Page 15 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
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Everyone knows the expression: “to roll a skate”.
immediately disappeared into one of the hotel−keeper's hiding−places. Perhaps this simple theft brightened up my face a bit, or Stilitano simply wanted to show that he was nice; he added: “You going to treat an ex−Bel Abbes boy to a drink?”
I. Translator's note: Router un patin (to roll a skate) is slang meaning to kiss with the tongue.
A glass of wine cost two sous. I had four in my pocket, but I owed them to Salvador, who was watching us.
“I'm broke,” Stilitano said proudly.
The card−players were forming new groups which for a moment separated us from Salvador. I murmured between my teeth, “I've got four sous and I'm going to slip them to you, but you're the one who's going to pay.”
Stilitano smiled. I was lost. We sat down at a table. He had already begun to talk about the Legion when, staring hard at me, he suddenly broke off.
“But I've got a feeling I've seen you somewhere.” As for me, I had retained the memory.
I had to grab hold of invisible tackle. I would have cooed. Words would not, nor the tone of my voice, have merely expressed my ardor, I would not have merely sung, my throat would have uttered the call of indeed the most amorous of wild game. Perhaps my neck would have bristled with white feathers. A catastrophe is always possible. Metamorphosis lies in wait for us. Panic protected me.
I have lived in the fear of metamorphoses. It is in order to make the reader fully conscious — as he sees love swooping down on me (it is not mere rhetoric which requires the comparison:) like a falcon — of the most exquisite of frights that I make use of the idea of a turtle−dove. I do not know what I felt at the moment, but to−day all I need do is summon up the vision of Stilitano for my distress to appear at once in the relationship of a cruel bird to its victim. (Were it not that I felt my neck swell out with a gentle cooing, I would have spoken rather of a robin redbreast.)
A curious creature would appear if each of my emotions became the animal it evokes: anger rumbles within my cobra neck; the same cobra swells up my prick; my steeds and merry−go−rounds are born of my insolence... Of a turtle−dove I retained only a hoarseness, which Stilitano noticed. I coughed.
1. Since the hero, whom at first I called by his real name, is my current lover (1948), prudence advises me to leave a blank in place of his name.
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Behind the Parallel was an empty lot where the hoodlums played cards. (The Parallelo is an avenue in
Barcelona parallel to the famous Ramblas. Between these two thoroughfares, which are very wide, a multitude of dark, dirty, narrow streets make up the Barrio Chino.) Squatting on the ground, they would organize games; they would lay out the cards on a square piece of cloth or in the dust. A young gypsy was running one of the games, and I came to risk the few sous I had in my pocket. I am not a gambler. Rich casinos do not attract me. The atmosphere of electric chandeliers bores me. The affected casualness of the elegant gambler nauseates me. And the impossibility of acting upon the balls, roulettes and little horses discourages me, but I loved the
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dust, filth and haste of the hoodlums. If I bugger... , as I bend farther forward I get a profile view of his face
crushed against the pillow, of his pain. I see the wincing of his features, but also their radiant anguish. I often watched this on the dirty faces of the squatting urchins. This whole population was keyed up for winning or
Without batting an eyelash, I did as he said. The cape
The Thief's Journal 13