by Hugo Wilcken
Say-Say’s name is at the top of the roll call list, and he bolts like a terrified cat as soon as he answers to it. Pierrot is called soon after, while Sabir’s name is right at the bottom. Pierrot hasn’t wandered off like the rest of the men, though; he lies back down on the bed board and slips one of the younger convicts a couple of sous to bring him some coffee. He’s rich enough to pay someone else to do his work quota. There are a few others like him, all forts-à-bras who know how to work the system. They generally sleep through the morning, then go about their business – whatever their particular scam is – in the afternoon.
Say-Say’s nowhere to be seen now. No matter, Sabir will send him a note later, once he’s seen Carpette and finally understood what’s going on. On the spur of the moment, he signals for Pierrot to follow him into the privy. It’s the first time he’s ever had anything to do with the man – as a rule he steers clear of the tough nuts.
‘It’s about Say-Say.’
Pierrot raises his eyebrows. ‘What about him?’
‘What did you do to him?’
‘Kid got what was coming to him,’ Pierrot replies with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘Some cheek, coming back here without the dough he owes me. What the hell’s it to you, anyway?’
For a moment, Pierrot was coiled and ready for action. But he’s quickly sized Sabir up and realised he’s no fort-à-bras.
‘How much does he owe you?’
‘Fifty. Damn well better have it today.’
Sabir reaches into his pocket, pulls out the banknote the commandant has given him. ‘Take it.’
It’s gone in an instant – even in the privy, there’s no point in a note that large being visible any longer than it has to be. As they leave, Pierrot says: ‘It was nothing bad. No blood. Just to let him know what he was in for if he didn’t square the debt.’
‘No hard feelings.’
‘But if I was you, I’d get him out of barracks.’
‘I’ll do that.’
No doubt Pierrot imagines that Sabir and Say-Say are lovers. Well, let him think that. Sabir hurries down the avenue, through a mêlée of men making their way to work. As he walks, he wonders idly how much money Pierrot would want to kill Bonifacio. A lot: more wads of cash from the commandant’s cupboard. But would he accept such a job? It’d be risky. And ultimately just as risky for the contractor. He’s arrived at the end barracks now, where Carpette is keeper. He’s half-expecting to be told that Carpette has disappeared, but no, there he is, sweeping out his barracks, one of the keeper’s morning tasks. He looks different from yesterday; no longer dishevelled, not quite himself, either.
‘Any news of Edouard?’
‘I was going to send you a note. He’s back.’
‘Back? From where? Where’d he go?’
Carpette stops sweeping, leans on his broom, stares into the middle distance. ‘Yesterday afternoon, I went down to the shack. The one I told you about. About an hour’s walk from here, in the forest. I wasn’t expecting anything. But I had to go just to make sure. He was there. At first, he wouldn’t tell me where he’d been. I guessed Saint-Laurent, of course. Finally he admitted it. Bloody stupid, dangerous thing to do. Anyway, he’s been reported missing now.’
The consequences flash through Sabir’s mind: if you’re absent from roll call, you have twenty-four hours to show up, before the official missing report goes out. Once that happens, even if you turn up voluntarily, you’ll be sent to the blockhaus in Saint-Laurent, to appear before the tribunal. If Edouard has a clean record and no enemies, the punishment might be light: a short stint in a punishment camp. But there’s always the chance he’ll be sent to the Islands.
‘He wouldn’t tell me why he’d been to Saint-Laurent. Came back with a big sack, though. Won’t tell me what’s in that, either. It smells strange. He keeps hold of it the whole time, like he’s afraid I’m going to nick it off him or something.’
Carpette’s looking at Sabir with some sort of expectation. What exactly does he want Sabir to say, though? He’s often had this feeling that Carpette thinks he knows some secret about Edouard. At this moment, he’s acutely aware that he knows nothing about Carpette, and that Edouard is a different kind of mystery. And yet he feels a sudden urge to ‘confess’, to tell Carpette all about Bonifacio. Finally he mutters: ‘So it’s on again?’
‘You know Serpent’s Creek? The one beyond the Boni village. That’s where the boat is. The supplies are down by the river. In the jungle, behind the pier at the commandant’s house. There’s an old ruin there, at the edge of the trees; know where I mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I hid the supplies behind the wall there. I was going to get a Boni to ship them down to the creek, but the only one I trust won’t do it, the coward. Says there are a couple of guards in the house now, with rifles.’
‘The commandant put them in there while he’s away. Or maybe they’re there for good, now the wife’s moving in. I don’t know.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?’ says Carpette irritably. ‘Anyway, we’re going to have to carry the supplies down to the creek ourselves now. We’ll have to do it late afternoon tomorrow, and hope for the best. At four, I think. No later, ’cause we won’t be able to find the boat in the dark. Better tell your Basque boy.’
Sabir grabs a young convict who’s willing to go and find Say-Say in exchange for a few sous, and scribbles out a note for him with the details. Four o’clock tomorrow, by the ruin in the jungle behind the pier. On his way back down to the river for a last day’s work, Sabir briefly wonders whether Say-Say can read, decides he probably can’t. He’ll get someone to read the note out to him, no doubt, which inevitably means divulging the escape plan to a third party. The messenger will probably read it too, if he’s able. Sabir should have been more careful with what he wrote.
A tranquilising feeling of fatalism invades Sabir. The escape, Bonifacio, the commandant’s wife, Edouard, the penal colony – none of it matters, under this annihilating sun. He dimly perceives his life as if it were an object in front of him. A warm breeze is coming off the river, shaking the branches of a dead tree that’s leaning over the path. Leaves flutter free from their branches and are borne off on the wind back towards the camp.
X
Mid-afternoon, the following day. The commandant’s still away in Saint-Laurent collecting his wife. As a consequence, nobody – guard or convict – is bothering to work much. The two guards stationed at the commandant’s house have already found the rum supply and made a start on it; that’s a good sign. Sabir has given his men on gardening detail leave to remain in barracks, and although he doesn’t actually have the authority to do that, no one questions him – without the commandant, the power structure becomes strangely fluid.
Bonifacio. Yes, he returned to the folly yesterday at noon, and Sabir brought him some food. As he gnawed at it, he quizzed Sabir about the boat; Sabir told him immediately where it is. No point in holding out; no point in lying. No strength or guile for it. After that, Bonifacio smoked two of Sabir’s cigarettes, and then disappeared without saying anything of his plans. He didn’t return in the evening, either – Sabir slept alone – and wasn’t there this morning. It’s half past three now, and Sabir has returned to the folly for the last time. Still no one there. Sabir has the feeling that Bonifacio’s cleared out for good – although it’s impossible to tell, since he had no possessions to return for. But a certain oppressiveness that has lately haunted the place seems to have dissipated. As the afternoon light filters in through the shutters, it’s as if Bonifacio had never really existed at all.
Alone again in the folly, but for a few minutes only. A smell wafts in through the door – half sweet, half rank. The orchids he dumped behind the folly, rotting away under the sun and rain. He thinks back to that afternoon when the commandant put his hand on Sabir’s shoulders, as if Sabir shared in his disappointment at the dead orchids. In a way, he pities the commandant’s failure to please his wife in this respe
ct. He lifts the floorboard where he’s hidden the photos of the commandant’s wife, and a few other things besides. He lights up the lamp for the last time, pulls out the letter from the Swiss doctor he stole from the cupboard, holds it over the flame. The paper is slightly damp and it takes a while for it to burn properly. Not like the moths he used to watch at night, as they crashed ceaselessly into the lamp, sometimes even knocking it over in their violence. Often he absorbed himself in that drama: the shadows on the wall, surrounding him, magnified many times, wings flapping as if the creature were trying to smother the flames, its podgy body twisting and squirming in the heat.
The letter’s in cinders now. A few cryptic phrases will remain in Sabir’s brain for a few more weeks or months, and then they too will be gone for ever. The photos of the commandant’s wife are in his hand. He can’t bear to burn them, can’t bear to take them with him, either. In the end, he stuffs them back in the jar, screws the lid on tightly and puts it back in its hiding place. The money in his plan, a change of clothes, the new shoes that hurt his feet – it’s all he need take with him. Once again, the man without a past. He sits on the floor for a few minutes, not even smoking a cigarette, just thinking about the folly and the commandant’s wife, trying to get a feel of what he’s leaving behind. She’s here somewhere, head bowed, naked, turned away from him. It’s something like hate she feels for him now, for in the end he proved not to be the hard surface she needed to grind against. Sabir is filled with a yearning for a future that will never be. It washes through him, finally leaving him empty, and he realises it’s time to leave.
‘Did you see where the guards are?’
‘In the house. Downstairs, in the study. Getting plastered on rum.’
‘Good.’
Sabir, Carpette, Edouard and Say-Say are all crouched behind a crumbling wall, just back from the edge of the jungle, not far from the pier – a leftover from some earlier, failed colonial occupation. At one point, Sabir remembers, the commandant had toyed with the idea of incorporating this ruin into the garden as another picturesque folly, but in the end decided against it. This is where, in a hole covered with branches, Carpette has hidden the provisions. Three lidded barrels to carry down to the creek, plus an empty urn for the drinking water.
Seeing Edouard again is bizarre. Over the weeks, Sabir has thought quite a bit about him. He’s gone over many times in his mind that one meeting of theirs in the forest, and how shocked he was at Edouard’s appearance. And then there was Carpette’s constant talk of Edouard’s poor health, how they had to get out now before it deteriorated any further. He’s been expecting to see a wreck of a man. And yet Edouard looks in remarkably good shape, by convict standards at least. He doesn’t seem to have any problems seeing out of his one eye; his upper arms are relatively muscly, the sign of a decent diet. Can this be the same person he hardly even recognised six weeks ago? Sabir thinks of his own body, and it occurs to him that it’s not Edouard who’s changed, but himself. Not only has he got used to the convict ‘look’ – the thin, skull-like face, the watery eyes, the concave chest, the hooked nose – but he has been transformed into it.
Say-Say, in sharp contrast to Edouard, is in a terrible state: cowed, shivering, sweating. Nothing to do with any roughing-up Pierrot might have given him: it’s a bad case of fever. He’s shirtless, hugging himself. Sabir notices for the first time the few words he has poorly tattooed in black ink across his hairless chest: J’ai vu, j’ai cru, j’ai pleuré.
‘Another hour till dusk,’ says Carpette. ‘There’s nothing for it, we’ll have to shift these now. Wait any longer and we won’t be able to find the boat in the dark.’
‘I know that path,’ says Sabir. ‘There won’t be any guards down there – not unless we’re unlucky. They’ll all have gone back up to camp by now. They won’t want to be stuck out here in the afternoon rain.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. There’s just those damn guards at the house.’
‘They’re at the back. They won’t see a thing. They won’t come out.’
‘Let’s go, then. Edouard, you take this,’ says Carpette, handing him the empty water urn.
‘Give it to the boy. Can’t you see he can’t handle a full barrel?’
It’s true, Say-Say looks as if he’ll have a hard time walking, let alone carrying anything. Carpette and Edouard exchange looks that are difficult to translate. Immediately, though, it’s clear to Sabir that there’s tension between them, over and above any generated by the escape.
Say-Say has nothing with him; Carpette and Sabir have their small cloth sacks. Edouard, on the other hand, has a large, unwieldy bag slung over his back, making it difficult to carry his barrel. They make their way along the side of the garden, down to the path that starts at the pier. It’s the last time Sabir will see this garden into which he’s put so much effort. The grass has taken on a greyish hue – perhaps the turf hasn’t taken properly and it’s dying. Or it might be a reflection of the bruise-blue rain clouds that now swirl and roll about in the sky like ocean waves.
Past the pier, along the riverbank path. Sabir takes up the rear, behind Say-Say, who’s lagging. For the first time in weeks, he allows himself a fleeting fantasy about a life after the escape. He won’t stay in Colombia – he’s heard the climate there is as hellish as it is here. No, what he’ll do is head down south, to Argentina. There are plenty of Frenchmen in Buenos Aires, he’s been told, and the city itself is supposedly a bit like Paris, with long, graceful avenues. Then again, a make-believe Paris is not what he’s after. He’ll head even further south. What’s south of Buenos Aires? He has no notion, just the word Patagonia, and a vision of prairie land or perhaps a white wilderness.
Ahead of him, he sees Say-Say flop down like a broken puppet. Edouard and Carpette are out of sight, round a bend. Sabir catches up with the boy; his face is pale, his breathing laboured.
‘Too sick. I can’t make it.’
‘Don’t be stupid. We can’t stop now.’
‘No,’ the boy croaks, ‘I mean it. Don’t wanna go on. I’ll stay here. And get back up to camp in the morning.’
‘You can’t do that. What about Pierrot?’
‘Pierrot … Saw him this afternoon. Told me we’re quits. Told me to forget about it.’
‘So you think it’s all right to go back to barracks now?’
‘They won’t report me. So long as I show up in the morning.’
A rage boils up in Sabir. He grabs the boy by the shoulders, hisses furiously: ‘Listen, you wouldn’t last another month in the barracks; hasn’t anyone told you that? Haven’t you figured that out? You’ve got no dough. This is your only chance! Who the hell do you think paid off Pierrot, eh? Who do you think did that?’
Say-Say’s staring at him, stunned and incapable of speech, while Sabir continues shaking the boy’s shoulders in a frenzy of anger. ‘I paid him off! My money! Understand? You’ll never get another chance like this. Even if you wanted to back down now, we wouldn’t let you. You’re the navigator. You don’t want to continue, we’ve all had it. You don’t want to continue, I’ll slit your throat right here!’
He hears a voice from ahead: ‘What the hell’s going on?’ It’s Carpette, he must have backtracked to see what the matter was.
Sabir’s face is flushed and his hands are shaking; he realises he’s been shouting. He lets go of Say-Say’s shoulders, tries to compose himself. ‘Kid’s sick.’
‘Too bad. Look over there!’ Carpette points in the direction of the river. In the distance, maybe five hundred metres away, Sabir can make out a small boat chugging along the bank. ‘Looks like … I’d say the patrol boat from Saint-Laurent. What the hell’s it doing this far up? Better take cover.’
Sabir picks Say-Say up, drags him off the path. They’re all lying down in the scrub now, waiting for the boat to pass. Sabir can feel his heart thumping hard against the ground, not because of the patrol boat, but as a residue of his sudden rage against Say-Say. It took him quite
by surprise and has left him perplexed. He has his knife in his pocket; he was moments away from brandishing it when Carpette appeared. And yet now he feels almost teary-eyed; why can’t he control himself? Nerves, nerves. The loss of control disturbs him anyway. Say-Say’s there beside him, shocked and wide-eyed, uncomprehending of what’s happened, what’s still happening. The boat’s zigzagging about to avoid sandbanks.
‘Stopping off at camp, I’ll bet,’ whispers Carpette. ‘Can’t see how the pilot’s going to get back in the dark, though.’
The others are lying well away from the path now, but Sabir’s on his stomach, peering at the boat through the scrub, squinting to see better. There’s the familiar heaviness in the air, the clouds overhead pregnant with storm. The boat, which was about fifty metres out from the shore, now veers slowly back to the bank, and at one point it seems as if it’s heading directly at Sabir. As it moves nearer he can make out three people on board. A pilot and another man in the front section of the boat, and then a woman sitting by herself at the back, in the open air.
Closer, closer … Sabir could practically hit it with a stone. Someone on the boat might even catch sight of his head through the scrub. Too late, he can’t move now. Snatches of conversation float off the river, filtered through the jerky moan of the engine. Impossible to make out what they’re saying, though; just a jumble of half-words. The commandant is in front, chatting to a uniformed man at the wheel. An occasional laugh breaks through.
Sabir wonders why he has left his wife unattended at the back of the boat. Fresh off the ship from Europe, she must be feeling overwhelmed, disorientated, frightened even. She’s wearing a sleeveless dress – fashionable in Paris perhaps but utterly bizarre here, out on this kilometres-wide expanse of muddy water. Her hair’s cut into a dark helmet of a bob. Rarely has Sabir seen someone who looks quite so singular, so alone, as she fans herself listlessly in the pre-storm humidity. She’s staring out into the forest, and for a second or two, as the boat goes by, Sabir has the feeling that their eyes lock, that she’s staring right through his eye sockets to the back of his skull, his mind naked and transparent to her gaze. The moment stretches out to an infinity. How amazingly pale she looks. She’s more world-weary, older than he’d imagined her, but not by much. She’s quietly weeping – at least he thinks so, it’s hard to tell from where he’s hidden. It’s exactly how Sabir dreamt the scene, days or weeks before. He finds himself thinking: ‘You don’t weep like that unless you’ve known happiness first.’ He recalls that first day in the forest on his way to camp, when he stopped in a clearing to eat his lunch, and the vision he had of his fiancée in their bedsit in Belleville.