Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  I’d now been on my new regimen for ten days. I was permanently hungry. A constant weariness had taken hold of me like a chronic disease. I missed the coconut terribly, the cigarettes not so much. I went to bed very early and I soon escaped from my cell. Yesterday I was in Paris at the Rat Mort, drinking champagne with some friends, among them Antonio of London—originally from the Balearic Islands—who spoke French like a Parisian and English like a real “roast-beef.” The day after—at the Marronnier on the Boulevard de Clichy—he killed one of his friends with five shots of his revolver. Things happened fast in the underworld, these changes from friendship to mortal hatred. Yes, yesterday I was in Paris, dancing to the sound of an accordion at a ball in the Petit Jardin on the Avenue de Saint Ouen whose clientele consisted entirely of people from Marseilles and Corsica. On this particular trip my friends were so real that there was no question of their presence or mine in the many places where I’d had such good times.

  So, without walking too much, I achieved the same results with my reduced diet that I had with fatigue before. And the pictures of the past caught me up with such force that I actually spent more hours free than in the cell.

  One month to go. For three months I’d had only a piece of bread and hot broth with a bit of boiled meat at noon. In my state of perpetual hunger, I examined the meat the minute it was served to make sure it wasn’t just skin, as so often happened.

  I was very nervous this morning after drinking my coffee. I’d let myself eat half my bread, something I’d never done before. Usually I broke it in more or less equal pieces and ate one at six, one at noon, one at six in the evening and one during the night. I scolded myself: “Why did you do that? Why do you wait until it’s almost over to have these lapses?” “I’m hungry; I feel weak.” “What do you expect? How can you be strong on what you’ve been eating? What’s important—and this puts you ahead of the game—is that you’re weak but you’re not sick. With a little luck, la mangeuse d’hommes isn’t going to get you.” I was sitting on the cement stool after a two-hour walk. Thirty more days, or seven hundred and twenty hours, and the door would open and someone would say: “Charrière, out. Your two years in solitary are over.” And what would I say? “At last my two-years’ Calvary is over.” Oh, no! If it was the warden for whom I’d played the amnesia act, I’d have to keep it up. I’d say coldly, “What? I’m pardoned? Do I leave for France? Is my sentence over?” Just to see his face and impress him with the injustice of the fast he’d condemned me to. “My goodness me, what’s happened to you?” What the hell! Injustice or not, the warden couldn’t care less whether he’d made a mistake or not. What could it matter to that kind of man? Officers in the bagne weren’t normal people. No man worthy of the name could belong to such a profession. Besides, you can get used to anything in this life, even to being a professional bastard. Maybe when he’s got one foot in the grave, the fear of God—if he’s religious—will make him repent. Not real remorse for his past actions, but fear that on the day of judgment it will be his turn to be condemned.

  When I got out of this place, wherever they put me next, I’d have no truck with these types. A definite barrier divided people into two groups: on one side you had inertia, a soulless bureaucratic authority and instinctive sadism; on the other, me and men like me who might have committed crimes but who had learned certain qualities in suffering the consequences: pity, kindness, sacrifice, nobility and courage.

  In all honesty, I preferred being a convict to being a bagne official.

  Twenty more days. I was very weak. My bread ration seemed to be getting smaller. Who could lower himself to such a dastardly trick? For several days now my soup had been hot water and a bone with a tiny piece of meat or a bit of skin attached to it. I was afraid of getting sick. It was an obsession. I was so weak that I dreamed while I was wide awake. This deep weariness and the depression that went with it worried me terribly. I tried to fight it, but it was hard to get through the twenty-four hours of each day. I heard a scratching at my door. I quickly snatched the note. It was phosphorescent, from Dega and Galgani. It said, “Send us a word. We’re worried about your health. Nineteen more days. Chin up. Louis—Ignace.”

  There was a small piece of paper and a pencil stub. I wrote, “Holding out but very weak. Thanks. Papi.”

  The broom brushed my door again and I pushed the note under it. Those words were better than the cigarettes, the coconut, better than all of it put together. This wonderful show of friendship and loyalty was the whiplash I needed. Out there someone knew about me, and if I fell sick, my friends would certainly see that a doctor took care of me. I was nearing the end of this exhausting race against death and madness. No, I wouldn’t get sick. I would stay as still as possible in order to save calories. I’d cut out the two-hour walk in the morning and afternoon. It was the only way to hold on. I stayed down for twelve hours at night; the other twelve I sat on my stone bench without moving. From time to time I got up and flexed my arms, then sat down again. Ten days left.

  I was taking a walk in Trinidad, the sound of Javanese violins soothing me, when a horrible scream brought me back to reality. It came from a cell behind mine, very near. I heard:

  “You bastard, come down here in my cell. Aren’t you tired of looking at me from up there? Don’t you realize you’re missing half the show because there’s so little light in this hole?”

  “Shut up or you’ll get it good,” the guard called down.

  “Oh, don’t make me laugh, you shithead! What’s worse than this silence? Punish me as much as you like, cutthroat, beat me if it makes you happy, you’ll never think of anything worse than this silence. I can’t, I tell you! I can’t go on without talking! For three years I should have been telling you sons of bitches to go fuck yourself. And I was so dumb I waited thirty-six months because I was afraid of being punished! Well, screw the whole lot of you, you rotten brown-nosers!”

  A few moments later I heard the door open and a voice, “No, not that way. Put it on him inside out—it works better that way.” And the poor bastard screamed:

  “Put the hair shirt on any way you like, asshole! Inside out if you like, make it so tight it chokes me, pull the laces with your knees. It won’t stop me from saying your mother’s a whore and you’re a pile of shit!”

  They must have gagged him, for I heard nothing more. The door closed again. Apparently the scene had upset the young guard, because a few minutes later he stopped outside my cell and said, “He must have gone crazy.”

  “You think so? But everything he said made sense.”

  I suppose that stunned the guard, for as he left he said, “Are you next?”

  The incident wrenched me from my island and its good people, from the violins, the breasts of the Hindu girls, the harbor at Port of Spain, and put me back in the sad reality of the Réclusion.

  Ten more days: two hundred and forty hours.

  Perhaps my tactic of not moving was doing the trick, or else the note from my friends had encouraged me. Whatever it was, I was feeling stronger, and this feeling was enhanced by the vivid contrast between me—two hundred and forty hours away from liberation, weak but whole in mind and body—and the poor bastard two yards away from me just entering the first phase of madness. He wouldn’t live long because his rebellion gave them the green light to lavish on him their subtlest treatments, designed to kill in the most scientific way possible. I reproached myself for feeling stronger at his expense. I wondered if I, too, was one of those egotists who, warmly dressed, could watch a long line of poor suckers on their way to work, running like a flock of sheep to catch the first métro or bus, and because they were ill dressed, frozen with cold, their hands blue in the morning chill, could feel even warmer than before, my own sense of comfort intensified. But life is based on comparisons: I may have ten years, but Papillon is in for life; I’m in for life and he’s got fifteen, but I’m twenty-eight and he’s fifty. And so on.

  I was almost at the end of solitary and I fully expecte
d to be normal in every respect in six months—health, morale and energy—and ready for a spectacular cavale. They talked about the first one; the second would be inscribed on the walls of the bagne. I never doubted it. I was certain I’d be gone within six months.

  It was my last night at the Réclusion: seventeen thousand five hundred and eight hours since I’d first entered cell number 234. My door had been opened once, to take me before the warden to be punished. Aside from my neighbor, with whom I’d exchanged a few short words for a few seconds each day, I’d been spoken to four times. Once to tell me I was to lower my bunk at the sound of the whistle—on the first day. Once the doctor: “Turn around. Cough.” A longer and more animated conversation with the warden. And the other day, a few words with the guard who had been upset over the madman next door. That’s not exactly overdoing the diversions! I fell into a quiet sleep with one thought: tomorrow that door will finally open. Tomorrow I’ll see the sun, and if they send me to Royale, I’ll breathe the air of the sea. Tomorrow I’ll be free. I burst out laughing. What do you mean, free? Tomorrow you return to your regular sentence of hard labor for life. Is that what you call free? I know, I know. But it’s one hell of a lot better than what I’ve just been through. I wondered how I would find Clousiot and Maturette.

  My coffee and bread came at six o’clock. I wanted to say, “But I leave today, there must be some mistake.” Then I quickly remembered that I was an amnesiac and if I let on I’d been fooling the warden, he was quite capable of giving me thirty days in the dungeon. And besides, it was the law: I had to be let out of the Réclusion of Saint-Joseph today.

  It was eight o’clock. I ate all my bread. I’d find something to eat in the camp. The door opened. The assistant warden and two guards were there. “Charrière, your sentence is finished. Follow me.

  I went out. In the courtyard the sun was already so strong it dazzled me. I felt weak. My legs were rubbery and black spots danced before my eyes. And I’d walked only a hundred and fifty feet.

  As we neared the Administration Building, I saw Maturette and Clousiot. Maturette was a skeleton, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken. Clousiot was on a stretcher. He was ashen and had the smell of death. I thought, They don’t look good, my old pals. Do I look like that? I was dying to see myself in a mirror.

  “Well, how goes it?” I asked.

  No answer.

  I repeated, “How goes it?”

  “O.K.,” Maturette said softly.

  I wanted to tell them our sentence in solitary was over and we could talk now. I kissed Clousiot on the cheek. He looked at me with bright eyes and smiled.

  “Good-by, Papillon,” he said.

  “What do you mean, good-by!”

  “I’m through. It’s over.”

  He died a few days later in the hospital at Royale. He was thirty-two and had been given twenty years for the theft of a bicycle he hadn’t stolen.

  The warden arrived. “Have them come in. Maturette and Clousiot, you conducted yourselves well. I’ve put on your reports: ‘Good conduct.’ But you, Charrière, you committed a serious offense. I’ve put down what you deserve: ‘Bad conduct.’”

  “Excuse me, Warden, what was my offense?”

  “Really, you don’t remember the discovery of the cigarettes and the coconut?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Come on now. What have you lived on the last four months?”

  “How do you mean? What have I eaten? Same as when I arrived.”

  “That’s the end! What did you eat last night?”

  “Per usual, what they gave me. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe it was beans or rice, or some other vegetable.”

  “So you ate last night?”

  “For God’s sake, you think I throw my food away?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I give up. O.K. I’ll scratch ‘Bad conduct.’ Make up another release paper … I’m putting down ‘Good conduct.’ Are you satisfied?”

  “That’s better. It’s what I deserve.” And with that we left the office.

  The great door of the Réclusion opened to let us through. Escorted by one guard, we walked slowly down the path that led to the camp. The sea lay below us, sparkling. Royale was opposite, very green and dotted with red roofs. Diable was over there, grim and wild. I asked the guard if I could sit down for a few minutes. Maturette and I sat on either side of Clousiot and grasped each other’s hands. The contact aroused a strange emotion and we embraced without speaking.

  The guard said, “Come on, guys, we’ve got to get going.”

  Slowly, very slowly, we walked down to the camp. Maturette and I went in together, still holding each other by the hand, followed by the two stretcher-bearers carrying our dying friend.

  LIFE AT ROYALE

  As soon as we got to the camp, we were met by the welcoming stares of the bagnards. Pierrot le Fou, Jean Sartrou, Colondini, Chissilia were all there. The guard told us we had to go to the infirmary, and twenty men escorted us across the yard. In a few minutes Maturette and I had been presented with a dozen packs of cigarettes, tobacco, hot café au lait and hot cocoa. Everybody wanted to give us something. The orderly gave Clousiot a shot of camphor oil, and adrenalin for his heart. An emaciated black said, “Orderly, give him my vitamins. He needs them more than me.” Pierre le Bordelais said, “Do you need any money? Before you leave for Royale, I’ll have time to scrape some up.”

  “No, thanks. I have some. But how do you know I’m going to Royale?”

  “The clerk told us. All three of you. I think you’re all going to the hospital there.”

  The orderly was a mountain bandit from Corsica. His name was Essari. I got to know him very well and later on I’ll tell his story; it’s an interesting one. The two hours in the infirmary went like a flash. We ate and drank our fill, then, full and happy, we set off for Royale. Clousiot’s eyes stayed closed except when I came near him and put my hand on his forehead. Then he’d open them and say, “My friend Papi, we’re real friends, aren’t we?”

  “We’re more than that. We’re brothers.”

  With our one guard, we started down the hill, Clousiot on the stretcher, Maturette and I on either side. At the entrance to the camp all the cons said good-by and wished us luck. Pierrot le Fou slipped a musette bag full of tobacco, cigarettes, chocolate and cans of milk around my neck. Someone gave Maturette one too. Only the orderly Fernandez and the guard went with us to the quay. Each of us got a slip for the hospital at Royale. I gathered that the two orderlies, Essari and Fernandez, had taken the responsibility for putting us in the hospital; no doctor had been consulted. The boat arrived. There were six rowers, two armed guards in the stern and another at the helm. One of the rowers was Chapar. We set off. The oars dipped into the water, and as he rowed, Chapar said, “How are things, Papi? You get the coconuts?”

  “Not for the last four months.”

  “I know. There was an accident. The mec was good, though. He didn’t squeal.”

  “What’s happened to him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “No. How?”

  “The orderly said somebody kicked him and ruptured his liver.”

  We landed on the quay at Royale, the largest of the three islands. The clock over the baker’s said three o’clock. The afternoon sun was hot, too hot. The guard asked for stretcher-bearers. Two hefty convicts spotless in white lifted Clousiot as if he were a feather, and Maturette and I followed behind. A guard carrying some papers walked with us.

  The path was over twelve feet wide and covered with pebbles. It was hard for us to walk. Luckily the stretcher-bearers stopped from time to time and waited for us. I’d sit on the arm of the stretcher near Clousiot’s head and pass my hand gently over his head and brow. Each time he smiled, opened his eyes and said, “Good old Papi.”

  Maturette took his hand.

  He seemed happy to feel us near him. Near the entrance we were met by a gang on their way to work. Almost all the cons were from my convoy. As t
hey passed, each said something friendly. We reached the level ground, and there in the shade in front of a square white building the islands’ highest authorities sat waiting for us. We walked up to them.

  Without getting up, Warden Barrot said, “So, it wasn’t too hard at the Réclusion? And the man over there on the stretcher, who is he?”

  “It’s Clousiot.”

  He looked at him and said, “Take them all to the hospital. When they’re ready to leave, let me know. I want to see them before they go to the camp.”

  In the hospital we were given clean beds with sheets and pillows in a large, well-lighted room. The first man I saw was Chatal, who had been the orderly in the maximum-security ward at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. He began immediately to look after Clousiot and ordered a guard to call in a doctor. The doctor arrived about five o’clock. After a long and detailed examination he shook his head unhappily and wrote down some orders. Then he came over to examine me.

  “We’re not very good friends, Papillon and I,” the doctor said to Chatal.

  “I’m surprised. He’s a good man, Doctor.”

  “That may be. But he made trouble for me.”