Lafala had had a partner in stowing away. He was a huge West Indian from a British island who went by the name of Babel.1 He was routed out of his hiding place a day after Lafala had been discovered. He was also locked up but came all right out of his confinement skin-clean and foot-whole.
Babel caught a glimpse of Lafala on a stretcher being taken to the hospital, but did not know what had happened. He was held as a prisoner to be taken back to Marseille on the same boat. Babel did not relish going back there to stand trial for the misdemeanor of stowing away. So when the boat appeared in full view of Marseille and the officers were busy preparing for the visit of port officials, he leaped overboard and dived to safety. Getting clear of the ship, he swam to the far out-of-the-way end of the breakwater. And he hid himself for nearly two weeks before he struck a job on an outgoing freighter. . . .
It was in a North African port, after many months of unworried silence, that Babel heard the good news about Lafala. He went up in the air all agog to see his former pal in his new role as a money man.
The whole crew of Babel’s boat was anticipating leaving the charming blue-white North African port for the fascinating nocturnal revels at Quayside. But the boat went instead to a little antique port near Genoa.2 And from the little port they were due to go back to a Greek island.
That was more than Babel could stand. He made the freighter leave him in the little port. When it had disappeared, Babel went and planted himself in the town square like a big banana tree and stretched his limbs. He had no money. He would have to depend on his wits to carry him over the frontier to Marseille. A group soon formed pressing around Babel and yelling “Negro!” in rough friendliness. Men, women, girls, children, Babel took it all grinning. The men invited and escorted him into a bar. And while he was being treated to a rich black-red wine, a man pushed his way in and addressed Babel in Americanese.
The man was chance itself. He knew an agent in Genoa who put up stranded seamen until he could place them. He proposed sending Babel up to Genoa, and Babel accepted. That night Babel had a good plain board and bed and the next day he entrained for Genoa.
Nothing could pleasure Babel more except going directly to Marseille. Genoa was a pretty good start. It should be easy for him to pick up some old kind of craft going across to Marseille. Babel was duly met at the station by a runner of the agent and taken to the bureau. The agent greeted him warmly, took his name and promised to keep him until he could place him.
For the first time in his life Babel started in living the life of an honored guest. He was given a room and tickets for regular meals in a seamen’s eating place. On top of all this came Maria the housemaid who took a great liking to him.
But after nine days (during which Babel discovered nothing available sailing between Marseille and Genoa) the tenor of that lovely existence was endangered by an incoming freighter that needed a fireman. The agent secured the job for Babel. There wasn’t much shakes to the freighter—a rusty-looking affair engaged in toting lumber and copra up the West African coast. Babel took a look at it and walked away. He reported to the agent that the galley was in a mangy condition and didn’t appeal to him for the hard job of a fireman.
The agent had a sharp sense of humor. There was a comical sharp-featuredness about him. His flesh was a sharp growth over his frame. His forehead was sharp. His ears pointed sharply, likewise his nose, his mouth, his moustache, his hands, his clothes; and the long peculiarly Italian cigar he smoked was an indispensable spot of color in the whole sharp composition.
He smiled at Babel sharply and said, “Alright, me get you one other ship.” And he gave Babel a couple of long cigars. “Have a smoky, you,” he said.
The second opportunity was a boat going out to the far east “on the fly”—to stay out there.
Babel grew indignant in the bureau of the seamen’s broker and made a big noise. The crew was East Indian and Babel voiced the fear that if he signed on, they might want to reduce his pay to the East-of-Suez rate.3 The agent said he could guarantee there would be no reduction.
“But I wouldn’t know going out theah with a coolie crew,”4 said Babel. “I wouldn’t know foh sure. And when I goes out yonder in that country they might want do anything with me. I won’t go with no coolie crew. I want white man wages.”
Meanwhile, Babel was full up with exasperation not finding a chance to run away to Marseille and Quayside. He was crazy to see his old pal Lafala and determined to get to Marseille by any means. Quayside was big in his body, singing in his head and calling, insistently calling him as if something important was happening there in which he should be meddling.
“Got to make it! Coming back to you, Marseille. Got to go back right there.”
The third boat was going to the same Greek island that Babel had from the first funking decided to miss. This time he pulled off a heavy drunk. Two days after he appeared in the bureau. The seamen’s broker was jaundiced from anger.
“I did hopes never see you no more,” he cried. “I see you wanta ruina me. I treaty you better than any other seamen. Feed you and bed you and you living a fine. Me losea lotta money on you. But you gotta no conscience. Finish, me finish, no lose a no more money. No more job, no more sleeping, no more feeding. I never before had no seaman likea you to handle and I hopes I never see another like you. You don’t wanta leave this port so you can go live on the beach.”
Babel had no words left to defend himself this time, but he hesitated there like a shamed boy, a comic picture from being so big, tricky and simple.
“I mean what I said,” continued the agent. “Me finish. Get outa here.”
Babel realized that the game was at last played out and left the bureau. He climbed up a narrow stone way and went into the public gardens along the waterfront and sat down. It was after the lunch hour.
There Maria came to him with a way out and of her own planning. Maria had found Babel all right whatever he did. And she had consulted the police on his behalf. The police had told her that the agent could not turn Babel out of doors because it was he who had brought him to Genoa. The agent was bound to place Babel on a boat or be responsible for him so long as he remained in Genoa. Babel could go back to the lodging house and if the agent tried to put him out he should report to the police.
“I don’t want no police messing with that man because a me,” said Babel. “That man know his business and I knows mine. The picnic is over and me—I is through.”
“And what you going to do?” asked Maria.
“Something in some ways.”
“Come back to the house just for tonight.”
“No, man. I ain’t never going back on meself.”
Unable to persuade Babel, Maria went back to her work. And Babel philosophized: “She’s a darter of a dawg.”5
In a barrelhouse on the quay that night Babel struck up conversation with a slim sailor boy—a reddish Negroid who was a native of one of those miniature republics strung together in the Spanish Main.6 The lad too was waiting for a ship. And he had been waiting long. He complained that he was fed up with Genoa and wanted just to get away from it. Babel asked him if he had ever been to Marseille which was just across the frontier. The lad had not. Babel painted in thick splashing colors the pleasures of Quayside until the boy’s imagination was lit. There were many ships in Marseille. It would be easy to get a place. The boy thought it would be fine fun to go to Marseille with Babel.
Why not leave for Marseille right away? Babel urged. Both of them. Babel explained that it was easy for the lad to go. All he needed to do was ask the representative of his country in Genoa to send him to Marseille by telling him that there was a better chance for him there. The lad was representatively better off than Babel who had been turned down and away from all official consideration.
But the boy wanted a pal along with him and felt that Big Babel was about the best person with whom he would like to be in Marseille. And so they concocted a plan. Babel could make his way with a little Spanish, for he had lived in Panama. He should pretend that he had lost his seaman’s papers. And then he could go to the representative of his pal’s country and ask his pal to say that he was a citizen of the republic and that once they had both been on the same ship.
The plan worked splendidly and two days later Babel and the boy were speeding by train over the frontier toward Marseille.