Paul Theroux - The Pillars of Hercules

Leaving Málaga’s outer harbor, the ferry pitched and began sailing aslant the wind, the shoulder of the easterly hard against its port beam. Seasickness bags were distributed by the crew. The Moroccans used theirs, and some of them could be seen tottering along, bearing these little sacks to the deck where they were jettisoned over the rail. This was a lesson to me. After a year and a half of glaring at the Mediterranean and writing “tame,” “lakelike,” “a vast pond,” “sloshing waves,” “almost featureless,” “wearing a dumb green look of stagnation,” and so forth — heaping abuse on the Mediterranean the way you might insult someone lazily snoring on a sofa — the sea had come alive and was howling in my face, the way someone lazily snoring in a sofa would react if unfairly abused.

It was not a long swell and a distant fetch between waves, but rough irregular waves and a strong wind — a sea that was more confused and noisy than many oceans I had seen. The storm was not an illusion. This large ferry was tossing in it like a chamber pot.

“Windy,” I said to a man at the rail.

The seasick passengers inside had made me feel queasy and had driven me outdoors.

“It is the Levanter,” he said. I had not heard that word spoken before, though I had read it in books about the Mediterranean. It was the weather-changing wind from the east that could blow at gale force. But I had only known sunny or gray or rainy weather; no storms, nothing to interrupt my plans.

“Going to Melilla?”

“I hope so.”

“Why ‘hope’?”

“Because this weather is very bad.”

He looked worried. It had not occurred to me that the wind was anything but a nuisance. How could it be a danger? This was the Mediterranean, after all. Yes, I had read of the severe storms in The Odyssey , but that epic was famous for its hyperbole.

“This is a large ship,” I said.

“Some ships are not large enough for the Levanter,” he said.

To change the subject I said, “Isn’t Melilla a bit like Gibraltar? It is a little piece of Spain in Morocco, the way Gibraltar is a little piece of Britain in Spain.”

“That is true. It is the same. But we still want Gibraltar.”

“Maybe the Moroccans want Melilla.”

“Yes, but so do we. And Gibraltar too.”

He laughed, seeing the contradiction, but refusing to concede.

It was cold on deck, and though there was wind but no rain the deck was wet with spray and spoondrift. The wind had raised the sea and lowered the sky. The visibility was poor. The smack of the waves against the ship was as loud and violent as though the hull were being struck with metal, the sound like the clapper in a cracked bell.

The man’s name was Antonio. He was from Mijas. I told him that I had been to a bullfight in Mijas over a year ago. I had found the whole thing generally disgusting and brutal, but in the hope of eliciting an opinion about bull fever I refrained from telling him my true feelings. Besides, this storm did not create an atmosphere that was conducive to the free flow of ideas.

“Mijas is becoming very famous,” he said. “The young matadors start there, like the ones you saw, and they soon make a reputation.”

“But the most famous matador in Spain is from Colombia, isn’t that so?”

“No. The best one now — the real hero — is Jesulín de Ubrique. Every man and woman loves him — every girl wants to meet him.”

“Ubrique is near here, isn’t it?”

“Down the coast,” Antonio said. He gasped and clutched the rail as a wave crashed against the deck below. He raised his voice. “And another one is the son of the famous El Cordobes, though El Cordobes refuses to say that he is his son.”

“What’s the son’s name?” I shouted over the wind.

“Manuel Diaz el Cordobes, and he is crazy like his father. More crazy! His father used to play with the bull, but this Manuel Diaz puts his face against the bull’s face. He is double crazy!”

“I have a theory that Spanish people prefer football to the corrida.”

“Not true. We love the corrida more.”

“But it’s not a sport.”

“No. It is a spectacle,” Antonio said.

In the course of our little conversation the weather had grown much worse. Spray flew into the windows and salt grains frosted the glass. Sea-water ran across the upper decks, and the lower decks were awash. Now and then you hear about a storm sinking a ferry, because they are not built for storms. But you don’t remember those news items until you are on a ferry, in a serious storm.

“I have lived around here my whole life. I cross to Morocco a lot. I have never seen it this bad,” Antonio said.

“We ought to be there soon.”

“No. It’s many hours away.”

“It’s only a seven-hour trip, and we’ve been sailing for five.”

“Going slowly,” he said.

“Maybe the weather is better in Melilla.”

“With the wind in this direction it will be worse. The Levanter blows against it.”

The fury of the sea, the height of the waves, the screaming wind — they all defied me, author of the words “junk waves,” “mush-burgers,” “slop and plop of the Mediterranean.” It was a maddened sea and this huge ferry was having trouble negotiating it. From the hold came the sound of clanking chains, the creak of cars and trucks, the rolling clatter of steel barrels and the rattle of loose bolts on the steel gangways.

Antonio said, “I am afraid about my car. I think it will crash into another one.”

I stayed on deck. True, it was cold and windy on deck. But it was stifling in the cargo hold. It was nauseating in the lounges. Now and then someone would stagger out to the deck to practice projectile vomiting. I held on, pressed into a corner, tried to read an old fluttering copy of the Guardian I had found in Málaga.

I thought: When we get to Melilla this will just seem like a bad dream.

Soon after, as it was growing dark, the captain made an announcement: “Because of the wind and the poor conditions we are not proceeding to Melilla. We are returning to Málaga.”

The vast squarish bulk of the ferry turned clumsily into the wind, twisting as it went, the sea-spray flying, and then the vessel was in full retreat from the storm.

The phlegmatic Spaniards, used to bad news, took this well. The Muslim Moroccans, contrary to all the teachings of Islam, took the announcement badly and shouted and threw things and argued and slammed the hatchways. Their children cried. The menfolk ranted. The women sulked. They did not want to go back to Spain.

Hours later, in darkness, we were back in Málaga. I was frustrated by the return, but I was also relieved. The captain knew these seas; he would not willingly abandon the voyage if he had confidence in his ship. So he had feared for the ship. The port was closed. All further ferries were canceled.

Antonio gave me a lift to the bus station. He said, “These Levanters usually last three days.”

Perhaps there would be more of it. My response was to go in full retreat myself, back to where I had begun my trip. It was only an hour and a half from Algeciras to Ceuta, the southern Pillar of Hercules. I was disappointed that I had not been able to sail from Tunisia, but it was interesting, was it not, that I had been forced to go all the way back to the Straits of Gibraltar to make my crossing? It had not really spoiled my plans, because — always improvising — I had never had much of a plan.

The coast was stormy all the way to Algeciras. This time Torremolinos was wild and windblown, and so was Torreblanca, the sea gray and the heavy surf smashing thick suds onto the deserted beach. I was heading back to where I had begun, and the signs went from Spanish, to bilingual, to English as we traveled south. Then it was Liquor Shop, Property Brokers, Video Rental, Hairdresser, Music Cafe, Insurance Broker, Real English Breakfast , the Sun on the newspaper racks, Iron Monger’s Shop, Legal Advice.