Papillon

At the barber’s yesterday someone had a go at murdering Clousiot while he was being shaved. Two knife-stabs right next to his heart. By some miracle he didn’t die. I heard about the whole thing from a friend of his. It was an odd story and I’ll tell it one day. The attack was by way of settling accounts. The man who nearly got him died six years after this at Cayenne, having eaten bichromate of potassium in his lentils. He died in frightful agony. The attendant who helped the doctor at the post-mortem brought us five inches of gut. It had seventeen holes in it. Two months later this man’s murderer was found strangled in his hospital bed. We never knew who by.

It was twelve days now that we had been at Saint-Martin-de-Ré. The fortress was crammed to overflowing. Sentries patrolled on the ramparts night and day.

A fight broke out between two brothers, in the showers. They fought like wild-cats and one of them was put into our cell. André Baillard was his name. He couldn’t be punished, he told me, because it was the authorities’ fault: the screws had been ordered not to let the brothers meet on any account whatsoever. When you knew their story, you could see why.

André had murdered an old woman with some money, and his brother Emile hid the proceeds. Emile was shopped for theft and got three years. One day, when he was in the punishment cell with some other men, he let the whole thing out: he was mad with his brother for not sending him in money for cigarettes and he told them everything – he’d get Andre, he said; and he explained how it was André who had done the old woman in and how it was he, Emile, who had hidden the money. What’s more, he said, when he got out he wouldn’t give André a sou. A prisoner hurried off to tell the governor what he had heard. Things moved fast. André was arrested and the two brothers were sentenced to death. In death alley at the Santé their condemned cells were next door to one another. Each put in for a reprieve. Emile’s was granted the forty-third day, but André’s was turned down. Yet out of consideration for André’s feelings Emile was kept in the condemned cell and the two brothers did their daily exercise together, the one behind the other, with chains on their legs.

On the forty-sixth day at half-past four in the morning André’s door opened. They were all there, the governor, the registrar and the prosecuting counsel who had asked for his head. This was the execution. But just as the governor stepped forward to speak André’s lawyer appeared, running, followed by someone else who handed the prosecutor a paper. Everyone went back into the corridor. André’s throat was so tight and stiff he couldn’t swallow his spit. This wasn’t possible – executions were never interrupted once they had begun. And yet this one was. Not until the next day, after hours of dreadful doubt, did he hear from his lawyer that just before his execution President Doumer had been murdered by Gorguloff. But Doumer hadn’t died right away. The lawyer had stood there all night outside the hospital, having told the Minister of Justice that if the President died before the time of the execution (between half-past four and five in the morning) he would call for a postponement on the grounds that there was no head of state. Doumer died at two minutes past four. Just time to warn the ministry, jump into a cab, followed by the man with the order for putting it off; but he got there three minutes too late to stop them opening André’s door. The two brothers’ sentences were commuted to transportation and hard labour for life: for on the day of the new president’s election the lawyer went to Versailles, and as soon as Albert Lebrun was chosen, the lawyer handed him the petition for a reprieve. No president ever refuses the first reprieve he is asked for. ‘Lebrun signed,’ said Andre, ‘and here I am, mate, alive and well, on my way to Guiana.’ I looked at this character who had escaped the guillotine and I said to myself that in spite of all I had gone through it was nothing to what he must have suffered.

Yet I never made friends with him. The idea of his killing a poor old woman to rob her made me feel sick. This André was always a very lucky man. He murdered his brother on the Ile Saint-Joseph some time later. Several convicts saw him. Emile was fishing, standing there on a rock and thinking about nothing but his rod. The noise of the heavy waves drowned every other sound. André crept up on his brother from behind with a thick ten-foot bamboo in his hand and shoved him off his balance with a single push. The place was stiff with sharks and precious soon Emile had become their lunch. He wasn’t there at the evening roll-call and he was put down as having disappeared during an attempt to escape. No one talked about him any more. Only four or five convicts gathering coconuts high up on the island had seen what happened. Everyone knew, of course, except for the screws. André Baillard never heard another word about it.

He was let out of internment for ‘good conduct’ and he had a privileged status at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. They gave him a little cell to himself. He had a disagreement with another convict and one day he treacherously asked him into this cell: there he killed him with a stab right to the heart. They wore his plea of self-defence and he was acquitted. Then, when the penal settlement was abolished, he was pardoned, still on account of his ‘good conduct’.

Saint-Martin-de-Ré was stuffed with prisoners. Two quite different sorts: eight hundred or a thousand real convicts and nine relégués – men in preventive detention. To be a convict you have to have done something serious or at least to have been accused of an important crime. The mildest sentence is seven years hard labour and then it goes up by stages to life, or perpetuity, as they say. A commuted death-sentence automatically means perpetuity. Preventive detention, or relegation, that’s something quite different. If he’s sentenced from three to seven times, a man can be relegated. It’s true they’re all incorrigible thieves and you can see that society has to protect itself. But still it’s shameful that a civilized nation should have this extra sentence of preventive detention. They are small-time thieves – clumsy operators, since they are shopped so often – who get relegation (and in my time that meant the same as life) and who have never stolen as much as ten thousand francs in their whole career as thieves. That’s the greatest bit of meaningless balls French civilization has to offer. A nation has no right to revenge itself nor to wipe out the people who hinder the workings of society. They are people who ought to be treated rather than be punished in such an inhuman way.

Now we had been seventeen days at Saint-Martin-de-Ré. We knew the name of the ship that was to carry us to the settlement: she was the Martinière. She was going to take one thousand eight hundred and seventy prisoners aboard. That morning eight or nine hundred convicts were assembled in the inner court of the fortress. We had been standing there for about an hour, lined up in ranks of ten, filling the square. A gate opened and in came men who were not dressed like the warders we were used to. They wore good, military kind of clothes: sky-blue. It wasn’t the same as a gendarme and it wasn’t the same as a soldier. They each had a broad belt with a holster; the revolver grip showed. There were about eighty of them. Some had stripes. They were all sunburnt and they were of any age between thirty-five and fifty. The old ones looked pleasanter than the young, who threw a chest and looked important – gave themselves airs. Along with these men’s officers there came the governor of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, a gendarmerie colonel, three or four quacks in overseas army uniform and two priests in white cassocks. The gendarmerie colonel picked up a speaking-trumpet and put it to his mouth. We expected shun! but nothing of the kind. He said, ‘Listen carefully, all of you. From this moment on you are taken over by the authorities of the Ministry of Justice, representing the penitentiary administration of French Guiana, whose administrative centre is the town of Cayenne. Major Barrot, I hereby hand over to you the eight hundred and sixteen convicts now present, and this is the list of their names. Be so good as to check that they are all here.’

The roll-call began straight away. ‘So-and-so, present. So-and-so …’ etc. It lasted two hours and everything was correct. Then we watched the two authorities exchanging signatures on a little table brought for the purpose.

Major Barrot had as many stripes as the colonel, but they were gold and not the gendarmerie’s silver: he took his turn at the megaphone.

‘Transportees, from now on that is the name you’ll always be called by – transportee so-and-so or transportee such-and-such a number – the number that will be allotted to you. From now on you are under the special penal settlement laws and regulations: you come under its own particular tribunals which will take the necessary decision with regard to you as the case arises. For crimes committed in the penal settlement these courts can condemn you to anything from imprisonment to death. These disciplinary sentences, such as prison or solitary confinement, are of course served in different establishments that belong to the administration. The officers you see opposite you are called supervisors. When you speak to them you will say “Monsieur le surveillant” After you have eaten you will be given a kitbag containing the settlement uniform. Everything has been provided for and you will not need anything but what is in the bag. Tomorrow you will go aboard the Martinière. We shall travel together. Don’t lose heart at leaving this country: you will be better off in the settlement than in solitary confinement in France. You can talk, amuse yourselves, sing and smoke; and you needn’t be afraid of being treated roughly so long as you behave yourselves. I ask you to leave the settling of your private disagreements until we reach Guiana. During the voyage discipline has to be very strict, as I hope you will understand. If there are any men among you who don’t feel up to making the voyage, they may report to the infirmary, where they will be examined by the medical officers who are accompanying the convoy. I wish you all a pleasant trip.’ The ceremony was over.

‘Well, Dega, what do you think about it?’

‘Papillon, old cock, I see I was right when I told you that the other convicts were the worst danger we’d have to cope with. That piece of his about “leave the settling of your private disagreements until we reach Guiana” meant plenty. Christ, what killings and murdering must go on there!’

‘Never worry about that: just rely on me.’

I found Francis la Passe and said, ‘Is your brother still a medical attendant?’

‘Yes. He’s not a real convict, only a bleeding relégué.’

‘Get into touch with him as quick as possible: ask him to give you a scalpel. If he wants money for it, tell me how much. I’ll pay.’

Two hours later I had a very strong steel-handled scalpel. Its only fault was that it was rather big; but it was a formidable weapon.

I went and sat very near the latrines in the middle of the courtyard and I sent for Galgani to give him back his charger; but it was going to be very hard to find him in that milling crowd – a huge yard crammed with eight hundred men. We had never caught sight of Julot, Guittou or Suzini since we got there.

The advantage of communal life is that you belong to a new society, if this could be called a society – you live in it, talk in it, become part of it. There are so many things to say, to hear and to do that you no longer have any time to think. And it seemed to me, as I saw how the past faded away, growing less important in comparison with everyday life, it seemed to me that once you got to the penal settlement you must almost forget what you have been, how or why you had landed up there, and concentrate upon one thing alone – escape. I was wrong, because the most important and most engrossing thing is above all to keep yourself alive.

Where were the cops, the members of the jury, the assizes, the judges, my wife, my father, my friends? They were there all right, thoroughly alive, each one in his place in my heart; but what with the intense excitement of leaving, of this great leap into the unknown, these new friendships and new aspects of life, they seemed to have less importance than before. But that was only a mere impression. When I wanted, and whenever my mind chose to open each one’s file, they were all instantly alive once more.

Now here was Galgani, being led towards me, for even with his thick pebble-lenses he could scarcely see. He looked better. He came up to me and shook my hand without a word.

I said, ‘I want to give you back your charger. Now you’re well you can carry it yourself. It’s too much responsibility for me during the voyage; and then who knows whether we’ll be in touch at the settlement, or whether we’ll even see one another? So it’s better you should have it back.’ Galgani looked at me unhappily. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come into the latrine and I’ll give it back to you.’

‘No, I don’t want it. You keep it – I give it to you. It’s yours.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I don’t want to get myself murdered for my charger. I’d rather live without money than have my throat slit for it. I give it to you, for after all there’s no reason why you should risk your life, looking after my lolly for me. If you run the risk it might as well be for your own sake.’

‘You’re scared, Galgani. Have you been threatened already? Does anyone suspect you’re loaded?’

‘Yes: there are three Arabs who follow me all the time. That’s why I’ve never come to see you, so they won’t suspect we’re in touch. Every time I go to the latrine, day or night, one of these three comes and puts himself next to me. Without making it obvious I’ve shown them absolutely plain that I’m not loaded, but in spite of all I can do they never let up. They think someone else has my charger; they don’t know who; and they keep behind me to see when I’ll get it back again.’

I looked hard at Galgani and I saw he was terror-stricken, really persecuted. I said, ‘What part of the courtyard do they keep to?’

He said, ‘Over towards the kitchen and the laundry.’

‘Right, you stay here. I’ll be back. But no, now I come to think of it, you come with me.’ With Galgani at my side I went over towards the Arabs. I’d taken the scalpel out of my cap and I had the blade up my right sleeve, with the handle in my palm. When we had crossed the court, sure enough I saw them. Four of them. Three Arabs and a Corsican, a character by the name of Girando. I grasped the situation right away. It was the Corsican who had been cold-shouldered by the real hard men and who had put the Arabs up to this job. He must have known that Galgani was Pascal Matra’s brother-in-law and that it wasn’t possible for him not to have a charger.

‘Hi, Mokrane. OK?’

‘OK, Papillon. You OK too?’

‘Hell, no. Far from it. I’ve come to see you guys to tell you Galgani is my friend. If anything happens to him, it’s you who cop it first, Girando. And then the rest of you. And you can take that just how you like.’

Mokrane stood up. He was as tall as me – about five foot eight – and as broad-shouldered. The words had needled him and he was on the point of moving in to start things when I flashed the scalpel and with it right there shining-new in my hand I said, ‘If you stir I’ll kill you like a dog.’

He was knocked sideways by seeing me armed in a place where everybody was searched all the time, and he was shaken by my attitude and the length of the blade. He said, ‘I got up to talk, not to fight.’

I knew it was not true, but it was to my advantage to save his face in front of his friends. I left the door open for him wide and handsome. ‘OK, since you just got up to talk … ‘

‘I didn’t know Galgani was your friend. I thought he was a square. And you know very well, Papillon, that when you’re skint you have to find cash somewhere to make a break.’

‘Fair enough. You certainly have the right to struggle for your life, Mokrane, like anyone else. Only keep away from Galgani, see? You’ve got to look somewhere else.’

He held out his hand: I shook it hard. Jesus, I was well out of that one; for looking at it rightly, if I had killed that guy, I should never have left the next day. A little later I realized I had made a bleeding error. Galgani and I walked away. I said, ‘Don’t tell anyone about this caper. I don’t want to have old Dega bawling me out.’

I tried to persuade Galgani to take the charger. He said, ‘Tomorrow, before we leave.’ The next day he lay so low that I set out for penal with two chargers aboard.

That night not one of us – and we were about eleven in the cell – not one of us said a word. For we all had more or less the same thought in our minds – this was the last day we should pass on French soil. Each of us was more or less filled with homesickness at the idea of leaving France for ever, with an unknown land and an unknown way of life at the end of our journey.

Dega did not speak. He sat next to me close to the barred door on to the corridor, where the air was a little fresher. I felt completely at sea. The information we had about what was coming was so contradictory that I did not know whether to be pleased or wretched or downright hopeless.

The other men in the cell were all genuine underworld characters. The only one who did not belong was the little Corsican who had been born in the settlement. All these men were in a grey, floating state of mind. The seriousness of the moment and its importance had made them almost entirely dumb. The cigarette-smoke wafted out of the cell into the corridor like a cloud, and if you didn’t want your eyes to sting you had to sit lower than the heavy fog-blanket. No one slept except for André Baillard; it was natural enough for him, since his life had already been lost, as it were. As far as he was concerned everything else could only be unlooked-for heaven.

My life passed before my eyes like a film – childhood in a family filled with love, affectionate discipline, decent ways and good-heartedness; the wild flowers, the murmur of streams, the taste of the walnuts, peaches and plums that our garden gave us in such quantities; the smell of the mimosa that flowered every spring in front of our door; the outside of our house, and the inside with my family there – all this ran by before my eyes. It was a talking picture, one in which I heard the voice of my mother (she had loved me so), and then my father’s – always affectionate and kind – and the barking of Clara, his gun-dog, calling me into the garden to play. The boys and girls of my childhood, the ones I had played with during the happiest days of my life. All this – this film I was watching without ever having meant to see it, this magic lantern that my subconscious had lit against my will – all this filled the night of waiting before the leap into the great unknown with sweet, gentle memories and emotions.

Now was the time to get things clear in my mind. Let’s see: I was twenty-six and very fit; I had five thousand six hundred francs belonging to me in my gut and twenty-five thousand belonging to Galgani. Dega, there beside me, had ten thousand. It seemed to me I could count on forty thousand francs, for if Galgani couldn’t look after his dough here he’d be even less capable of doing so aboard the ship or in Guiana. What’s more, he knew it: and that’s why he never came to ask for his charger. So I could count on that money – taking Galgani with me, of course. He’d have to profit by it – it was his cash, not mine. I’d use it for his good; but I should gain by it too. Forty thousand francs was a lot of money, so I should find it easy to buy helpers – convicts serving their time, men who had been let out, warders.

The conclusion was positive. As soon as I got there I must escape together with Dega and Galgani, and that was the only thing I was to concentrate upon at this point. I touched the scalpel, and the feel of the cold steel handle pleased me. It gave me confidence, having such a formidable weapon as that upon me. I had already proved how useful it could be in that business with the Arabs.

About three o’clock in the morning the men for solitary piled up eleven kitbags in front of the bars of the cell: they were all crammed full and each had a big label on it. I could read one that hung in through the bars. C –, Pierre, thirty years old, five foot eight and a half, waist size forty-two, shoes eight and a half, number x. This Pierre C – was Pierrot le Fou, a guy from Bordeaux who had got twenty years hard in Paris for homicide.

He was a good type, a decent, straightforward member of the underworld, and I knew him well. The label showed me how precise and well-organized the authorities in charge of the penal settlement were. It was better than the army, where they make you try your things on by guesswork. Here everything was written down and so each man would get things his own size. I could see from a bit of canvas at the top of the bag that the uniform was white with vertical red stripes. Dressed like that, you could scarcely pass unnoticed.