at their jobs, others aren't. But I've never noticed that much difference between the races.”

“You're getting things all mixed up, Diamantis. These people come to France and they want everything.”

“Just like you. When you were sixteen, you realized you didn't want to spend the rest of your life fishing for sponges. So you left Symi and came to Marseilles, and went to work for your uncle Caginolas. Now you're your own boss . . .”

“Yes, and I started a family, and put a roof over its head. And the money I make I spend here. Like a real Frenchman!”

They had raised their voices. Diamantis had pushed away his plate. Cuttlefish and tomatoes in wine sauce, just like they made on the islands. Nena had made an effort. A real Greek meal. But she was probably more used to making steak and fries or sausages and mashed potatoes. Neither the sauce nor the cuttlefish had any taste.

The argument became more unpleasant. There were old scores unsettled between them. Melina was also from Symi, and Dimitri had always been in love with her. He had gone back one summer to ask her to marry him. “I love Diamantis,” she had replied. “I'm waiting for him.” Dimitri had poked fun at her. She'd grow old like Penelope, waiting for him to return.

“What can you expect from a sailor?” he'd asked her.

“Nothing. You know, Dimitri, I had quite a few affairs when I was at university. I still have affairs. But he's the man I love. If I'm going to marry and have a child, it'll be with him.”

The day she announced she wanted a divorce, Melina said to Diamantis, “I don't have any regrets, you know. But it's better this way. Because of all the happiness we've had together.” Diamantis knew what he was losing. Melina had given him her youth, and he had traded it in for the sea. That night, neither of them could find the words to express their pain. They made love, slowly. Just to give a meaning to their tears. Diamantis had spent the next few nights in the bars of Athens. Getting drunk and waiting for a ship to leave on.

“Have you heard from Melina?” Dimitri asked, a malicious edge to his voice.

“She's getting married again,” Diamantis lied. “You see, you should have waited . . .”

Nena got up and left the table in tears.

“You bastard!” Dimitri cried. “You had no right to say that. It's a subject Nena and I don't talk about anymore. It's ancient history.”

Diamantis finished his drink in silence then stood up. He'd have happily punched Dimitri in the face. But that wouldn't have erased the past or changed the present.

“Don't forget, Dimitri, there's already enough hate in the world.”

And he had left.

 

Hate was everywhere in the newspapers. In Bosnia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Northern Ireland. There was always someone claiming to be superior to someone else. Diamantis wanted to go to sea. To get away from here. To find oblivion on a starry night in the middle of the ocean. To melt away between the sky and the sea. There wasn't much chance it would happen soon. He had made inquiries at the Seamen's Mission. There weren't many ships in Marseilles taking on people. He'd have to go back to his point of departure, La Spezia. Or go somewhere else.

“So,” Toinou asked. “What have you decided?”

“I'm staying. I'll wait with Abdul. I think we're both idiots. He took command of the ship and he's not going to give it up. He still wants to take it somewhere. I signed on with him, as first mate. Where he goes, I go. I don't know where else I'd go anyway.”

“Home. Wait there.”

Toinou didn't understand. Diamantis couldn't just say, “I'll go home and wait there.” That was what it meant to be a sailor. Waiting didn't exist. Only leaving had any meaning. Leaving and coming back. Even those with families thought that way. Or at least most of them. Diamantis knew perfectly well that these days, a lot of people became sailors because they couldn't find anything better on land. Nedim, the
Aldebaran
's radio operator, was one of those people. He'd seen the sea for the first time when he was eighteen. When he'd been called up for his military service. It was in the army that he had learned about radios. As he couldn't find any work on land, he'd gone to sea.

One evening, he'd told them about his early days at sea. “You know, I was never seasick. The cook was always complaining because even when the weather was bad, I ate like a horse. So one day he says to me, ‘Nedim, what do you think? Is it the sea that's moving or the mountains?' It took me ten seconds to understand what he was talking about and less than a minute to go on deck and throw up! Now, whenever there's the slightest squall, I'm as sick as a dog.”

Gregory, the engineer, had laughed. “That always works with peasants!”

“Which of you never gets seasick?” Diamantis had asked.

“Me,” Ousbene had boasted.

“Oh, yes? And how do you sleep when there's a storm?”

He'd laughed. “On my back.”

“Me too,” Diamantis had replied. “If you sleep on your side, you'll be as sick as a dog. That hasn't happened to me in thirty years.”

“I lie on my back, too,” Nedim said. “It makes no difference. I can feel the boat going up and down.”

“It's all because of that jerk who mentioned the mountains,” Ousbene said.

“He was a Greek. They're the worst kind of jerks.”

They had all burst out laughing. Except Nedim, who hadn't realized his blunder.

“Oh, shit! I'm sorry. I didn't mean you. I was just talking in general.”

That was the kind of company Diamantis liked. Men who talked without thinking too much about what they were saying.

Toinou was looking at him, his protruding, slightly bloodshot eyes radiant with kindness. He didn't understand what was happening in Diamantis's head, but deep down it didn't matter.

“So, listen,” he said, in a very serious tone. “You can come here whenever you like. Think of this as your home. And you can bring your friend the captain. No need to stand on ceremony. Because you know something, Diamantis? I think the only reason you're staying is because of him. Because of the respect you have for him, the friendship . . .”

“No, Toinou,” Diamantis should have replied. “I'm staying because I'm alone.” But he didn't say that. He simply said, “Thank you, Toinou.”

W
hen Abdul got back on board the
Aldebaran
, late in the evening, Diamantis was in the mess. On the table, he'd spread a nautical map. An old Roman map. Beside him, a pad for making notes. He was in shorts, with his chest bare. The heavy, storm-laden air was coming in through the half-open door. He looked up when Abdul came in.

“So, just the two of us left now?”

Abdul didn't reply. He took off his shirt, pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. “I didn't know you were interested in maps.”

“You don't know anything about me, Abdul. And vice versa. How long have we known each other? Ten years? I know more about our crew than I do about you.”

“You're no more talkative than I am.”

“I don't like talking about myself.”

“You never feel like confiding in someone?”

“When things are going bad, when I have doubts, I just confront the situation.” Diamantis pointed to the map in front of him. “I've been learning that what used to be true is now a lie. That truth is always relative.”

“Explain it to me.” Abdul took a box of cigarillos from his pocket and lit one. He didn't offer one to Diamantis.

“It's simple, Abdul. What are the two of us doing here, on this shitty freighter? We could have gotten out of here. You probably have an explanation for it. So do I. And we'd both be sincere. We'd both be telling the truth as we see it at the moment. But, in fact, we both know we're deceiving ourselves. It's all lies. Because, when you get down to it, we hate anything that keeps us away from the sea. Being on this boat is still better than knowing we're going to be unemployed. The truth is, we don't want to go home.”

“Or we can't,” Abdul replied.

Diamantis looked up. Their eyes met. Abdul told himself he had hit the nail on the head. Something was stopping Diamantis from going home. That was the only reason he could find for why he hadn't left with the others.

“It comes to the same thing. You see, I think what we call truth is simply being sincere about taking responsibility for our own situation. And it's always a lie when we give capital letters to words like life, love, history. Don't you think so?”

Abdul bent over the map on which Diamantis had been working. He didn't want to reply. Not today anyhow. He was struggling too much with his own contradictions to get involved in that kind of discussion. Replying would mean having to talk about himself, and Cephea, and their life, which was coming apart at the seams. Abdul had wanted to force Diamantis to reveal himself, and Diamantis had put the ball back in his court.

They looked at each other again and decided to leave it at that for the moment. In any case, they were going to be here for a long time.

“This map,” Diamantis said, “is the
Peutingeriana
, a third-century Roman route map, with Rome, here, in the centre.”

“It's beautiful.”

“My father gave it to me a few months before he died. He'd bought it in an opium den in Shantou from an Italian sailor who was strapped for cash. It was in '54, I think. I'm not sure. But I remember when he got back. He spread the map on the table, like a treasure, then he took me on his knees and told me a story about mythical times. I was four years old, I didn't understand his story, but I loved the sound of it.

“Every time he came home, he'd start again. With me on his knees. By the age of twelve I'd realized that mapmaking asks all the important questions about the sea and the land. In other words, about the world, and the way we look at the world. Are you following me?”

“Oh, yes, completely.”

“I think that's what I'd like to have been. A mapmaker, or a geographer.”

“Instead, you went to sea.”

“It was the only thing I considered. Though, if you think about it, a sailor is the same thing. Every time we sail, we redraw the map of the world. That's what I think, anyway.”

Diamantis stood up, and Abdul did the same. He was fascinated by what Diamantis had been saying. Listening to him, he had almost immediately felt like a child. Like Diamantis with his father.

“So, your father was in China in '54?”

“Yes, on board a rusty old freighter. Worse than this one. Antiquated, run-down, didn't even have radar. I never found out what its name was. My father called it the
Cockroach
. One of those old tubs that had been sold off for scrap and then picked up cheap by a Greek shipowner in Rotterdam and pressed into service for a few more years. The sailors took their lives in their hands. But they had to earn a crust. The
Cockroach
was carrying arms. By the time they got to Shantou, the Communists had seized power. The port had been bombed, there was nothing left. Just a few opium dens.”

“What did they do with the arms? Did they hand them over to the Communists?”

“I have no idea. In any case, I don't think it changed the course of history all that much. Why?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

“But why?”

“It's just that I've often wondered if it isn't the unimportant things that changed the course of history.”

“History, maybe. Not its course.”

 

Night had fallen. The freighter was shrouded in darkness. The two men had started making an inventory of their provisions. Twenty-two pounds of spaghetti, and a similar quantity of rice. Seventeen pounds of red kidney beans. Six eighteen-ounce cans of chickpeas. Eight cans of mackerel, twelve of sardines in oil. Three eighteen-ounce jars of instant coffee, a can of black tea, a can of Breton biscuits. Melba toast, loose, in a big aluminum tub. A can of oil, three-quarters full. Salt, pepper. Half a demijohn of wine. Four small cans of beer and a little whisky. And two and a half gallons of drinking water.