Free The Lost Sailors by Jean-Claude Izzo, Howard Curtis Page B

over there! Just turn around, dammit! I’m not going to jump on you!”
    The watchman twisted his head to look at the sea wall. Not that he needed to. He knew the
Aldebaran
, of course.
    â€œDo you see it? Over there? That big heap of old iron.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’ve heard of it, dammit!”
    â€œI heard the crew all left.”
    â€œRight. They all left. Last night. And I’d also be far away from here by now if I hadn’t run into a bit of trouble. Fucking city! I have to see the captain. He’s still there.”
    The watchman looked at his register. “What’s his name?”
    â€œThe captain?”
    â€œOf course, the captain. Not his dog.”
    â€œAbdul Aziz.”
    The watchman finally gave in. He was sick to the back teeth with Nedim. He wanted to go back to his nap, the lazy bastard.
    â€œDo you want to go with me?” Nedim asked.
    â€œThat’s all right.” He wrote Nedim’s name in the register. “But you have to come back with the captain. And if you stay on board, we’ll give you a new card. If you don’t have a card, there’s no way you’ll get in the next time.”
    â€œGo fuck yourself!”
    Nedim strode across the quay, and passed between the docks to get to the sea wall. He was running on empty now. There were no other thoughts in his head. He did not even spare a glance for the sea in front of him. Blue, like the sky. A bright, limpid, immaculate sky. Washed clean by the storm. It was going to be a beautiful day. The first day of summer.
    As he fell asleep, he thought of the hooker he had met. For the first time in his life he’d been offered a free fuck, and he’d turned it down. How dumb could you be?
    Her face haunted his sleep. A mixture of disgust and desire. He was hot. Too hot. The girl was stifling him. He didn’t want her lips on his cock. He struggled. The cabin was flooded with sunlight.
    He woke with a start, bathed in sweat. And with a hard-on. The first thing that crossed his mind, even before looking at his watch, was a poem his father liked reciting. In his gentle, indulgent voice.
    Â 
    On the road of exile we found each other again
    Who could say when death will trap us.
    Â 
    According to his watch, it was five o’clock. Five o’clock? The glass was cracked. Shit, the watch must be broken. He lit a cigarette, his last but one, and coughed. What time was it really? Was it still morning? Or already afternoon? There was no sound on board the
Aldebaran
. Where was Abdul Aziz? How would he react when he found him here? What would he say?
    To hell with you, he muttered.
    Exhausted, he collapsed back on the bunk and closed his eyes and thought about Aysel. “
Elhamdüllillâh rabbilâlemîn irrahmân irrahîm, mâliki yevmiddîn
. . .” He had a hard-on again.
    â€œAmen,” he said.
    He fell asleep with tears running down his cheeks.

8.
SOME ACTS ARE IRREPARABLE
    W hat had happened with Cephea? Abdul Aziz had tried to understand, without much success. She was crazy, that was the only answer he could find. While admitting that it wasn’t much of an explanation. In fact, it didn’t explain anything.
    It was the second day after he’d gotten back from Adelaide. Cephea had just put the children to bed. They had sat down on the terrace, to have a couple of margaritas. Cephea had a knack for making margaritas, always putting just the right amount of salt around the rim of the glass. Looking out over the roofs of Dakar in the still of the night, he started talking about the journey. It was something he always needed to do. To tell her about the world.
    The
Kananga
had sailed up the Gulf of St. Vincent and moored in the sheltered outer harbor of North Haven. “A place where no one ever went of his own free will,” as sailors liked to say.
    Beyond this strip of flat, steaming scrub, bristling with sheet-metal huts, was Port Adelaide,