We stepped down from the train into the heart of an unknown city. With the instinct of savages, we followed an avenue that brimmed with the powerful breeze we had already detected in our coach. Now we wanted to reach its source. First came a cluster of ugly low buildings, warehouses with gaping doors, then the dark spires of the cranes…
And suddenly it was the end of the world!
The horizon vanished into soft mist. The land ended a few steps in front of us. The sky began at our feet.
We had stopped on the Pacific shore. It was its powerful breeze that had brought our train to a halt…
We had followed the same legendary route as the Cossacks of old. And, like them, we remained in silence for a long moment, inhaling the iodine scent of the seaweed, trying to grasp the inconceivable.
Now the point of our journey became clear to us. Unable to reach the Western World of our dreams, we had employed cunning. We had headed eastward, to the extreme limit. Yes, all the way to that Far East where the east and the west meet in the misty abyss of the ocean. Unconsciously we had employed the Asiatic trickery of Manchurian tigers: to outwit a hunter following their tracks, they move through the taiga in a great circle, until at a certain moment they are behind their pursuer…
It was thus that, pretending to run away from the unattainable West, we now found ourselves at its back.
We stretched our hands out into the waves lapping below the pebbles. The water had a harsh, salty taste. We laughed, licking our fingers…
Facing the immensity of the ocean, the city seemed almost small. It resembled all the medium-sized cities of the empire. Nerlug, for example: the same rows of prefabricated houses, the same street names – Lenin Avenue, October Square – the same slogans on strips of red calico. But there was also the port and the neighboring district…
It was here that the presence of the West could best be detected. First of all, the ships. With their great white masses, they towered over the bustle on the quays, the mountains of crates, the warehouse buildings. We tilted our heads back to read their names, to admire the fluttering of their many-colored pennants.
The crowd on the streets of the port bore no relation to the gloomy parade of faces that you encountered at Nerlug. The bright coats of the young, smiling women; the black jackets of the sailors, whose lively eyes, wearied by the misty desert wastes of the ocean, hungrily devoured the feast of things and people. From time to time one heard snatches of talk in a foreign language. We would turn. Sometimes we saw the face, with slanting eyes, of a Japanese; sometimes the blond beard of a Scandinavian. It is true that it was quite common to see billboards calling on the people to increase the productivity of their labor or to advance toward the final victory of communism. But here they carried no more weight than that of a splash of color in the panorama of the port district…
Among these women who walked bareheaded, these sailors dressed in short jackets and berets with black ribbons fluttering in the wind; among these foreigners with their light, elegant clothes, we felt like real extraterrestrials. Our sheepskin coats, our great tousled fur shapkas, and our thick felt boots showed that we came from the depths of the Siberian winter. But strangely, we did not feel any unease. We had sensed at once the hospitable character of these streets. They played host to people from the most exotic corners of the globe, people whom nothing could surprise. We walked along in the middle of the animated crowd, breathing in the iodine-scented wind of the mighty deep… And we were no longer ourselves!
We were our dream doubles: Lover, Warrior, Poet.
My gaze, like that of a sparrow hawk, intercepted on the wing the rapid glances of women thrown in our direction. Samurai advanced proudly, a light smile playing on his lips, a glint of tiredness in his eyes – a soldier after a temporary victory in an endless war. As for Utkin, he realized that for the first time nobody noticed the way he walked. For one could not proceed any other way in these streets: the wind threw open the front panels of the women's bright coats, flapped the sailors' broad pants, made foreigners reel. Utkin pointed his shoulder up at the sky, and it was very naturaclass="underline" all the passersby felt as if they were taking off, carried away by the Pacific wind. Furthermore, there was so much to see that we kept stopping all the time. Utkin already knew how to enjoy these pauses, where his limping gait disappeared… but in these streets it was pointless to hide it; quite the reverse: his injured foot became the token of a unique personal past in the theatrical melting pot of the crowd.
"It would be good to buy something to eat," the Poet finally dared to suggest.
"All I've got is fourteen kopecks," said the Lover. "A loaf of bread for three, that will be enough."
The Warrior was silent. Then, without explaining anything to us, he headed for one of the human whirlpools in the middle of the little square. We could see people exchanging packages, examining clothes, shoes. A dockside market. Samurai disappeared into the crowd for several minutes, then reappeared, smiling.
"We're going to eat lunch in a restaurant," he announced.
Questions were useless. We knew that Samurai had just sold his "rhinoceros," a gold nugget with a bump reminiscent of the animal's horn – a big nugget, the size of a thumbnail. He had always told us that he would save it for a special occasion…
The waiters looked at us uncertainly, no doubt wondering whether to throw us out or put up with us. Samurai's resolute air and his masterful tone overwhelmed them. They presented us with the menu.
At lunch we talked about Belmondo. Without mentioning his name, we referred to his adventures as if they had been experienced by close acquaintances of ours – or by ourselves. The conversation, somewhere between worldly gossip and a dialogue among secret agents, got under way.
"He was wrong to get himself involved in that business with the theft of the picture," began Samurai in an argumentative tone of voice, as he cut up his steak.
"Yes, especially in Venice!" elaborated Utkin, joining in the game with relish.
"Or at least he ought to have got rid of his mistress first," I added, with assumed indignation. "Because, let's face it, having a girl like that on your hands, stark naked and flaunting her fanny, with a husband as furious as a mad dog… for a spy, that's suicidal."
The occupants of the neighboring tables had fallen silent and were turning their heads our way. It was clear that our conversation intrigued them. The three waiters maintained their sullen and scornful expressions. They could not figure out if we were young farmworkers in a fit of delirium or three boy seamen who really had been around the world.
Finally one of them, the one most allergic to fantasies, came over and with a disagreeable grimace muttered: "Okay you kids, pay up quick, and back to school! Everyone's had enough of your idle stories."
We saw several curious smiles spreading over the faces at the neighboring tables. The trio we made was too unusual, even in this restaurant near the docks.
Samurai treated the waiter to a look of mocking indulgence and announced, raising his voice slightly, so as to be heard by everybody: "A little patience. I haven't yet smoked my last cigar!"
And in a leisurely fashion he took out an elegant tube of fine aluminum, from which he removed a real Havana cigar at least eight inches long. With a precise gesture, he cut off a little piece and lit it.
As he blew out the first cloud of aromatic smoke, he said to the petrified waiter: "You have forgotten to bring us an ashtray, young man…"
The effect was sensational. Those at the neighboring tables stubbed out their miserable little cigarettes; the waiters, dumbstruck, vanished into the kitchen. Samurai leaned back in his chair and began to savor his cigar, half closing his eyes, his gaze lost in a far-off dream world. From it Belmondo sent us his warm smile…