That Young Sailor—who by no coincidence then answered to the name of Javier—was signed on aboard Leviathan, a sailboat just over a hundred feet in length: a job he considered from the very start an outright steal for what he intended to do with his brand-new life, a favor offered him by his twinkling fate, and one where, by his own choosing, he was already secluded at the time, studying Comparative Literature on his own. It was a lot of sailboat for a single man—a wooden-built classic gleaming with varnishes, bronzes, and abundant rigging. However, that Young Sailor, who most of the time passed for a freak given his striking extravagance, was actually a seasoned airborne veteran who still retained the martial demeanor worn for years, since he had been honorably discharged just a few months earlier. Philippe Leroy, the shipowner, had met Javier at a soirée held on a rooftop along Barcelona’s Rambla with killer views, arranged by a French expat, Adrien Joffre, whom every last soul knew, judging by the turnout and the constant stream of people on the building’s ancient staircase. Besides serving Catalan wine in abundance—especially the hairy grenache—Adrien had set up a Brazilian-style barbecue, also known as picanha, which would at least prevent all that wine from landing on an empty stomach. As was the rule on such occasions, at least among friends, when Fatboy Slim’s music began booming through the speakers and the dancing got underway, the one who wound up turning the meat over the mesquite embers was the only one capable of staying sober and skillful amid the mounting chaos: the ever-watchful Javier. As night fell over the nearby silhouette of Montjuich promontory, a moon on which could be spotted with the naked eye the ash of its shadowed face ended up tragically impaled on the slender Calatrava Tower, in the manner of an olive resting at the bottom of a glass of dry Martini, a magical moment when Philippe arrived, in the midst of his inseparable cloud of smoke—a chain-smoker like few others—accompanied by a woman of bewildering beauty whom some mistook for Helen of Troy herself, though the name of that Parisian model was in all truth none other than Malou Guex. Drawn by savory aromas, Malou proved somewhat demanding toward Javier, asking him for ever thinner slices of the picanha, because, despite it being an early June night, he was dressed head to toe in stark black, and without the slightest malice she came to mistake him, in the first instance, for part of a catering service—something altogether normal for a model accustomed to crowded events—though he, for his part, did nothing other than give her whatever she asked for without a word of complaint, provided he could savor in quiet delight her Parisian splendor. As soon as the host, Adrien Joffre, stepped over to check that part of the terrace to make sure all was well, he in passing dispelled that understandable misunderstanding and formally introduced them; instead of slinking off embarrassed for having taken such liberties and vanishing for the rest of the night, she stood staring at him fixedly for a full minute without saying a word, and straightaway went in search of Philippe Leroy, who, utterly detached from the bustle of the party, was smoking leaning on his elbows against the terrace parapet overlooking the Rambla, lost in thought as he watched the very young African hookers offering b******s to overly drunken tourists for peanuts. “Haven’t you noticed that guy?” she said, agitated. “It’s Patrick come back to life!” “Who, Adrien?” Philippe said. “You’re wrong. I met him at a party two years ago. I think it was at Samantha Rowles’ place in Ibiza, though I can’t quite remember now.” “No, Philippe,” Malou insisted. “The guy tending the barbecue. My hair is still standing on end! Go on, get over there and don’t make a scene.” Upon confronting Javier, Philippe noticed the astonishing physical resemblance to his brother, who had recently died of an overdose. He barely managed to ask in a low whisper, as if expecting this double to clear his doubts: “Patrick? Are you supposed to be here?” Of course, with Fatboy Slim still booming through the speakers, Javier could only read his lips, point to his ears to signal he couldn’t hear a thing, and go right back to his business: tending to the hungry crowd hovering around the fire waiting their turn. When Philippe managed to gather himself after the thrill, by dint of sharp elbowing and securing a spot beside the embers, he finally managed to strike up a conversation with Patrick’s surprising doppelgänger, and they even shared a few laughs all together when Malou joined in, at the expense of the supposed catering service, an opportunity Philippe seized on the spot to suggest meeting up early the next day to go sailing on his sailboat and so get to know each other better, since they couldn’t really talk much in all that din anyway, an invitation Javier gladly accepted—though at the time he was completely ignorant of who the hell Patrick was—always ready to join in any kind of adventure, such was his temperament, since he had no attachments of any kind, nor did anything stir fear in him, and whatever mischief he committed, even when it tempted fate, inexplicably, he landed on his feet. ★★ The morning that followed the successful and well-attended soirée, having scarcely slept a wink, because all of a sudden he woke up in a stranger’s bed and in the sweet company of some girl, yet outfitted with his inseparable backpack stuffed with books, notebooks, and a mere two changes of clothes, Javier strode up the Rambla in long strides, until reaching the commuter station beneath Catalonia Square and stepped aboard the first train bound for the marina Philippe Leroy had indicated—none other than in Arenys de Mar, out in the back of beyond, halfway to the Costa Brava. Having completed the commute in no time flat—for he cleverly took advantage of the hypnotic rattling to catch a little bonus sleep—he walked toward the eastern breakwater of that luminous marina sheltered beneath a decomposed granite hill, where that mighty Leviathan was finishing its annual maintenance work alongside the shipyard quay, which proved easy for him to distinguish in the distance, standing out among the crowded fleet of sailboats, for it was rigged with a huge wooden mast with four spreaders, at whose masthead a cormorant sat perched in that priceless moment, unfurling the full wingspan of its black wings to dry them in the sun and breeze. Perhaps he was superstitious, on account of that cormorant and because right then and there he promised himself he would do whatever it took—something would surely occur to him on the fly—just to sign on to that massive sailboat; lucky as he was, it proved easy enough, for as luck would have it, that very morning Philippe’s old sailor had quit on him, citing no other reason than that he was no longer at an age to be away from home for so many days at a time. “I told him when I hired him that I sail in the spring,” Philippe told him while showing him the layout of the varnished wooden cabins. “It seems the salary I paid him punctually and the light workload weren’t enough for him.” Javier slipped off the heavy backpack from his shoulders with a swift gesture when they emerged onto the deck, after completing their tour below deck of Leviathan, and nimbly improvised an unbeatable sales pitch, gesticulating with both hands, his palms purposefully turned toward his companion, knowingly punctuating his words with an honest and open body language: “With a sailboat of this size, you need an onboard sailor, of course—but nobody with a family and kids, since they’ll naturally want to spend the night at home every chance they get; otherwise they’d be single, like me.” At this point, he dropped his voice as low as possible so the ensuing promise stayed strictly between the two of them: “I assure you that with me you’ll never have that kind of trouble, because being alone to … Get full access to Don't You Dare To Think Out Loud! at javiertruben.substack.com/subscribe
