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

Doug asked.
    â€œI’ll give you this and we’ll be quits,” Nedim said. “It’s all I have.”
    â€œDo you have your papers?”
    Nedim handed him his passport.
    â€œTurkish.” He turned to the counter. “This asshole’s Turkish.”
    â€œThey’re all dickheads,” the guy at the bar said, and laughed.
    Doug put the passport in his shirt pocket. “Are you a sailor?”
    â€œOn the
Aldebaran
,” Nedim said.
    â€œWhen’s your boat leaving?”
    â€œIt isn’t.”
    â€œSo what are you doing, lugging your bag around?”
    He couldn’t answer that. He stood up. He had to get out of here. There was still a chance he could catch Pedrag. He’d sort things out with him. Once he was in the truck. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting home. Not to Istanbul. No, home. To the mountains. The endless roads of Anatolia. His mother’s face appeared in between him and Doug. This time, he told himself, I’ll go visit Dad’s grave. He’d always said he would, but never had. He’d never had time to go up there, to the plateau beyond the gorges of Bilecik.
    His father’s eyes were on him. Blue eyes, like his. Salih the blacksmith. Master Salih. He knew the five pillars of Islam by heart. People came to his forge to listen to him. He would hammer the iron and recite. And everyone would praise God as they left. “
Mâliki yevmiddîn iyyâke nabüdü ve iyyâke nestaîn, ihtinâssirât elmüstakîm
. . .” These strange, incomprehensible words, which he had forgotten, came back to him now. “It is You we adore, You whose help we ask, lead us in the Right Path . . .”
    The Right Path.
    Nedim shuddered. He couldn’t remember the final amen. You always had to finish a prayer with an amen. His father was still looking at him. He saw himself standing in front of him as a child, stammering, scared that his father would deny him, disinherit him, if he forgot the words of the prayer. And cast him into the Hell of the unbelievers. “Hell must be like that,” Ali the woodcutter had said one evening, pointing at the forge. “The fires of Hell are not like the fires of this world,” his father had replied. “They’re a thousand times hotter.”
    A thousand times hotter. The Right Path. “
Bismillâh irrahmân irrahîm
. . .” Praise be to God . . . The words came back to him. He had to visit his father’s grave.
    â€œI have to get going,” he said, standing up.
    Doug looked him up and down. There was no animosity in his eyes. There was no expression at all. As if he wasn’t thinking. He didn’t say a word.
    Nedim glanced furtively toward the bar. Lalla and Gaby were still perched on their stools, chatting calmly with Gisèle, the barman, and the last customer. Nedim didn’t exist for them anymore. He only existed for Doug.
    Doug seized him by the neck with his big hand and squeezed. Nedim felt himself being lifted until his eyes were level with Doug’s and only the tips of his toes touched the floor. He couldn’t breathe. He suddenly felt hot. He wanted to vomit.
    â€œSo what are we going to do?” Doug asked, without raising his voice.
    Doug’s fingers were still around his neck. They were as hard as his eyes. Nedim could feel the pressure of the thumb and index finger under his jaw. All Doug’s strength and violence seemed to be concentrated there, in that pressure. He felt hot again. His back was soaked with sweat.
    â€œWhat are we going to do, huh?”
    â€œLet go of me,” he managed to say.
    â€œLet go of him!”
    It was an order. Doug looked at Gisèle and relaxed his grip. Nedim’s feet touched the floor again. He massaged his neck, and tried to get his breath back.
    â€œWhat’s the name of your tub?” Gisèle asked.
    Nedim’s eyes met Lalla’s. She had turned