Halfway through October he showed up again. I was stretched out on my bunk daydreaming when I heard someone outside saying my name. When I went out on deck I saw him sitting on one of the piles. How's it going, Lebert, he said. I went down to say hello and we lit cigarettes. It was a cold morning, there was a light fog, and no one was around. Everybody, I guessed, must be at Raoul's. In the distance you could hear the sound of winches where a boat was being loaded. Let's get some breakfast, he said. All right, let's get some breakfast, I said. But neither of us moved. We saw a person walking toward us from the seawall. Belano smiled. Fuck, he said, it's Ulises Lima. We were quiet, waiting for him, until he got to where we were. Ulises Lima was shorter than Belano but sturdier. He was carrying a little pack over his shoulder like Belano. As soon as they saw each other they started to talk in Spanish, although their greeting, the way they greeted each other, was casual, flat. I told them I was heading over to Raoul's. Belano said all right, we'll come by later, and I left them there, talking.
The crew of the Isobel were all at the bar. They were looking gloomy, for good reason, although if you ask me it only makes it worse to get depressed when things are going badly. So I came in, took a look around to see who was there, made a joke in a loud voice or made fun of them, and then I ordered coffee and a croissant and a cognac and started to read Libération from the day before, since François usually bought it and left it at the bar. I was reading an article about the Yuyu of Zaire when Belano and his friend came in and headed over to my table. They ordered four croissants and the disappeared Ulises Lima ate all four. Then they ordered three ham and cheese sandwiches, one for me. I remember that Lima had a strange voice. He spoke French better than his friend. I don't know what we talked about, maybe the Yuyu of Zaire. All I know is that at a certain moment in the conversation Belano asked me if I could find work for Lima. I wanted to laugh. All of us here are looking for work, I said. No, said Belano, I'm talking about a job on the boat. On the Isobel? But it's the Isobel's crew that's looking for work! I said. Exactly, said Belano. So there has to be a free spot. And in fact, two of the fishermen from the Isobel had found construction jobs in Perpignan, which would keep them busy for at least a week. We'd have to talk to the skipper, I said. Lebert, said Belano, I'm sure you can get my friend the job. There's no money in it, I said. But there's a bunk, said Belano. The problem is, I doubt your friend knows anything about fishing or boats, I said. Of course he does, said Belano, don't you, Ulises? A shitload, said Ulises. I sat there looking at them because it was obvious it wasn't true, all you had to do was look at their faces, but then I asked myself who was I to be so sure what people did. I've never been in America. What do I know about the fishermen over there?
That same morning I went to talk to the skipper and I told him I had a new crew member for him, and the skipper said: all right, Lebert, he can take Amidou's bunk, but only for a week. And when I got back to Raoul's there was a bottle of wine on Belano and Lima's table, and then Raoul brought out three plates of fish soup. It was pretty mediocre soup, but Belano and Lima kept going on about how it was French cooking at its best. I don't know if they were making fun of Raoul or themselves or if they were serious. I think they were serious. Then we ate a salad with boiled fish, and it was the same thing all over again, compliments to the chef, what a salad, what a classic Provençal salad, when it was obvious that it was hardly decent for Roussillon. But Raoul was happy and anyway they were paying cash, so what more could he ask? Then François and Marguerite came in and we invited them to sit with us and Belano made everyone eat dessert and then he ordered a bottle of champagne, but Raoul didn't have champagne and he had to settle for another bottle of wine, and a couple of the fishermen from the Isobel who were at the bar came over to our table and I introduced them to Lima. I said: this guy is going to work with us, he's a sailor from Mexico, yes sir, said Belano, the Flying Dutchman of Lake Pátzcuaro, and the fishermen said hello to Lima and shook his hand, although something about Lima's hand struck them as odd, of course it wasn't a fisherman's hand, that's something you notice right away, but they must have thought the same thing I did, which was who knows what the fishermen are like in a country that far away. The Fisher of Souls of the Casa del Lago of Chapultepec, said Belano, and things went on like that, if I'm remembering right, until six in the afternoon. Then Belano paid, said goodbye to everyone, and left for Collioure.
That night Lima slept on the Isobel with us. The next day was a bad day. It dawned cloudy and we spent all morning and part of the afternoon getting our tackle in order. Lima was assigned to clean the hold. It smelled so bad down below that we all avoided the job, the stink of rotten fish so strong it could knock a man off his feet, but the Mexican stuck it out. I think the skipper did it to test him. He told him to clean the hold. And I said: pretend you're doing it and come back up on deck in two minutes. But Lima went down and stayed there for more than an hour. At lunchtime the Pirate made a fish stew and Lima wouldn't eat it. Eat, eat, said the Pirate, but Lima said he wasn't hungry. He sat resting for a while, away from us, as if he was afraid he'd throw up if he watched us eat, and then he went back down into the hold. The next day, at three in the morning, we set out to sea. A few hours were all it took for us to realize that Lima had never been on a boat in his life. Let's just hope he doesn't fall overboard, said the skipper. Everybody looked at Lima, who was trying his best but didn't know how to do anything, and at the Pirate, who was already drunk, and all they could do was shrug their shoulders, without complaining, although I'm sure that at that moment they were envying their two fellow workers who'd managed to find construction jobs in Perpignan. I remember the day was overcast, with rain clouds rolling in from the southeast, but then the wind changed and the clouds lifted. At twelve we brought in the nets and there was practically nothing in them. At lunch we were all in a miserable mood. I remember Lima asked me how long things had been like this and I told him it had been at least a month. As a joke the Pirate suggested we set the boat on fire, and the skipper said that if he heard anything like that from him again he'd punch his lights out. Then we set sail northeast and in the afternoon we dropped the nets again in a place we'd never fished before. None of us was putting much into it, I remember, except the Pirate, who by that time of day was completely drunk and babbling in the control room, talking about a gun he'd stashed away someplace or staring for a long time at the blade of a kitchen knife and then looking around for the skipper and saying that every man had his limits, that kind of thing.