Page 17 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
He answered with a Spanish word which I did not understand. I told him so and, in front of the old woman who was waiting for her two sous, he burst out laughing and made the gesture of pulling off. When he came out, his face had a bit of color. He was still smiling.
“It's all right now. I'm ready.”
That was how I learned that, on big occasions, players go there to pull off in order to be calmer and more sure of themselves. We went back to the lot. Pepe chose a group. He lost. He lost all he had. I tried to restrain him; it was too late. As authorized by custom, he asked the man holding the bank to give him a stake from the kitty for the next game. The man refused. It seemed to me then that the very thing that constituted the gipsy's gentleness turned sour, as milk turns, and became the most ferocious rage I have ever seen. He whisked away the bank. The man bounded up and wanted to kick out at him. Pepe dodged. He handed me the money, but hardly had I pocketed it than his knife was open. He planted it in the heart of the Spaniard, a tall, bronzed chap, who fell to the ground and who, despite his tan, turned pale, contracted, writhed and expired in the dust. For the first time I saw someone give up the ghost. Pepe had disappeared, but when, turning my eyes away from the corpse, I raised my head, there, looking at it with a faint smile, was Stilitano. The sun was about to set. The dead man and the handsomest of humans seemed to me merged in the same golden dust amidst a throng of sailors, soldiers, hoodlums and thieves from all parts of the world. It did not revolve: carrying Stilitano, the Earth trembled about the sun. At the same moment I came to know death and love. This vision, however, was very brief, for I could not stay there because I was afraid I might have been spotted with Pepe and lest a friend of the dead man snatch away the money which I kept in my pocket, but as I moved off, my memory kept alive and commented upon the following scene, which seemed to me grandiose: “The murder, by a charming child, of a grown man whose tan could turn pale, take on the hue of death, the whole ironically observed by a tall blond youngster to whom I had just become secretly engaged.” Rapid as my glance at him was, I had time to take in Stilitano's superb muscularity and to see, between his lips, rolling in his half−open mouth, a white, heavy blob of spit, thick as a white worm, which he shifted about, stretching it from top to bottom until it veiled his mouth. He stood barefoot in the dust. His legs were contained in a pair of worn and shabby faded blue pants. The sleeves of his green shirt were rolled up, one of them above an amputated hand, the wrist slightly shrunken, where the resewn skin still revealed a pale, pink scar.
Beneath a tragic sky, I was to cross the loveliest landscapes in the world when Stilitano took my hand at night. What was the nature of that fluid which passed with a shock from him to me? I walked along dangerous shores, emerged into dismal plains, heard the sea. Hardly had I touched him, when the stairway changed: he was master of the world. With the memory of these brief moments, I could describe to you walks, breathless flights, pursuits, in countries of the world where I shall never go.
Stilitano smiled and laughed at me. “You take me for a damn fool?” “A little,” he said.
“Keep right on.”
He smiled again and opened his eyes wide.
“Why?”
“Youk now that you're a good−looking kid. And you think you don't have to give a damn about anyone. “ “I've got a right to. I'm likable.”
The Thief's Journal 15