Papillon

And calmly the Chinese wrote out an exchange-form for a thousand francs in the stranger’s name and made him sign it; then the girl took him by the arm and led him away. He certainly never knew what had happened. I got two hundred and fifty West Indies dollars, fifty of them in one and two-dollar notes. I gave the girl one dollar; we went outside, and sitting there at a table we treated ourselves to an orgy of sea-food, washed down with a delightful dry white wine.

Fourth Exercise-Book First Break (continued) (#ulink_d31ea671-8a5a-5b49-bc8e-d0645f2a6e76)

Trinidad

I can still see our first night of freedom in that English town as clearly as though it was yesterday. We went everywhere, drunk with the light and the warmth in our hearts, and we plunged deep into the very being of the jolly, laughing crowd, overflowing with happiness. A bar, full of sailors and the tropical girls who were waiting there to pluck them. But there was nothing squalid about these girls; they were nothing like the women of the gutters of Paris, Le Havre or Marseilles. It was something else again – quite different. Instead of those overmade-up, vice-marked faces with their avid, cunning eyes, these were girls of every colour from Chinese yellow to African black, from light chocolate with smooth hair to the Hindu or Javanese whose parents had come together in the cocoa or sugar plantations, and so on to the Chinese-Indian girl with the gold shell in her nose and to the Llapane with her Roman profile and her copper-coloured face lit by two huge shining black eyes with long lashes, pushing out her half-covered bosom as though to say, ‘Look how perfect they are, my breasts.’ Each girl had different coloured flowers in her hair, and they were all of them the outward show of love; they made you long for women, without anything dirty or commercial about it. You didn’t feel they were doing a job – they were really having fun and you felt that money was not the main thing in their lives.

Like a couple of moths drawn by the light, Maturette and I went blundering along from bar to bar. It was as we were coming out into a little brightly-lit square that I noticed the time on a church clock. Two. It was two o’clock in the morning! Quick, quick, we must hurry back. We had been behaving badly. The Salvation Army captain would have a pretty low opinion of us. We must get back at once. I hailed a taxi, which took us there. Two dollars. I paid and we walked into the hostel, very much ashamed of ourselves. A really young blonde woman-soldier of the Salvation Army, twenty-five or thirty years old, welcomed us pleasantly in the hall. She seemed neither astonished nor vexed at our coming home so late. After a few words in English – we felt they were good-natured and kind – she gave us the key of our room and said good night. We went to bed. In the suitcase I found a pair of pyjamas. As we were putting out the light, Maturette said, ‘Still, I think we might say thank you to God for having given us so much so quickly. What do you think, Papi?’

‘You thank Him for me – he’s a great guy, your God. And you’re dead right. He’s been really generous with us. Good night.’ And I turned the light out.

This rising from the dead, this breaking out from the graveyard in which I had been buried, these emotions all crowding one upon another, this night of bathing in humanity, reintegrating myself with life and mankind – all these things had been so exciting that I could not get off to sleep. I closed my eyes, and in a kind of kaleidoscope all sorts of pictures, things and feelings appeared, but in no order at all; they were sharp and clear, but they came without any regard for time – the assizes, the Conciergerie, then the lepers, then Saint-Martin-de-Ré, Tribouillard, Jesus, the storm … It was as though everything I had lived through for the past year was trying to appear at the same moment before the eye of memory in a wild, nightmarish dance. I tried to brush these pictures aside, but it was no good. And the strangest part of it was that they were all mixed up with the noise of the pigs, the shrieks of the hocco, the howling of the wind and the crash of waves, the whole wrapped in the sound of the one-stringed fiddles the Indians had been playing just a little while ago in the various bars we had visited.

Finally, at dawn, I dropped off. Towards ten o’clock there was a knock on the door. Mr. Bowen came in, smiling. ‘Good morning, friends. Still in bed? You must have come home late. Did you have a good time?’

‘Good morning. Yes, we came in late. We’re sorry.’

‘Come, come: not at all. It’s natural enough, after all you’ve been through. You certainly had to make the most of your first night as free men. I’ve come so as to go to the police-station with you. You have to appear before them to make an official declaration of having entered the country illegally. When that formality’s over we’ll go and see your friend. They X-rayed him very early this morning. They will know the results later on.’

We washed quickly and went down to the room below, where Bowen was waiting for us with the captain.

‘Good morning, my friends,’ said the captain in bad French.

‘Good morning, everybody.’

A woman officer of the Salvation Army said, ‘Did you like Port of Spain?’

‘Oh yes, Madame! It was quite a treat for us.’

After a quick cup of coffee we went to the police-station. We walked – it was only about two hundred yards. All the policemen greeted us; they looked at us without any particular curiosity. Having passed two ebony sentries in khaki uniform we went into an impressive, sparsely-furnished office. An officer of about fifty stood up: he wore shorts, a khaki shirt and tie, and he was covered with badges and medals. Speaking French he said, ‘Good morning. Sit down. I should like to talk to you for a while before officially taking your statement. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-six and nineteen.’

‘What were you sentenced for?’

‘Manslaughter.’

‘What was your sentence?’

‘Transportation and hard labour for life.’

‘Then it was for murder, not manslaughter?’

‘No, Monsieur, in my case it was manslaughter.’

‘It was murder in mine,’ said Maturette. ‘I was seventeen.’

‘At seventeen you know what you’re doing,’ said the officer. ‘In England, if it had been proved, you would have been hanged. Right. The British authorities are not here to judge the French penal system. But there’s one thing we don’t agree with, and that’s the sending of criminals to French Guiana. We know it’s an inhuman punishment and one quite unworthy of a civilized nation like France. But unfortunately you can’t stay in Trinidad, nor on any other British island. It’s impossible. So I ask you to play it straight and not try to find any excuse – sickness or anything like that – to delay your departure. You may stay here quite freely in Port of Spain for from fifteen to eighteen days. It seems that your boat is a good one. I’ll have it brought round to the harbour for you. If there are any repairs needed the Royal Navy shipwrights will carry them out for you. On leaving you will be given the necessary stores, a good compass and a chart. I hope the South American countries will take you in. Don’t go to Venezuela, because there you’ll be arrested and forced to work on the roads until finally they hand you back to the French authorities. Now a man is not necessarily lost for ever because he has gone very badly wrong on one occasion. You are young and healthy and you look decent fellows, so I hope that after what you’ve been through you will not let yourselves be defeated for good. The fact of your having come as far as here is proof enough that that’s not the case. I’m glad to be one of the factors that will help you to become sound, responsible men. Good luck. If you have any difficulties, call this number. We’ll answer in French.’ He rang a bell and a civilian came for us. Our statement was taken in a large room where several policemen and civilians were working at their typewriters.

‘Why did you come to Trinidad?’

‘To recover our strength.’

‘Where did you come from?’

‘French Guiana.’

‘In your escape, did you commit any crime? Did you kill anyone or cause grievous bodily harm?’

‘We didn’t hurt anyone seriously.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We were told before we left.’

‘Your age, legal position with regard to France …’ And so on. ‘Gentlemen, you have fifteen to eighteen days in which to rest here. During that time you are entirely free to do what you like. If you change your hotel, let us know. I am Sergeant Willy. There are two telephone numbers on my card: this one is the official police number and the other my home. If anything happens and you want my help, call me at once. We know our trust in you is well placed. I’m sure you will behave well.’

A few moments later Mr. Bowen took us to the nursing-home. Clousiot was very glad to see us. We told him nothing about our night on the town. We only said they had left us free to go wherever we liked. He was so astonished that he said, ‘Without even an escort?’

‘Yes, without even an escort.’

‘Well, they must be a quaint lot, these rosbifs.’

Bowen had gone to see the doctor and now he came back with him. He said to Clousiot, ‘Who reduced the fracture for you, before splinting your leg?’

‘Me and another guy who’s not here.’

‘You did it so well there’s no need to break the leg again. The broken fibula was put back very neatly. We’ll just plaster it and give you an iron so that you can walk a little. Would you rather stay here or go with your friends?’

‘Go with them.’

‘Well, tomorrow you’ll be able to join them.’

We poured out our thanks. Mr. Bowen and the doctor left and we spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon with our friend. The next day we were delighted to find ourselves all together once more, the three of us in our hostel bedroom, with the window wide open and the fans going full blast to cool the air. We congratulated one another upon how fit we looked, and we said what fine fellows we were in our new clothes. When I saw the talk was going back over the past I said, ‘Now let’s forget the past as soon as possible and concentrate on the present and the future. Where shall we go? Colombia? Panama? Costa Rica? We ought to ask Bowen about the countries where we’re likely to be admitted.’

I called Bowen at his chambers: he wasn’t there. I called his house at San Fernando, and it was his daughter who answered. After some pleasant words she said, ‘Monsieur Henri, in the Fish Market near the hostel there are buses for San Fernando. Why don’t you come and spend the afternoon with us? Do come: I’ll be expecting you.’ And there we were, all three of us on the way to San Fernando. Clousiot was particularly splendid in his snuff-coloured semi-military uniform.

We were all three deeply moved by this return to the house that had taken us in with such kindness. It seemed as though the ladies understood our emotion, for both speaking together they said, ‘So here you are, home again! Sit yourselves down comfortably.’ And now, instead of saying Monsieur each time they spoke to us, they called us by our Christian names – ‘Henri, please may I have the sugar? André [Maturette’s name was André], a little more pudding?’

Mrs. Bowen and Miss Bowen, I hope that God has rewarded you for all the great kindness you showed us, and that your noble hearts – hearts that gave us so much joy – have never known anything but perfect happiness all your lives.

With a map spread out on the table, we asked their advice. The distances were very great: seven hundred and fifty miles to reach Santa Marta, the nearest Colombian port, thirteen hundred miles to Panama; one thousand four hundred and fifty to Costa Rica. Mr. Bowen came home. ‘I’ve telephoned all the consulates, and I’ve one piece of good news – you can stay a few days at Curaçao to rest. Colombia has no set rules about escaped prisoners. As far as the consul knows no one has ever reached Colombia by sea. Nor Panama nor anywhere else, either.’

‘I know a safe place for you,’ said Margaret, Mr. Bowen’s daughter. ‘But it’s a great way off – one thousand eight hundred miles at least.’

‘Where’s that?’ asked her father.

‘British Honduras. The governor is my godfather.’