Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo, Howard Curtis Page B

terrace. Then we’d put on some music and make love. With as much pleasure as the first time. And as much passion. It was as if our bodies had been looking forward to these celebrations since we were born. The last time, we’d started making love with
Yo no puedo vivir sin ti
playing. An album by the Gypsies of Perpignan. Cousins of Lole’s. It was when we’d finished that Lole announced her intention to leave. She needed to be “somewhere else” the way I needed the sea.
    A cup of scalding hot coffee in my hand, I sat down facing the sea, and let my gaze wander into the distance. Out there where even memories are obsolete. Where everything is turned upside down. Out as far as the Planier lighthouse, twenty miles from the coast.
    Why hadn’t I left, never to return? Why was I letting myself grow old in this two-bit cottage, watching the freighters sail away? Of course, Marseilles had a lot to do with it. Whether you were born here or landed here one day, you soon grew feet of lead. Travel was something you’d rather see in other people’s eyes. In the eyes of those who came back after confronting the worst that life could throw at them. Like Ulysses. We liked Ulysses here. And over the centuries, the people of Marseilles had weaved and unraveled their own history, like poor Penelope. The tragedy these days was that Marseilles no longer looked toward the East, but saw only the reflection of what she was becoming.
    I was just like her. And what I was becoming was nothing, or almost. With fewer illusions and more of a smile, maybe. I was sure I’d never really understood anything that had happened in my life. And anyhow, the Planier no longer lighted the way for ships. It was disused. But it was my only belief, that there was something out there, beyond the sea. I remembered a line by Louis Brauquier, my favorite Marseilles poet.
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    I shall return to run aground in the midst of the ships.
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    Yes, I told myself, when I’m dead, I’ll embark on a freighter and set sail for my childhood dreams. Finally at peace. I finished my coffee and went out to see Fonfon.
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    Nobody had been waiting for me by my car, when I’d left Chez Félix at one in the morning. Nobody had followed me either. I don’t scare easily but, once past the Madrague de Montredon, in the far south east of Marseilles, the road that leads to Les Goudes can be quite hair-raising at night. The landscape is as empty as the surface of the moon. The houses stop near the
calanque
of Samena. After that, there’s nothing. The road is narrow, twisting and turning alongside the sea just a few dozen feet above the rocks. Those two miles had never seemed so long. I was anxious to get home.
    Gélou was asleep, with the bedside lamp still on. She must have waited for me. She was rolled in a ball, her right hand clutching the pillow like a life preserver. In her sleep, I imagined, she was shipwrecked. I switched off the lamp. That was all I could do for her right now.
    I’d poured myself a glass of Lagavulin and had settled down for a night on the couch with Conrad’s
Within the Tides
. A book I constantly reread at night. It calms me down and helps me get to sleep. Just as the poems of Brauquier help me live. But my mind was elsewhere. In the land of men. I had to find Guitou and bring him back to Gélou. As simple as that. Then I’d have to have a talk with her, even though I was sure she’d already realized the most important thing. If you have a child, you should go all the way with him, because he deserves it. No woman had ever given me the opportunity to be a father, but I was convinced of that. I didn’t suppose it was ever easy to raise a child. There was always pain involved. But it was worth it. If love had a future.
    I’d fallen asleep and woken again almost immediately. My anxiety went deeper. I was thinking about Serge’s death. And all the things it had brought back