Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  I was summoned back to the office of the chief of police during the afternoon.

  “The governor has given orders that you’re to be allowed out in the prison yard. Tell your companions they’re not to try to escape or there’ll be serious consequences for all of you. As leader of the group, you can go into town for two hours every morning, from ten to twelve, and every afternoon from three to five. Have you got any money?”

  “Yes. English and French.”

  “A policeman in civilian clothes will accompany you wherever you want to go.”

  “What are you going to do with us?”

  “I think we’ll try to put you separately on oil tankers of different nationalities. Curaçao has one of the biggest refineries in the world which processes the oil from Venezuela. From twenty to twenty-five tankers arrive and leave every day of the year. That would be your best solution, for then you’d be able to enter almost any country with no problem.”

  “Where do you mean? Latin America? North America? Countries under British rule?”

  “No, they’re out of the question. Europe is equally impossible. But don’t worry. Trust us. We want to help set you on the way to a new life.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I reported all this faithfully to my companions.

  Clousiot, the most skeptical of our band, said, “What’s your opinion, Papillon?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m afraid it’s some sort of trick to keep us quiet, to keep us from trying to escape.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  The Breton, however, thought the plan was great, and the mec of the flatiron was jubilant. “No more boats, no more adventures. We each arrive on a tanker in some country or other and disappear into the sticks with official sanction.” Leroux agreed.

  “What do you think, Maturette?”

  And this kid of nineteen, this child accidentally turned convict with features more delicate than a woman’s, said in his soft voice, “You really think those pigs are going to cook us up fake identity cards? I don’t. At most, they might look the other way while we sneak aboard a tanker, but that’s about it. And the only reason they’d do that is to get rid of us. At least, that’s what I think. I don’t trust them.”

  I went out very little—sometimes in the morning to do a few errands. We’d now been here a week and nothing had happened. We were getting nervous. One afternoon we noticed three priests escorted by the police going from cell to cell. They spent a long time in the cell nearest ours, where there was a black who had been arrested for rape. Assuming they were coming to us next, we went into our room and sat on our beds. Sure enough, the three of them came in, along with Dr. Naal, the chief of police and a man with white-and-gold braid who looked like a naval officer.

  “Monsignor, these are the French,” the chief of police said in French. “Their conduct has been exemplary.”

  “I congratulate you, my children. Let’s sit around this table. It’s easier to talk that way.” Everybody sat on the benches, including the men who had come with the bishop. Someone brought in a stool from the courtyard and placed it at the head of the table so that he could see everybody.

  “Most Frenchmen are Catholics. Are any of you not Catholic?” Nobody raised his hand. Thinking back to the priest at the Conciergerie and how I’d been virtually baptized, I decided I could consider myself a Catholic too.

  “My friends, I am of French descent. My name is Irénée de Bruyne. My ancestors were Huguenots who fled to Holland when Catherine de Medici was on the rampage. So I have French blood, I am the Bishop of Curaçao, a city with more Protestants than Catholics but where the Catholics are devout. Tell me your situation.”

  “We are waiting to be put on board oil tankers.”

  “How many men like you have left here in this manner?”

  “None yet.”

  “Hm. What do you say to that, Officer? Please answer me in French; you speak it so well.”

  “Monsignor, the governor sincerely believed he was helping these men, but I must confess that up to now not a single ship’s captain has been willing to take on a convict, mainly because they have no passports.”

  “Then that’s where we should start. Can’t the governor issue special passports?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t discussed that.”

  There was a pause, then the bishop said, “I will say a mass for you the day after tomorrow. Will you come for confession tomorrow afternoon? I will personally hear your confessions so that I can intercede with the good Lord and ask him to pardon your sins.” He turned to the chief of police. “Will you see that they’re brought to the cathedral at three o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want them brought by taxi or in a private car.”

  “I’ll bring them myself, Monsignor,” said Dr. Naal.

  “Thank you, my son. My children, I can promise you nothing. Only this: from this moment on, I will do my utmost to help you.” Seeing Naal kiss his ring and the Breton, too, we each placed our lips on it, then escorted him to his car, which was parked in the court.

  The next day everyone confessed to the bishop. I was last. “My child, what was your worst sin?”

  “Father, to begin with, I was not baptized, but where I was in prison in France, a priest told me that whether I was baptized or not, we were all children of the Lord.”

  “He was right. Good. Go on.”

  I described my life in detail. This prince of the Church listened patiently and at length. He took my hands in his and looked at me intensely. When I came to the parts that were hard to confess, he looked down to make it easier for me. The expression in the eyes of this sixty-year-old priest was so pure that he seemed more like a child. His infinite goodness shone through his features and his pale gray eyes soothed me like balm on a wound. He talked softly, very softly, always my hands in his. “Sometimes God wills for one of His children to experience human wickedness so that he will emerge stronger and nobler than ever. Don’t you see, my son, that if you hadn’t had this Calvary to climb, you would never have been able to raise yourself so near to God’s truth? Let me put it another way: the men, the system, the cogs of the machine that ground you down, the evil men who framed you and tortured you, have rendered you the greatest service possible. They brought forth a new man, superior to the first, and if today you recognize honor, goodness and charity, and realize the energy you will need to surmount the obstacles and become someone superior, you owe it to them. Your idea of vengeance, of punishing everybody according to the injury inflicted on you, goes against the grain of your character. You must be a saver of men, and not live in order to do evil, even though you think the evil is justified. God was generous to you. He told you, ‘Help yourself and I’ll help you.’ He helped you in so many ways. He even allowed you to save other men and lead them to freedom. But most important, don’t make so much of your sins. There are many people in higher positions who are guilty of much worse. Only they haven’t experienced the weight of man’s idea of justice and therefore have missed the opportunity to rise above it as you did.”

  “Thank you, Father. You’ve done me enormous good. I will never forget it.” And I kissed his hands.

  “You are leaving soon, my son, and will meet new dangers. I would like to baptize you before you go. What do you say?”

  “Father, leave me as I am for now. My father raised me without religion. He has a heart of gold. When my mother died, he found new words, new ways to fill her place in my life. If I let myself be baptized now, it would be a kind of betrayal. Give me time to become completely free, to begin a normal life, then I’ll write and ask him if he minds if I give up his philosophy and have myself baptized.”

  “I understand, my son, and I’m sure that God does too. I bless you and ask God to protect you.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked Dr. Naal.

  “I’m going to ask the governor to tell Customs to give me first choice of the smugglers’ boats at the next auction. Yo
u’ll come with me to choose the one you like best. As for the rest of it, the food and clothing, that will be easy.”

  After the bishop’s sermon we had many visitors. Everybody wanted to get to know us. They usually came about six o’clock and brought us things which they left on our beds without comment. About two in the afternoon we had visits from the Little Sisters of the Poor, accompanied by their Mother Superior, who spoke very good French. They always brought baskets full of things they had cooked themselves. The Mother Superior was young—I’d say less than forty. Her hair was hidden under her white coif, but her eyes were blue and her eyelashes blond. She came from an important Dutch family (according to Dr. Naal) and had written to Holland to see if there were some way of setting us free other than sending us back to sea. We had good times together, and she loved to hear me tell the story of our escapes. If I forgot something or missed a detail, she brought me gently to heel: “Don’t go so fast, Henri. You skipped the story of the hocco.... Why did you forget the ants today? The ants are very important, because without them you wouldn’t have been caught by the Masked Breton!” These were wonderful moments, so completely different from all that had gone before, that they cast a strange and unreal glow over our fast dissolving past.

  I saw the boat. It was magnificent: twenty-five feet long, a good keel and a very high mast with immense sails. It was fully equipped, not to mention a cluster of customs seals. At the auction someone had started at six thousand florins (about a thousand dollars). Dr. Naal whispered a few words in the man’s ear and we got it for six thousand and one florins.

  Five days later we were ready. Freshly painted, its wealth of provisions carefully stored in the hold, our boat was fit for a king. Six suitcases, one for each of us containing new clothes, were wrapped in waterproof cloth and stowed in the cabin.

  THE PRISON IN RIO HACHA

  We left at daybreak. The doctor and the sisters saw us off. We picked up wind immediately and moved swiftly away from the quay. The sun made its radiant appearance and an uneventful day was under way. I noticed right away that we hadn’t sufficient ballast for the amount of sail we were carrying, so I decided to be cautious. The boat was a real thoroughbred: very fast, but jealous and irritable. I headed due west. We hajd thought to sneak our three new companions onto the Colombian coast. They wanted no part of a long crossing; they said they had confidence in me but not in the weather. In point of fact, we had learned from the newspapers that bad weather was on the way, including hurricanes.

  It was agreed that we should let them off on a desolate, uninhabited peninsula called La Guajira. Then we would continue on to British Honduras. The weather was glorious, and the starry night that followed our first sparkling day had in addition a brilliant half-moon to help us see. We made straight for the Colombian coast, dropped anchor and took soundings to determine if it was safe to let them off. Unfortunately the water was very deep and we had to approach dangerously near the rocky coast to find water not over five feet. We shook hands, they each dropped over the side, found their footing and, holding their suitcases on top of their heads, waded toward dry land. We watched their progress with interest and some sadness. Our companions had behaved well and had risen to every challenge. It was too bad they were leaving. Then, as they neared land, the wind died abruptly. God damn. Just so long as we weren’t anywhere near Rio Hacha, the first port with a police force. I thought we might already have cleared it, judging by the small lighthouse we had just passed which showed on the map.

  We waited and waited.... The other three had disappeared after waving good-by. Wind! For God’s sake, wind! Wind to get away from this Colombian coast and all its unknown dangers. We had no idea what they did with escaped prisoners. Finally at three in the afternoon the wind rose. I put up all the sails and, heeling perhaps a little too much, we skimmed along nicely for over two hours. Then suddenly a launch full of men appeared, heading straight for us and shooting over our heads to make us stop. I ignored them and ran on, trying to reach the open sea beyond territorial waters. No luck. The powerful launch overtook us, and with ten men aiming their guns, we had to give up.

  If these were soldiers or policemen, they wore very strange uniforms: dirty pants that had once been white and wool sweaters full of holes that had certainly never been washed. They were barefoot except for their “commander,” who was a little cleaner and better dressed. But if their clothes were ratty, their weapons were not. They were armed to the teeth, each with a cartridge belt full of bullets, an army rifle in first-class condition and, just in case, a handy large dagger in a sheath. Their “commander” looked like a half-breed assassin; he had a revolver hanging from a belt full of ammunition. Since they spoke Spanish, we had no idea what they were saying, but their expressions, gestures and voices were hostile.

  We walked from the port to the prison, passing through a village which was indeed Rio Hacha. We were flanked by six of the cutthroats with three more behind, their guns aimed right at us.

  We arrived in a prison yard surrounded by a low wall. About twenty filthy, bearded prisoners stood or sat around with equally hostile expressions. “Vamos, vamos.” We gathered that our guards were saying, “Get going, get going,” which was not easy because, although Clousiot was improving, he was still in his cast. The “commander,” who had stayed behind, now came up to us, our compass and the oilskin under his arm. He was eating our biscuits and chocolate, and we sensed immediately that we were going to be entirely cleaned out. We weren’t mistaken. They locked us up in a squalid room with one heavily barred window. On the floor were planks of wood with wooden pillows—our beds. “Frenchies, Frenchies,” a prisoner said through our window as soon as the police were gone.

  “What do you want?”

  “Frenchies, no good, no good!”

  “What’s no good?”

  “Police.”

  “Police?”

  “Yes, police no good.” Then he went away. Night fell. The room was barely lit by a weak bulb. Mosquitoes buzzed in our ears and up our noses.

  “This is great! We’re going to have to pay a pretty price for letting those guys ashore.”

  “How were we to know? It was only because there was no wind.”

  “You went too far in,” Clousiot said.

  “Enough of that. This is no time to blame ourselves or anybody else. We’ve got to help each other out, stick together like we never did before.”

  “Sorry, Papi, I guess you’re right. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  Oh, it would be too damned unfair to have fought so hard, then have our cavale end like this! They hadn’t searched us, though. I had my plan in my pocket and lost no time putting it in its place. Clousiot did the same. We were lucky to still have them. By my watch it was eight in the evening. They brought us lumps of brown sugar as big as your fist and three different kinds of rice paste cooked in salted water. “Buenas noches!” “That must mean ‘Good night,’” Maturette said. In the courtyard the next morning we were served excellent coffee in wooden bowls. The chief of police came by about eight. I asked him if I could go to the boat to collect our belongings. Either he didn’t understand me or pretended not to. The more I saw of his ugly mug, the less I liked him. On his left hip he carried a small bottle in a leather case; he took it out and uncorked it, drank a gulp, spat and handed me the flask. As this was his first friendly gesture, I accepted it and drank. It was a good thing I didn’t drink much: it was firewater and tasted like wood alcohol. I swallowed it quickly, started to cough, and the half-breed Indian laughed fit to burst.

  At ten o’clock a group of white-clad civilians appeared. There were six or seven of them and they made for what appeared to be the prison administration building. We were summoned. The men were sitting in a semicircle under the large portrait of a much decorated officer: President Alfonso López of Colombia. One of the gentlemen asked Clousiot to sit down; the rest of us remained standing. The man in the middle, a thin man with half glasses resting on his eagle’s beak, began
the interrogation.

  Instead of translating, the interpreter said, “The man who just spoke and who will conduct the interrogation is the judge of the town of Rio Hacha. The others are distinguished citizens and friends of his. I am Haitian and in charge of the electrical works for this department. I will serve as translator. Some of these men understand a little French—and maybe even the judge—but they won’t admit it.”

  This preamble annoyed the judge. He interrupted and began his interrogation, the Haitian translating.

  “You are French?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Curaçao.”

  “And before that?”

  “Trinidad.”

  “And before that?”

  “Martinique.”

  “That’s a lie. Our consul in Curaçao warned us over a week ago to watch the coast because six convicts who’d escaped from the French penitentiary were going to try to land on our territory.”

  “O.K. So we escaped from the penitentiary.”

  “You are ‘Cayeneros’?”

  “Yes.”

  “If a country as noble as France has seen fit to send you this far and mete out such severe punishment, it must be because you are very dangerous bandits.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Are you thieves or murderers?”

  “Murderers.”

  “Same thing. So you’re big shots? Where are the other three?” “They stayed in Curaçao.”

  “That’s another lie. You dropped them off thirty-five miles from here in a place called Castillette. Luckily they were arrested and will be here in a few hours. You stole your boat?”

  “No, it was a present—from the Bishop of Curaçao.”

  “Very well. You stay here as prisoners until the governor decides what to do with you. For the offense of landing your three accomplices on Colombian territory and then trying to escape to sea, I sentence the captain of the boat to three months in prison and the other two to a month. And you’d better be on your good behavior if you don’t want our police to beat you up. They’re tough men. Have you anything to say?”