The Lost Sailors by Jean-Claude Izzo, Howard Curtis Read Free Book Online Page A

sea, but a very squally one.
    The
Maris Stella
was thirty-five years old at stem and stern, six less than that in the middle. It had been widened in order to take larger cargoes. By about eleven o’clock, the winds were gusting at nearly seventy miles an hour and the waves were twenty-six feet high. The ship was plowing the waves as best it could. But the water started coming in at the forward hatches as if through a sieve. An hour later, the sea began to submerge the heavily-laden stern, and the ship listed.
    The captain, Koumi—Michaelis and Angela had already asked him to be their child’s godfather—asked Diamantis, “Do you know any good prayers?”
    He shook his head. “Well, I’m not really one for prayers . . .”
    â€œThen tell the radio operator to call the coast guards. We’re abandoning ship.”
    It was an order, and it wasn’t up for discussion. Koumi knew his ship, he knew all about the Mediterranean and about storms, and he loved life. They didn’t even have time to lower the lifeboat. The ship capsized, and they were pitched into the icy water. By daybreak, the
Maris Stella
was lying eighty feet down. Swept away by what the coast guards call “the dynamic effects of a raging sea.” The search continued until nightfall, but Diamantis was the only survivor.
    That was why Diamantis was the godfather of a cute little five-year-old girl called Anastasia—and was terrified of storms.
    He put on a pair of shorts, lit a cigarette, and went to the mess to pour himself a beer.
    Abdul joined him. “Can’t sleep,” he grunted.
    â€œBeer?” Diamantis asked, holding out a can.
    And he told him the story of the
Maris Stella
.
    â€œThere was this guy I knew,” Abdul said when he’d finished. “An Irishman named Colm Toibin. I met him when I was doing the Atlantic route via the Azores. He always liked to be on the bridge when the weather was bad. He used to say, ‘You can’t imagine how impressive it is! What a spectacle! What huge waves! There always comes a moment when you’re not just afraid, you’re terrified.’ He loved it. And he got what he wanted. We went through some pretty rough times together. Every time, once the storm had died down, he’d laugh and say, ‘Well, it wasn’t the big one, I’m still waiting for that!’ We’d reply, ‘Maybe you’d change your mind if it happened.’ ‘Maybe,’ he’d reply, ‘but I still haven’t seen it, so . . .’”
    â€œAnd did he see it?”
    â€œHe was there when the
Sea Land Performance
went down. It was a freighter doing the northern European route, via the Arctic Circle. And the storm was the worst ever recorded in the last two hundred years.”
    â€œYou’re exaggerating.”
    â€œColm told me himself. And I don’t think he exaggerated. We met up again by chance, at the Spray in Gibraltar. Over a dozen beers, he told me all about his storm.”
    â€œWe don’t have as many beers as that. But we can open the last two.”
    It didn’t matter if it was true or not. Both of them knew that sea stories only exist when they’re told. Not that they’re invented, but in telling them, the person who lived through them tries to block out his own inner fears. In telling them, he gives a logic to the events. A meaning to his daily reality as a sailor.
    Abdul Aziz and Diamantis were no different than any other sailor. Any story of life at sea, especially when it was about a storm, had to be taken very seriously. Even if it wasn’t necessarily true. Most likely, Colm Toibin’s storm hadn’t been as terrible as all that. But at that moment they were convinced it was.
    â€œHe told me the captain stayed on the bridge for fifty-two hours, trying to save the ship. He would put on speed in the troughs, and slow down when the waves were high in order not to put too much