Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  I jumped into the middle of the room, my knife in my hand.

  But Mouton threw his knife down and said, “You’re right, Papillon. But I don’t want to fight with knives; I’ll fist fight you to prove I’m not chicken.”

  I gave my knife to Grandet and we fought like wild dogs for almost twenty minutes. Thanks to a lucky jab to his head, I managed to beat him. We were standing next to each other over the washstands, washing the blood off our faces, when Mouton said, “It’s a fact. We go to pieces here on the islands. I’ve been here fifteen years and I haven’t even spent the thousand francs for a disinternment. That’s not good.”

  When I returned to my gourbi, Grandet and Galgani jumped on me. “Are you crazy to insult everybody that way? It’s a miracle somebody didn’t jump into the alley and cut you up right there.”

  “It was no miracle. Our gang always goes along when they know you’re right.”

  “That may be,” Grandet said. “But I wouldn’t fool around this volcano too much.” All evening long, cons came by to talk to me. They dropped in as if by chance, talked of this and that, then, as they left, said, “You were right, Papi.” After this incident the men had a higher opinion of me. From then on, although I was still considered one of the gang, my friends realized that I accepted nothing without first analyzing it and discussing the pros and cons. I also noticed that when I was croupier, there were fewer disputes, and when I gave an order, it was quickly obeyed.

  One evening an Italian named Carlino was killed. He lived with a young kid as man and wife. They were both gardeners. Carlino must have known his life was in danger, for when he was asleep the kid watched over him, and vice versa. They had put some empty boxes under their hammock so nobody could sneak up without making a noise. But they got him anyway. We heard him scream and, right afterward, a wild racket of empty boxes.

  Grandet was running a game with over thirty players sitting around him. I was talking to someone nearby. The scream and the noise of the boxes stopped the game. Everybody got up, asking what had happened. Carlino’s friend had seen nothing. The leader of our case asked if he should call in the guards. No. Since Carlino was dead, there was nothing to be done. Guards could be summoned in the morning at roll call.

  Then Grandet spoke up. “Nobody heard a thing, right? Not even you, kid. Tomorrow at reveille you notice he’s dead.”

  Everybody went back to the game.

  I was curious to see what would happen when the guards discovered there’d been a murder. The first bell rang at five-thirty. At six came the second bell and coffee. At six-thirty the third bell, and usually we went out for roll call. But today it was different. At the second bell our trusty said to the guard who accompanied the prisoner with our coffee, “Chief, a man’s been murdered.”

  “Who?”

  “Carlino.”

  “O.K.”

  Ten minutes later six guards appeared with a stretcher.

  “Where’s the dead man?”

  “Over there.”

  The dagger had gone through the hammock and into Carlino’s back. They pulled it out. “You two, take him away.” Two guards lifted him and carried him off. Daylight came. The third bell rang.

  With the bloody knife still in his hand, the head guard said, “Everybody outside for roll call. There’ll be nobody sick today.” Everybody went out. The wardens and head guards took the roll call. When it got around to Carlino, our trusty said, “Died in the night. Taken to the morgue.”

  “O.K.,” said the guard calling the roll.

  When everybody had been checked off, the head guard raised the knife and asked, “Anybody recognize this knife?” No answer. “Anybody see the killer?” Silence. “So nobody knows anything, as usual. Hands out of your pockets and pass in front of me, then go to your jobs. It’s always the same, Warden—no way of finding out who did it.”

  “All right. File it,” the warden said. “But keep the knife and put a label on it indicating it was the weapon that killed Carlino.”

  That was it. I went back to the case and lay down, for I hadn’t shut an eye the whole night. As I was falling asleep, I said to myself, What’s a bagnard to anybody? Even if he’s killed, nobody takes the trouble to find out who killed him. To the Administration he’s nothing. Just another bagnard. No better than a dog.

  I decided to start my job as latrine cleaner Monday. At four-thirty in the morning another man and I took the pails from our building. Regulations demanded that we empty them into the sea. But we paid a man in charge of the buffaloes to wait for us by the edge of the plateau, where a cement trough ran down to the water. In less than twenty minutes the pails were emptied in the sluice. To push the stuff along, we poured in gallons of sea water from a huge barrel and helped it down with a stiff broom. The buffalo keeper was a pleasant black from Martinique and we paid him twenty francs a day for the water. On my first day of work, hauling those buckets was very hard on the wrists. But I soon got used to it.

  My new friend was very obliging, although Galgani warned me he was a dangerous man. It was said that he’d killed seven men on the islands. His “deal” was selling sewage. Each gardener was supposed to make his own manure pile. He dug a trench, put in dry leaves and grass, then the black sneaked in a couple of bucketfuls of sewage. Obviously it couldn’t be done alone, so I helped him out. But I knew it was wrong because it could spread dysentery by contaminating the vegetables. I decided that once I knew him better, I’d try to stop him. I’d pay him to make up for what he lost from his business. He also carved cattle horns on the side. I asked him about the fishing, but he said he didn’t know anything about it. I should get help from Chapar or someone down in the port.

  So I was a cleaner of latrines. When I’d finished work, I took a good shower, put on shorts and, whenever I felt like it, went fishing. There was only one requirement: I had to be back in camp by noon. Chapar provided me with rods and hooks. As I started back with my catch of mullet strung on a wire, there was hardly a day when I wasn’t hailed by the wife of some guard. They all knew me by name. “Papillon, sell me four pounds of mullet?”

  “You sick?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a sick child?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t sell you any of my fish.”

  I usually caught enough to give some to my friends in camp. I traded them for rolls, vegetables and fruit. In my gourbi we ate fish at least once a day. Once, when I was returning with a dozen big langoustines and about fifty pounds of mullet, I happened to pass by Warden Barrot’s house. A fat woman came out and said, “That’s a fine catch, Papillon. The sea’s been so rough no one’s been catching anything. It’s two weeks since I’ve had any fish. It’s a shame you don’t sell it. My husband tells me you won’t sell your fish to any of the guards’ wives.”

  “That’s right, madame. But in your case I might make an exception.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re overweight and you shouldn’t eat meat.”

  “I know. The doctor told me to eat only vegetables and poached fish. But I can’t do it here.”

  “Here, madame. Please take these.” I gave her about four pounds of langoustines and mullet.

  From that day on, every time I made a good catch, I helped her with her diet. Although she knew that everything had to be paid for on the islands, she never offered me anything but thanks. She was right; she knew that I didn’t want her money. Instead, she often invited me in for a pastis or a glass of white wine, and some figatelli from Corsica when she had some. Mme. Barrot never asked me about my past. She did let drop a comment once when we were discussing the bagne: “It’s true you can’t escape from the islands, but it’s better here in a healthy climate than rotting like an animal on Grande Terre.”

  It was from her that I learned the origin of the islands’ name. During an epidemic of yellow fever in Cayenne, a group of White Fathers and nuns from a convent there sought refuge on the islands and were saved. Hence the name, “Iles
du Salut.”

  My fishing took me everywhere. I’d been on latrine duty for three months and I knew every corner of the island. I examined the gardens on the pretext that I wanted to exchange my fish for some vegetables and fruit. A member of my gourbi, Matthieu Car-bonieri, worked in the garden next to the guards’ cemetery. He worked alone, and it occurred to me that, when the time came, we might be able to assemble and bury a raft in his garden. Two more months and the warden would be gone. Then I’d be free to go into action.

  I organized my activities: I made friendly overtures to a pair of brothers-in-law named Narric and Quenier. They were called “the wheelbarrow brothers.” It seems they had been accused of encasing the body of a cashier they’d murdered in cement. Someone claimed to have seen them push a block of cement in a wheelbarrow and dump it in the Marne or the Seine, I don’t remember which. The investigation proved that the cashier had gone to them to demand repayment of a loan and had never been seen again. The two men denied murdering him the rest of their lives. Even in the bagne they continued to protest their innocence. But, although the body was never found, the head had turned up in a large handkerchief. The “experts” asserted that the brothers had handkerchiefs of the same weave, thread, etc. However, they and their lawyers were able to prove that thousands of yards of the cloth had been made up into handkerchiefs. Everybody had them. In the end the brothers-in-law got life sentences.

  I made friends with them. As masons, they were free to come and go from the workshops. Perhaps, piece by piece, they could furnish me with the makings of a raft. All that remained was to win them over.

  Yesterday I met the doctor. I was carrying a huge fish weighing at least fifty pounds and very good to eat—it was of the same family as the black sea bass. We walked together toward the plateau. Halfway there we sat down on a low wall. He told me that my fish head made a wonderful broth, so I offered it to him along with a piece of the flesh.

  My gesture surprised him and he said, “You don’t hold a grudge, Papillon?”

  “No, Doctor, I’m in your debt for what you did for my friend Clousiot.”

  We talked of other things, and then he said, “You’d like to escape, wouldn’t you? You’re not a real convict. I get the impression you’re made of different stuff.”

  “You’re quite right, Doctor. I don’t belong here; I’m only visiting.”

  When he laughed, I plunged ahead. “Doctor, do you believe a man can make himself over?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You accept the idea that I could become a member of society and not be a threat to it? That I could become an honest citizen?”

  “I sincerely believe it.”

  “Then will you help to bring this about?”

  “How?”

  “By letting me be disinterned as tubercular.”

  “That I can’t do, and I advise you not to try. It’s far too dangerous. The Administration will disintern a man for reasons of illness only after he’s spent a month in a ward for his particular disease.”

  “Why?”

  “To prevent precisely what you want to do. If anyone tries to fake it, he runs the risk of being contaminated by the others in the ward. So I won’t do it.”

  From that day on the doctor and I were friends. That is, until he almost killed my friend Carbonieri. After discussing it with me, my friend the gardener had taken the job of messcook for the head guards. He took it in order to steal three barrels—wine, oil, vinegar—it didn’t matter as long as they could be fastened together and float us out to sea. Only after Barrot had left, of course. The difficulties were great because we would first have to steal the barrels, get them to the coast without being seen or heard, then lash them together with cables, all on the same night. It would work only during a storm when there was wind and rain to shield us. But by the same token, it would be that much more difficult to launch the raft because the sea would naturally be very rough.

  So Carbonieri was now a cook. The chief cook gave him three rabbits to prepare for dinner the next day, a Sunday. Carbonieri sent one rabbit to his brother down in the port and two to us, already skinned. Then he killed three large cats and made a sensational stew.

  Unfortunately for him, the doctor was invited to the dinner. He tasted the rabbit and said to the chief cook, “Monsieur Filidori, I congratulate you on your menu. This cat is delicious.”

  “You’re joking, Doctor. These are three fine rabbits.”

  “I beg your pardon,” the doctor went on, stubborn as a mule, “it’s cat. See this breast? It’s flat; a rabbit’s is round. I’m sure I’m right. We’re eating cat.”

  “Oh my God!” Filidori exploded. “I’ve got cat in my stomach!” He ran into the kitchen and thrust his revolver under Matthieu’s nose, screaming: “Forget we’re both Corsicans, I’m going to kill you. You fed me a cat.”

  He had a wild look in his eyes and, not realizing the cat was out of the bag—so to speak—Carbonieri said, “If you call what you gave me cat, it’s not my fault.”

  “I gave you rabbits.”

  “And that’s what I cooked. Look, I’ve still got the skins and heads.”

  Disconcerted, the cook looked at the rabbit heads and skins. “So the doctor doesn’t know what he’s talking about, eh?”

  “The doctor told you that?” Carbonieri said, breathing again. “He’s pulling your leg. But tell him it’s no joking matter.”

  Appeased, Filidori went back to the dining room and addressed the doctor. “Say what you like, Doctor, I think the wine has gone to your head. I don’t care whether those breasts are flat or round, I know it’s rabbit I ate. I just saw their three fur coats.”

  It was a close call for Matthieu. He resigned as cook a few days later.

  The day when I could begin my preparations was fast approaching. Only a few weeks and Barrot would be gone. I went to see his wife yesterday, and the good woman asked me to come in—she had a bottle of quinine she wanted to give me. Her living room was full of steamer trunks she was in the process of packing.

  “Papillon,” she said, “I don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done for me these last few months. I know that when the fishing was poor you gave me everything you caught. I can’t thank you enough. Because of you, I’ve lost over thirty pounds and I feel much better. Is there anything I can do to show my gratitude?”

  “There is something, but I’m afraid it may be a little difficult. Can you find me a good compass? It must be accurate but very small.”

  “That’s little enough, Papillon, but it may not be easy to do in three weeks.”

  Upset because she hadn’t been able to find me what I’d asked for, eight days before her departure she took the ferry to Cayenne. Four days later she was back with a magnificent antimagnetic compass.

  The warden and Mme. Barrot left this morning. He handed over his post yesterday to a Tunisian officer named Prouillet.

  There was good news: the new warden kept Dega on as head clerk, which was of great importance to everybody, especially me. Also, in his speech to the bagnards assembled in the big courtyard, the new warden gave the impression of energy and intelligence. Among other things, he said, “As of today, I am the new warden of the Iles du Salut. I’m satisfied that the methods of my predecessor were sound and I see no reason to change them. Unless your conduct forces me to do otherwise, I see no necessity to alter your way of life.”

  It was with understandable relief and pleasure that I saw the warden and his wife finally leave, even though the five months of forced waiting had passed with amazing speed. The false freedom we convicts enjoyed, our games, the fishing, conversation, new friends, arguments, fights, were all such powerful distractions that we had little time to be bored.

  All the same, I wasn’t really taken in by the life. Each time I made a new friend, I put him to the test: “Will he be a candidate for a cavale? Will he be useful in preparing one even if he doesn’t want to come along?”

  I lived only for that one thing: esc
ape. It was my idée fixe. As Jean Castelli had advised me, I spoke of it to no one. But it obsessed me. I would never let my resolve weaken; never would I give up the idea of a cavale.

  SEVENTH NOTEBOOK

  THE ILES DU SALUT (CONTINUED)

  A RAFT IN A TOMB

  IN FIVE MONTHS I’D COME to know every inch of the island. It seemed to me that the garden near the cemetery, where my friend Carbonieri had worked before he became a cook, was the safest place to assemble a raft. I asked Carbonieri to go to work there again. He was willing. Thanks to Dega, he got the job back.

  This morning, as I was passing by the new warden’s house with a catch of mullet, I heard the young con who was working as their houseboy say to a young woman standing next to him, “That’s him, madame. He’s the one who brought Madame Barrot her fish every day.” Then I heard the handsome woman—she was an Algerian type with bronze skin and dark hair—say to him, “So that’s Papillon?” Then she spoke to me:

  “Madame Barrot gave me some wonderful langoustines she said you’d caught. Won’t you come in? Have a glass of wine? I’d like you to taste some of the goat cheese I just received from France.”

  “No, thank you, madame, I can’t.”

  “Why not? You did when Madame Barrot was here.”

  “That was because her husband gave me permission to enter his house.”

  “Papillon, my husband is in charge of his camp, I’m in charge of my house. Don’t be afraid to come in.”

  I had the feeling that this pretty woman would be useful, but dangerous too. I went in. She placed a plate of ham and cheese on the dining-room table and, without ceremony, sat down opposite me. She gave me wine, then some coffee with a delicious Jamaican rum.

  While she was pouring, she said, “Papillon, when Madame Barrot was leaving, she took time out from the bustle of their departure and our arrival to tell me about you. I know she was the only woman on the island you gave fish to. I hope you will do me the same favor.”