Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  “I get it. The Irish nun will read the letter in French and translate it for the Mother Superior. Very good. I’m off.”

  “Hey! Wait for the letter!”

  “Right! José, get the car ready. And I want two policemen,” he called through the half-open door.

  I sat down at the warden’s desk and wrote the following letter on prison stationery:

  “When God led me to your house where I thought I would receive the help which is owed the persecuted according to Christian law, I entrusted you with a sack of pearls that belonged to me as a pledge that I wouldn’t run away. Some vile creature thought it his or her duty to expose me to the police who promptly arrested me on your premises. I hope that the miserable soul who committed this deed is not one of the daughters of God in your house. To tell you that I forgive this vicious soul would be a lie. On the contrary, I pray to God that He will punish whoever was capable of such a monstrous crime. I ask you to give Warden Cesario the bag of pearls I entrusted to you. I know he will return it to me faithfully. This letter will serve as a receipt. Sincerely yours, etc.”

  The convent was five miles from Santa Marta; the car was back in an hour and a half. The warden sent for me. “Here they are. Count them—see if any are missing.”

  “I think they’re all here.”

  “You’re sure none are missing?”

  “I’m sure. Tell me what happened.”

  “When I arrived at the convent, the Mother Superior was in the courtyard. With the two policemen at my side, I said to her, ‘Perhaps you can guess the serious matter that has brought me here. I wish to talk to the Irish sister in your presence.’”

  “Then what?”

  “The sister trembled as she read your letter to the Mother Superior. The Mother Superior said nothing. She looked down, opened the drawer of her desk and said, ‘Here is the bag of pearls, untouched. May God forgive the person who committed this terrible crime. Tell Henri that we pray for him.’ That was all there was to it!” The warden beamed with satisfaction.

  “When do we sell the pearls?”

  “Tomorrow. I won’t ask you where they came from. I know you’re a murderer, but I also know that you’re a man of your word. Here, please take this ham, the bottle of wine and the French bread. I want you to celebrate this red-letter day with your friends.”

  I arrived in our cell with a two-quart bottle of Chianti, a smoked ham weighing a good eight pounds and four long loaves of French bread. We had a feast.

  “Do you think a lawyer will be able to help us?”

  I burst out laughing. The poor idiots. Even they had fallen for the business about the lawyer.

  “I don’t know. We have to study the situation, get some advice, before we give anybody any money.”

  “The best thing would be to pay only if the lawyer gets us off,” Clousiot said.

  “Good idea. We’ll have to find a lawyer who’ll go along with that.” I said no more. I felt a little ashamed.

  The Lebanese came back the next day. “It’s very complicated,” he said. “First, we have to classify the pearls according to size, color and shape—whether round or baroque.” And, in addition, the Lebanese said he’d have to bring along another, more competent buyer. It took us four days. He paid thirty thousand pesos. At the last moment I took back a pink pearl and two black ones to give to the wife of the Belgian consul. They told me that those three pearls alone were worth at least five thousand, but I took them all the same.

  The Belgian consul made a great to-do about accepting the pearls, but he agreed to keep the fifteen thousand pesos for me. So I was now in possession of over twenty-seven thousand pesos. All I had left to do was set up the third deal.

  “Warden, how much would you have to pay to buy a business that would earn you more than you get now?”

  “A good business would cost me between forty-five and sixty thousand pesos.”

  “Then why don’t you go into business?”

  “I haven’t got half enough capital.”

  “Listen, Warden. This is my third proposition.”

  “You’re not playing games with me?”

  “I’m not, believe me. You want my twenty-seven thousand pesos? They’re yours for the asking.”

  “How so?”

  “Make it possible for me to escape.”

  “Look, Frenchie. I know you don’t trust me. Maybe you were right before. But you’ve helped me out of the poverty I lived in, I’m able to buy a house, send my children to private school … Now I’m your friend. I don’t want to rob you or see you killed, so I’ll give it to you straight: here there’s nothing more I can do for you, not for all the money in the world. I can’t help you escape with any hope of success.”

  “And what if I prove you’re wrong?”

  “Then we’ll see. But think about it first.”

  “Warden, do you know any fishermen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you get one of them to sell me his boat and take me out to sea?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What would a boat be worth?”

  “Two thousand pesos.”

  “How would it be if I gave the fisherman seven thousand and you twenty thousand?”

  “Frenchie, ten thousand is enough for me. Keep something for yourself.”

  “Will you make the arrangements?”

  “Are you going alone?”

  “No.”

  “How many then?”

  “Let me talk to my friends.”

  I was astonished at the change in his attitude. Despite his sinister face, there were good things hidden in the bottom of his heart.

  I talked to Clousiot and Maturette in the yard. They said they’d go with me, whatever I decided. The way they put their lives in my hands gave me deep satisfaction. I would never take advantage of their faith; I would always be prudent—it was a great responsibility. But I had to tell our other companions. We were just finishing a domino tournament. It was almost nine. I called out “Coffee!” and we were served six hot ones.

  “I’ve got to talk to you. This is the way things are. I think I’m going to be able to get away on a cavale. But unfortunately only three of us can go. The natural thing is for me to go with Clousiot and Maturette because we escaped from the bagne together. If any of you don’t like this, speak up. I’m listening.”

  “No,” said the Breton, “it seems fair to me. You escaped from the bagne together. Besides you wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t asked to be let off in Colombia. But thanks all the same for asking our opinion. I hope to God you succeed—if you’re caught, it’s certain death.”

  “We know,” Clousiot and Maturette agreed.

  The warden spoke to me the next afternoon. He’d found someone. He wanted to know what supplies we wanted in the boat.

  “A barrel with twelve gallons of fresh water, fifty pounds of cornmeal and six quarts of oil. That’s all.”

  “Good God!” the warden exploded. “You can’t go to sea with only that!”

  “I sure as hell can.”

  “You’re a brave man, Frenchie.”

  So it was settled. Then he added coldly, “Believe it or not, I’m doing this both for my children and for you. You deserve it because you have courage.”

  I thanked him.

  “How can we arrange this so no one will know I’m involved?”

  “You won’t be involved. I’ll leave at night when your assistant’s on duty.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Tomorrow I want you to take one of the policemen off night duty. Then, in three days, take another one off. When only one’s left, install a sentry box facing the cell door. On the first rainy night the guard will take shelter in the sentry box and we’ll go out the rear window. The only other thing you have to do is short-circuit the lights on the wall. The way to do that is to take a yard of brass wire weighted with stones at either end and throw it over the two wires connecting the lights on the wall with the utility pole. As for th
e fisherman, see that he attaches the boat by a chain and that he forces the padlock himself so I don’t have to waste time doing it. Also the sails should be ready to hoist and there should be three paddles to get us out into the open.”

  “But the boat has a small motor.”

  “Ah, so much the better. Have him leave the motor running as if he were warming it up, and then go to a nearby café for a drink. When he sees us coming, he should stand by the stern of the boat in a black oilskin.”

  “What about the money?”

  “I’ll cut your bills in half. I’ll pay the fisherman his seven thousand in advance. I’ll give you the halves of your bills ahead of time, and the other halves will be given you by one of the Frenchmen staying behind. I’ll tell you which one.”

  “I see you don’t trust me. That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but you might not do the short-circuit right. Then I don’t pay you, because without the short-circuit, we can’t get out.”

  “O.K.”

  Everything was ready. Through the warden I paid the fisherman his seven thousand pesos. For five days there had been just one guard, and the sentry box was installed. We waited only for the rain, but it wouldn’t come. The bars had been cut with a saw donated by the warden. The cut was well disguised and, in addition, it was hidden by a cage which housed a parrot who had learned to say “Merde.” We were in torment. Each night we waited, but no rain. At this time of year it was unbelievable. The smallest cloud beyond our window filled us with hope, then nothing. It was enough to drive you nuts. We had now been ready for sixteen days; sixteen nights of watching with our hearts in our mouths. One Sunday morning the warden came for me in the yard and took me back to his office. He gave me a packet of the half bills and three thousand whole pesos.

  “What goes on?”

  “Frenchie, my friend, tonight’s your last chance. You leave for Barranquilla tomorrow morning at six. You get only three thousand pesos back from the fisherman because he spent the rest. If God means it to rain tonight, the fisherman will be waiting for you, and when you take the boat, you can give him the rest of his money. I trust you.”

  It didn’t rain.

  THE CAVALES AT BARRANQUILLA

  At six in the morning eight soldiers and two corporals accompanied by a lieutenant handcuffed us, and we set off for Barranquilla in an army truck. We did the hundred and ten miles in three and a half hours. At ten o’clock we were in the prison called the “80,” Calle Medellin, in Barranquilla. So much effort to avoid going to Barranquilla, and there we were all the same! It was an important city, the biggest port in Colombia, situated inland on an estuary of the river Magdalena. Its prison was big too: four hundred prisoners and nearly a hundred guards. It was organized like a European prison, with double walls more than twenty-five feet high.

  We were received by the prison’s general staff and the director, Don Gregorio. The prison had four yards, two on one side, two on the other, separated by a long chapel which was used for mass as well as the visitors’ room. We were put in the yard for the most dangerous prisoners. When they searched us, they found my twenty-three thousand pesos and the arrows. I thought it was my duty to warn the director that they were poisoned—it didn’t exactly help our reputations.

  “These Frenchies even have poisoned arrows!”

  Barranquilla was the most dangerous stage of our adventure. From here we’d be turned over to the French authorities. Yes, Barranquilla was crucial. We had to escape from here no matter what the cost. It was all or nothing.

  Our cell was in the middle of the yard. And it wasn’t a cell; it was a cage. It had a cement roof resting on thick iron bars with the toilets and washstands in one corner. The other prisoners—about a hundred of them—were in cells recessed into the four walls, their grills opening onto the yard, which was about sixty by a hundred and twenty feet. At the top of each grill was a sort of metal overhang to keep the rain from coming into the cells. We six Frenchmen were the only occupants of the central cage and we were exposed night and day to the view of both prisoners and guards. We spent the day in the yard, from six in the morning until six at night. We could enter or leave the cage whenever we wanted. We could talk, walk about, even eat in the yard.

  Two days after our arrival the six of us were taken to the chapel, where we found ourselves in the presence of the director, some policemen and seven or eight newspaper reporters and photographers.

  “You are escaped prisoners from the bagne in French Guiana?”

  “We never said we weren’t.”

  “What were your crimes?”

  “That’s of no importance. What is important is that we’ve committed no offense on Colombian territory and that your country has not only refused to let us start a new life but has played bloodhound for the French government.”

  “Colombia doesn’t want you in its territory.”

  “And we don’t want to remain. We were arrested on the high seas; we weren’t trying to come here. In fact, we were making every effort to get as far away from here as possible.”

  A journalist from a Catholic newspaper said, “The French, like the Colombians, are almost all Catholics.”

  “You may be baptized Catholics, but the way you act is hardly Christian,” I said.

  “What do you have against us?”

  “You collaborated with the authorities who were out for our necks. You did their work for them: you seized our boat with everything we owned—a gift, I might add, from the Catholics of Curaçao, represented by their noble bishop, Irénée de Bruyne. You weren’t willing to let us try to rehabilitate ourselves, and, still worse, you prevented us from going anywhere else—to a country that might be willing to take that risk.”

  “You hold this against us Colombians?”

  “Not the Colombian people, but their police and their judicial system.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That if there’s a will, all errors can be corrected. Give us a chance to sail to another country.”

  “We’ll try.”

  Once back in the yard, Maturette said, “Well, well! Did you get that? Let’s have no illusions this time, mecs! We’re in the soup all right, and it’s not going to be easy to get out.”

  “Well, friends, I don’t know whether we’re stronger going it together or not. But remember you’re all free to do what you think best. As for me, I’ve got to get out of here, and that’s that.”

  I was called to the visitors’ room on Thursday, where a well-dressed man of about forty-five was waiting for me. I looked at him hard. He had an uncanny resemblance to Louis Dega.

  “Are you Papillon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Louis Dega’s brother, Joseph. I read about what happened in the newspapers.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You saw my brother over there? You know him?”

  I described Dega’s odyssey in detail right up to the moment we separated at the hospital. Then he told me he had learned via Marseilles that his brother was on the Iles du Salut. He also told me there were about a dozen Frenchmen in Barranquilla who had come here with their women to seek their fortune. They were all pimps. In a special quarter of the town about twenty ladies carried on the distinguished French tradition of skilled prostitution. From Cairo to Lebanon, from England to Australia, from Buenos Aires to Caracas, from Saigon to Brazzaville, you found the same men and the same women practicing their specialty. So much for that.

  He also told me that the Barranquilla pimps were worried: they were afraid our arrival might disturb their peace and endanger their flourishing trade. If one or all of us escaped, the police would immediately go after them, even if they were in no way involved. In the process the police might uncover a lot of things, such as false papers and invalid or expired visitors’ permits. A few would be in serious difficulties if they were discovered.

  He gave me all kinds of information, then added that he was at my disposal for anything
I had in mind and would come to see me in the chapel every Thursday and Sunday. I thanked this stalwart friend, who was to give proof many times over that he was a man of his word. He also told me that, according to the newspapers, France had received permission to have us extradited.

  When I got back to the cell, I gave them the news. “Gentlemen, let us cherish no illusions. Our extradition is on the books. A special boat is coming from French Guiana to take us back. In addition, our presence here appears to be a source of anxiety to some French pimps who have a nice business going on in this city. Not the man who just came to see me. He couldn’t care less what happens to them, but his colleagues are afraid that if one of us escapes, they might all be in trouble.”

  Everyone laughed—they thought I was joking. Clousiot mimicked, “Dear Mr. Pimp, may I please have your permission to escape?”

  “It’s not funny. If any of the pimps come to see us, we must send them away. O.K.?”

  “O.K.”

  As I’ve already mentioned, there were about a hundred Colombian prisoners in our yard. They were far from stupid. There were clever thieves, distinguished forgers, ingenious and spirited crooks, specialists in assault and battery, narcotics smugglers and a few specially trained assassins. In this part of the world the services of these assassins were in demand by the rich, the politicians and successful adventurers.

  There was great variety in the color of their skin: from the black of the Senegalese to the tea color of the Martinique Creoles, from the brick red of the Indians with their straight, almost purple hair, to pure white. I made some contacts among them and tried to size up their desire or ability to make a break. Most of them were like me: they expected, or already had, long sentences and therefore were always ready for a cavale.

  There was a walk along the top of the four walls that enclosed our yard; it was brightly lit at night, and at each of the four corners there was a small tower for the guard. So, night and day, there were four guards on duty, plus one more at the door to the chapel. This guard wasn’t armed.

  The food was adequate, and several prisoners sold food, coffee, or fruit juices—orange, pineapple, papaya, etc.—they got from the outside. From time to time they were the victims of assaults executed with amazing speed. Too fast for them to see it coming, a large napkin would be tied over their faces to keep them from crying out, and a knife held against their backs or necks, ready to plunge in at their slightest move. Before they knew what had hit them, they’d be cleaned out. Then they’d be given a sharp whack at the nape of the neck and the napkin removed. And that would be the end of it. No one ever mentioned it again. Sometimes, though, the “shopkeeper” would put away his goods—somewhat like closing shop—and go looking for his assailant. If he found him, there was always a battle with knives.