
My name is César. I was born and raised in Marseille. My father was a fisherman like my grandfather before him, and that’s about all I know of my family history. This apartment, with its view overlooking the old port of Marseille, belongs to me. When I say it belongs to me, I mean that they keep asking me to sell it, and I keep saying no. I fought to keep it. I stayed here during the Second World War and the Vichy regime, and I‘ll never leave it, not for anything in this world. I'm an old man now. But getting to look at this view every day…who could give that up? I expect I’ll breathe my last breath on this balcony. I reckon that makes me lucky, in my way. Not the kind of luck you want when you’re getting a tarot reading, and definitely not the kind you need when you’re playing boules. This is something different. Let me try and explain what I mean.
Very few of my fellow Marseillais will ever know the joy of watching the old port come to life in the early hours of the morning. The fishermen gather up their nets and head out to sea as the first sips of coffee trickle down my throat. I love my coffee. Coffee comes first – even before I smoke. And that morning cigarette is a sacred ritual. “Mother Mary, may your blessed Son forgive me these vain pursuits!” My cigarette flakes and crackles between my fingers. I light it up while the moon still glimmers, when the morning’s still dark. I don’t have the strength to read in the morning, much less to say a prayer. There’s just coffee, a cigarette and the briny scent of the sea that tingles in my nostrils. They say Marseille is blue. Blue and pink, with the rooftops that carve its peaks and valleys. It is bordered by the calanques, those rocky inlets whose jagged teeth keep the sea at bay. Marseille is the namesake of France’s national anthem; it’s boisterous and violent just like the song. When the sun rises over the old port, the regulars, the street sleepers, the people who love Marseille, are still sleeping soundly under piles of old netting. They’ll be up soon.
A few hours later, along the waterfront, the ropers are busy making rigging and nets. Alongside them, the basket weavers are hard at work, making funnelled lobster pots and shopping baskets with sturdy double handles. I know how difficult it is to make a net. I was a fisherman myself, and I sometimes had to mend ours. Then the market women shake the port into life; their shrill voices seem to ricochet off the cobbles before evaporating into the sea breeze. Their baskets are overflowing with fresh fish. It’s been a great catch today: dreamfish, urchins, whelks and a thousand other strange creatures. Then a zesty aroma wafts into my nostrils, cutting a trail through the salty odour of the fish. I turn my head and see the familiar orange seller who peels her fruit with a single flourish. One by one she unveils their juicy segments, each in turn disarmed with almost musical regularity. A young man is jostled by a child running past; the dozens of bambinos come to gather up the peelings thrown into the water. They laugh and squabble as they proudly show off the wire nets they’ve made. The local kids scamper deftly in between the workers. Who’s looking after them? A fishmonger calls to her son, “Bring my knife to the grinder!” “Qui vau faire amoula?” (Who wants to get sharpened?) cries the knife grinder. I’m still spellbound by the sparks that fly from his grindstone. The grinder wears a heavy leather apron, pedalling to turn his stone and sharpening the knives and scissors of the old port’s workers in exchange for a few francs.
I close my eyes; it’s time for a doze, even amidst the bustle of the port. I remember drinking lemonade as a child as I waited for my father while he played boules, sitting patiently on the terrace of the harbour café where Fanny worked. Fanny was my aunt; a big lady with a powerful bust that turned all the young men’s heads. Fanny fell in love with a beautiful, elegant lad when they were celebrating the end of the war. He was from Paris, and he took her back there with him. When she came back for Christmas she had a new accent. We didn’t like it. She’d lost the singsong voice of Marseille. And I remember the Great War when I was a soldier and I wore a moustache. I remember my mother, who didn’t want to let me go even though I was old enough. She made me snails with garlic, my favourite treat. When my mother made snails...I open my eyes and ears, and I spy a woman selling snails on the port: “À l’aïgo-sau lei Limaçouns.” She sets down a bucket filled with tiny snails in white spiral shells, cooked in a bouillon with garlic and salt. She rolls up a cone of paper, fills it with snails and hands it to her customer with a warm smile. Everyone has their place, and everyone their task. Beside her, the ragpicker calls out to passers-by: “Estrassaire, ragpicker! Estrassaire, ragpicker!” The rambling salesman carries a pile of old rags on his shoulder and even a rabbit’s hide. He should have no trouble selling his wares at the market. I turn my head towards the fort of Saint Jean, whose tower watches over the entire city, jutting from the end of a long wall that glows amber in the morning sun. Have you heard of the festival of Saint-Jean? That’s where I met my late wife, Jeanette. She’d come from Aix-en-Provence, and she wore a frilly red dress with a straw hat. Jeanette isn’t with us anymore, but she left her mark on the port. Do you see that boat coming in towards the jetty? It has her name, Jeanette, painted on it. Of course it does, because my son and my grandson sail in it, and they’ll soon be home.
Alan Alfredo Geday